Steiner 20X80 military
by Scott Brown
The Steiner 20X80 Military binocular is not technically a US Army approved binocular as it does not have the standard reticle pattern present in M22 or M24 issue military binoculars or the RCO Acog scope. You have to be very good at range estimation to judge distance with these binoculars. They are pretty much just for wide angle target acquisition. The ruggedized rubber coating on the binoculars is pretty good and protects them fairly well against shock and dust however the left cup was damaged from a fall from an up-armored M1151 Humvee moving at about 25 MPH. The field of view is excellent and the distance that you can identify a person’s face and dress was tested to be around 800 meters. These binoculars are by far the best easily portable solution for target identification if you need the stereoscopic view. The binoculars preformed very well in extremely bright desert environments and performed well in low light conditions. You get some distortion along the outside edges of the binoculars in low light but it is pretty manageable. The flash signature from the lenses is very high as the objective lenses are very large and electrical tape was used to create a slit to conceal the flash signature of the binoculars. Other solutions including Leupold MK4 spotting scopes provide a mildot reticle with increased range and variable zoom capability, but nothing beats a pair of Steiner’s if you need a pair of binoculars. The Steiner 20x80 senator military binoculars are currently in use with an Infantry platoon soon to deploy to Afghanistan and were tested at the Nation Training Center at Fort Irwin California
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