If you have hunted whitetails as long as I have, you know the feeling. A buck steps out at the far edge of the food plot, you ease the rifle up, and then you freeze. How far is he? Forty yards? Sixty? You have about two seconds to decide, and if you guess wrong, you either watch him walk or you spend the rest of the season wondering. I guessed wrong more than once before the 2025 season. That is why I bought the Bushnell BoneCollector 850 Laser Rangefinder, and after a full season in the ladder stand and the ground blind, I can give you ten reasons it earned a permanent spot in my truck.
Stop guessing the yardage. Know it in two seconds.
The Bushnell BoneCollector 850 ranges deer out to 350 yards and trees out to 500, with a scan mode that updates four times per second. It is the rangefinder I carried every hunt this past season.
Amazon Check Today's Price on Amazon →It ends the guessing that cost me a buck
Last season I ranged a buck at the far edge of a cutover and the display said 312 yards. My gut said 250. My gut was wrong by sixty yards, which is the difference between a clean shot and a wounded deer. The BoneCollector 850 measures out to 850 yards reflective, 500 to a tree, and 350 to a deer, which covers every shot I have ever had on our lease. Since I started carrying it, I have not had to guess a single yardage.
Scan mode is like having a second pair of eyes
The scan mode updates the range four times per second. When a deer is working across a field, I hold the button down and watch the numbers roll as he moves. I know the instant he is inside the distance I am comfortable with. It is fast, it is simple, and it beats trying to range a moving deer one reading at a time.
It pays for itself the first time you use it
A miss on a deer is not just the cost of the tag and the gas and the weekend. It is the time you spent scouting, the sits you passed up, the whole season of work coming down to one guess. The BoneCollector 850 is a fraction of what a season costs me. The first time it kept me from holding high on a deer that was a lot farther out than I had guessed, it had already paid for itself.
The glass is bright when you need it most
Deer move early and late, exactly when the light is worst. The BoneCollector 850 uses an all-glass optical system with fully multi-coated optics and ultra wide band coatings, and it shows. I can pick up a deer in the shadows at the edge of the pines when I would have been squinting before. Brighter glass means I range faster, and ranging faster means I make the call before he steps back into the thick stuff.
It is small enough to live in a coat pocket
At 3.19 inches long, 2.36 inches wide, and under an inch thick, it rides in my coat pocket from November to January. It weighs 180 grams, which is nothing once it is in the truck or the stand. I have owned gear that stayed home because it was too bulky. This one never does. It goes in the pocket before I leave the house and it comes out every time I sit down.
It works in the rain without a second thought
Hunting season in south Alabama means rain. The BoneCollector 850 is rated waterproof with an IP54 international protection rating, so a steady drizzle on the walk in or a wet morning in the ground blind does not worry me. I keep it in the included case when I am not using it, but I do not baby it. It is hunting gear, and it holds up like hunting gear should.
Six power is all I need on a food plot
The 6x24mm magnification is not a spotting scope, and that is the point. I do not need to count points at six hundred yards. I need to know exactly how far the deer is from my stand, and six power gets me there fast. The 24mm objective pulls in enough light for the low-light hours, and the wide field of view makes it easy to find the deer in the first place.
One battery lasts me a season
The BoneCollector 850 runs on a disposable 3V lithium CR2 battery. I put a fresh one in before opening day and I have not had to think about it since. I carry a spare in the glove box because that is how I am, but the original is still going. There is no charging cable to forget, no app to update, no screen to learn. It just works.
It makes the ground blind honest
Hunting from a ground blind changes how you judge distance. Everything looks closer from a low seat, and everything looks shorter when you are looking through a window at an angle. I range the scrape line, the corn pile, and the trail crossing the first time I set up, and I write the numbers in my head. When a deer steps out, I am not guessing. I already know.
It makes the sport better for the next generation
My son Cody hunts with me most weekends, and he has his own gear. But the rangefinder is the one thing I hand him when he is in the stand and a deer is working in. Watching him range a buck, read the number, and make a clean decision is the whole point of all those Saturday mornings. A rangefinder does not make you a better hunter. It makes you a more honest one, and that is what I want him to be.
What I'd Skip
I would skip the BoneCollector 850 if you only hunt from a box stand over a feeder you can pace off. If you have hunted the same twenty yards for ten years and you know every step of it, a rangefinder is a nice tool, not a necessary one. I would also skip it if you are not willing to practice with it. You need to range a few dozen things from your stand before opening day so the button is muscle memory. The unit is simple, but simple still needs practice. And if you are shopping on a tight budget, there are cheaper rangefinders that will get you to a hundred yards. You just give up the scan speed, the bright glass, and the waterproofing. For me, those are the reasons I carry this one.
The first time it kept me from holding high on a deer that was a lot farther out than I had guessed, it had already paid for itself.
A full season proved it. The BoneCollector 850 stays in the truck.
If you are tired of guessing yardage in the last two minutes of shooting light, the Bushnell BoneCollector 850 is the rangefinder I carried every hunt this past season.
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