New Leica 1600B delivered today...

[BlkZ06]

Got my hands on a Leica 1600B today. FedEx dropped it off at 11am and by 11:30 I was outside testing it out.

At first glance, setup was very easy, and it took less than 10 mins start to finish to set up Ballistic parameters. I ultimately went back to the line of sight readout, since I have a program on my phone to figure out turret clicks.

Glass is ultra clear...much better than the Leupold and Vortex I demoed. Red display seems to be fairly easy to read, although I wish there was a way to adjust the brightness. Nice and small size, feels good in your hand.

Temp and barometric pressure are pretty spot on when compared to our mini weather station in the shop.

Overcast, drizzly day I zapped a dog at 589 yards, a cell antenna (approx. 18" dish) at 778 and a water tower at 980 all on first try and with no errors. Not bad, and if I can stay in that performance range I will have gotten past the bitter pill for the price tag on this thing.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with it.

Field trials are up soon, but I don't expect any hiccups.

 

[MattyG]

Good thing you have another form of ballistics program, the Leica shuts down all other functions except for line of sight readings past 875 yards. It will still tell you the degrees inclination or declination but will not give a corrected distance past 875. Nor will the ballistics engine output data past 875.

 

[BlkZ06]

Good thing you have another form of ballistics program, the Leica shuts down all other functions except for line of sight readings past 875 yards. It will still tell you the degrees inclination or declination but will not give a corrected distance past 875. Nor will the ballistics engine output data past 875.

I am ok with that...I am not going to take a shot at any animal over 700 yards. I bought it for hunting out West.

That's good info to know, though.

Even at that, as long as I know the inclination I can still plug it into my calculator if I want to plink around at 1000 yard targets.

 

[Pinecone]

I just got one also.

None of their ballistics curves match my load. But still a very nice piece of kit.

 

[jdgray]

Do yourself a favor, and put it in the freezer and see if it turns on.... My old pair of Geovids would not work cold, and Leica told you in the instructions to keep it warm against your body in extreme cold.
The glass in the Geovids was remarkable, and I miss them!!

 

[2_many_dogs]

I also bought one recently. The instructions don't seem to say anything about angle correction. My unit only spits out the line of sight distance. How do I get it to give me corrected distance for high angle shots?

I took it to the SO's sniper school last week and it was fantastic. Just could not get to it give me corrected distances. Our longest angle shot was 200 yards - too short for the unit to correct?

 

[Chad44]

I have the Leica and love it. I don't use it for the ballistic program at all. It's not accurate/tailored enough for me. I like to have my drops exact. The glass is second to none in a range finder. I'm not sure how cold you're talking about but I've had mine into the high 20's with no issues. I've also ranged rocks out to 2100 yards. I like mine a lot.

 

[jdgray]

Mine were the originals, I'm hoping the design flaw is long gone. They didn't work for me at 15 degrees....

 

[RomeoAlfa]

The brightness on the display adjusts automatically to the lighting conditions around you.

 

[BlkZ06]

I also bought one recently. The instructions don't seem to say anything about angle correction. My unit only spits out the line of sight distance. How do I get it to give me corrected distance for high angle shots?

I took it to the SO's sniper school last week and it was fantastic. Just could not get to it give me corrected distances. Our longest angle shot was 200 yards - too short for the unit to correct?

You have to set it up in the menu.

From what I can tell, when you are on an angle, the unit displays linear yardage first, the around 1/2-1 second the corrected yardage appears in the display again.

You can check the angle by pressing the red button.

 

[2_many_dogs]

You have to set it up in the menu.

.

Thanks, Z06. I'll look again. Sounds like I have to turn off the ballistic display for it to come up.

 

[BlkZ06]

Thanks, Z06. I'll look again. Sounds like I have to turn off the ballistic display for it to come up.

Yep....you cannot use the ballistic mode AND the linear angle compensation at the same time.

If the ballistic mode is on, the angle calculation goes towards the ballistic computation. If its in linear mode, it goes towards the linear computation.

The one bad thing about the Leica is the ballistic tables really don't match up well with any of my calibers after 200 yards. And I don't think my calibers are all that crazy- .308, .270 WSM, and .300 WSM. For me, its no big deal but for others it might be a little bad given the price of the unit.

 

[shotdown]

Great info. I turned off the ballistic comp function on my Leica. I tried setting it but it took me through 3 different curves. Found it useless but at least the angle correction will work well.