What is the difference between a regular range finder and lazer type ?

[Country Boy]

 Looking at Bruton 440, seem very reasonable.

[bilmac]

Not getting much help here are you country. I'll take a stab. There are lots of different ways to try and find range, but I think until the laser came along there really wasn't anything that was much good for a hunter. Probably the rangefinders built into scopes are about as good as there was. Problem is with all rangefinders is they are pretty good when the ranges are short, but when the range gets up to 400 to say 600 yards, then they don't do so good, and if you are shooting a modern cartridge that's where you need the help.  My neighbor has one and he uses it to allow him to use a 358 Win pistol to make kills out to about 300 yards, which is fantastic for a pistol, but when the ranges get longer the less accurate it is.

[Graybeard]

I don't have a clue what you mean when you say "regular rangefinder". What are you specifically referring to? These days other than supposed range finding capability in scopes which is not really a range finder at all but a range guesser all are laser range finders.

In days of old coincidence range finders were all there were. In them you had two inputs at each end of it and the mechanics of the unit were adjustable to bring the two images into coincidence and then it in one way or another read out a range to you. That's what the military used in tanks of old and some old military units were bought and mounted on tripods to read range.

These days laser range finders have taken over the field and that's really all that's left on the market. Pretty much all are accurate within plus or minus a yard out to the limits of their ranging ability.

The differences in them have more to do with how far out they will range not with their accuracy. None of them will range say a deer or smaller critter to the max range they claim as that range is for a highly reflective surface. You might range a tree or bush nearby but likely not a big game animal to max range.

Cheaper really isn't the way to go with range finders. If all it is rated to is 400-450 yards then really why bother? Most modern centerfire rifles can be sighted for a max point blank range out to at least 300 yards so that within that range how far away is really immaterial. A RF rated to 400-450 will likely not range a deer much beyond 300 anyway.

[ZRS-8x42]

I don't have a clue what you mean when you say "regular rangefinder". What are you specifically referring to? These days other than supposed range finding capability in scopes which is not really a range finder at all but a range guesser all are laser range finders.

It's old thread. But I think he might be referring to some monocular rangefinder with yardage reticle etched in the optics. As Bill said, it is no more than a range guesser. The current range finder design is so robust and accurate, for a 400 yards rated rangefinder, the accuracy is within +/-1 yard.