I bought this compass for adventure racing. I really like the circle in circle orientation method...that's what makes is worth $20. That one feature significantly reduces the common-when-tired navigational error of mistaking the north end of the needle for the south. I also like the magnification on the bezel that allows one to imagine that one is orienteering to 1 degree of accuracy. When one is tired, at night, those large magnified numbers are great!
In practical use, I would like to see a few different features.
1) Rather than an ergonomic baseplate, set up I guess for holding the compass in the left hand, I'd rather have two straight sides for more convenient map use. When one has one's map folded small to hold in one hand...in say a 3" wide by 6" tall rectangle, working with just one straight side near the top of the map is inconvenient.
2) Brunton's little red orienting lines are printed on the white bezel. They are really short and far apart and hard to see when trying to line them up with map grid lines. I much prefer orienting lines that run across the bottom of the liquid filled housing. This makes for a much easier time orienting the bezel with the map accurately.
3) I think for an adventure racing compass, Brunton could get rid of the GPS estimated error circles. Those are legacy feature from the Brunton GPS compass. By the rules current in adventure racing today, GPS is illegal for race use, so those are unnecessary. They don't hurt anything, but neither do they add anything useful in my view.
A previous reviewer complained that the compass housing/capsule snapped out of the baseplate when dropped hard. I've had this happen, too. In that moment it's scary, but the thing snaps back together pretty easily. In fact this is a good feature since grit gets between the baseplate and compass housing making it difficult to turn. One can snap the housing out, wipe off the grit and snap it back together for much freer movement.
This compass is not perfect, but it is a really good compass for adventure racing and general use.
Buy it here now!
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