SUUNTO MC-2 Compass: Top-of-The-line Compass for Professionals & serious Hikers

The Suunto MC-2 is easily one of the best compasses I’ve used. It’s built like a serious navigation tool, not a cheap backup piece. Everything about it feels precise and dependable, from the smooth needle movement to the solid construction. The mirror sighting feature is a game changer for accuracy. It lets you line up bearings with real confidence, especially when navigating longer distances. The adjustable declination is another huge plus it makes it easy to dial things in correctly without constantly doing mental math.

I was looking for another quality hiking Compass, similar to my circa 1972 Silva Ranger. The hunt to find it's equal was difficult, but lead me here; to the Suunto "MC-2/LIN" Compass. To begin with, let me say I am VERY pleased with it. It has the features and Quality that I was looking for. It's just that even when I ordered it, I was uncertain exactly which variation of the Suunto Line, I was getting. What this actually is, is a Suunto "MC-2/360/IN/D/L/NH", also known as p/n: SS004239001. Here's the breakdown of the features: -Baseplate Compass with sighting Mirror -360° graduations on the dial -Ruler on base is in Inches, but includes scales in Miles for 1:24,000 and 1:625,000 scale maps -Has adjustable Declination Setting. comes with tool to adjust this. -Has Luminous Dial & Sighting Points. -Has 2-Zone needle, designed to work anywhere in the Northern Hemisphere. -Has Magnifier built into the baseplate. -Has Inclinometer needle to to measure angles of Elevation -Comes with Lanyard that's both detachable and has wrist loop adjustment feature. You have to admit that's a lot of good features for the price. (I got mine for just under $40). So how well does it do all these things? Amazingly well. The declination tool is Stainless Steel, so it's both Strong and yet it won't affect the magnetic needle on the compass. If you aren't familiar with Declination adjustment, Google/Bing "declination calculator", and you should find the "noaa.gov" website that will tell you what to set the compass too (pay attention to if it's East or West!). You'll find that if you only travel a few hundred miles in any direction, the declination should be within 2° what you set it too. The needle balance is great here at the North edge of the US. And it turns freely even when off of level slightly. The dial turns freely, but not so much that I'd worry about bumping it off from my setting. And the cut-out in the sighting mirror makes it easier to sight on something at the same elevation as you. The Lanyard has a large plastic piece that if you squeeze it, you can slide it, making the loop near the compass smaller or larger. I think it's so you can keep it from coming off your wrist. I use it on my neck, so it's not that important to me. The Magnifying Patch is about 0.5" diameter, and is very nice. I can imagine using it on fine print on maps or even to see a splinter in a finger. So what didn't I like about it? The luminous points seem to dim very fast once you turn off whatever light source you are using to illuminate them. And I used a 300 Lumen flashlight to do this. But that's pretty much standard for anything that's not Tritium (I don't know of any compasses that have Tritium). The Inclinometer is nice to have. But the graduations are too small for me to read through the mirror, unless I have a piece of white paper behind the base of the compass, and the lighting is really good. And sometimes the magnetic needle hangs in the way of the indicator. It's important to set the compass to 270° True, when doing an inclinometer reading. Don't expect to measure angles of Elevation better than +/- 2°. The clasp to swing the Mirror open is very tight. you might have trouble opening it with wool gloves on. But perhaps my single biggest gripe with this compass is the joke of an instruction manual that comes with it. Here you have some outstanding features on this device. But unless you have a lot of experience with other quality instruments, you won't even know what it's capable of. And yes, I am picky about such things. I spent several years involved in Search and Rescue as a teenager. I've Orienteered a few times. And I've been Hiking for over 40 years. So if you get a good quality compass like this, invest in a good book on using it. Or attend a clinic on compass use. Stay safe out there...

Very nice compass

Seriously awesome compass for serious outdoor navigation. Still learning the altitude function on this compass, but the quality is breathtaking and overall is great compass. I can see why this recommended by the pros who work the back country. If you serious about your navigation equipment and making it home from extended trip into the woods, mountains, desert, whatever, this is your serious compass that could (and most likely will) save your life. 100% recommended.

I purchased this for my wife as I wanted her to have declination and to have a compass as nice as mine. The adjustable declination is easy to use, and the mirror works well for sighting, Excellent sight and declination compass. I highly recommend.

It is a well made compass with easy to understand instructions and use. It largely served my purpose, but for sighting a boundary line, one could easily be off a few degrees due to the small size of the graduations. For a long boundary line, such an error could translate to several feet of error. Would also suggest resting the compass on a temporary platform when sighting a boundary line to minimize error.

Other members of our SAR teams in the county use this one, but we cheaped out at first and tried less expensive ones (from $5-18)...all of which failed either accuracy or function requirements. Between us and a few others, we compared about a dozen different mfrs and the Suunto always came out on top for reliability, accuracy, ease of use, and features. I really like the declination adjustment as it makes it easy to set our 11 deg once and not have to do the math on every azmuth we shoot. The MC-2 not only works reliably, it have other design features which made spending the money a no brainer. It's a lot lighter than my old military-style, lenzatic compass I was using. I used mine in low-light conditions practicing land-nav and the glow-in-the-dark portions of the compass which needed to glow, stood out very well, but needed to be saturated with light regularly, but I don't see that being something we will need much. If you are trying to decide about spending the money or not, to me, I say don't waste time, or money with the others. The couple other brands which passed the requirements for our SAR teams, still had minor things wbout them which put them down on the list of which one would I buy again, knowing what I know now. Lastly, I like how there is a Northern Hemishpere option and the different scale choices so I was able to get the model which best fit our needs. I did end up using a eyeglass screwdriver to adjust the declination as I didn't much like the little tool on the lanyard provided, but it is there for those who don't mind the 'fishing lure' tool. Come to think of it, it might work pretty good in my emergency wilderness kit, as a fishing lure!

Second one I have purchased. This was a gift for my son. Excellent compass.

Great compass works wonderfully

It's good product, very light weight. Overall this is right choice.

Ordered took a week or so, to come from the States but worth it.Good solid bit of kit,even ordered the case to keep it in.Fits lovely in your pocket.The thing I like is you can set the compass variation and don't unless you go to a dirrent area need to compensate.

I know they have a few other models... but this is the official compass for countless nations militaries, used by even more outdoors professional and veterans... and Suunto's best selling model for unknown number of years. Direct competition for this is the Silva Ranger. In recent years the Canadian Forces have moved from Silva to Suunto, several units within the US military are using the Suunto over the excellent Lensatic Compass (Cammenga), so it shows how well known and received the Suunto is just in North America. I own this model, as well as a Cammenga Lensatic, a Silva Ranger (older model) and a Brunton OSS. My 2 main compasses I use regularly are the Cammenga and Suunto. The Suunto has an ease of use that makes it a pleasure to work with. Comapred to the Cammenga, it does have several advantages, mostly the baseplate and markings on it. The clinometer is also a great feature to have, especially when on hilly/mountainous terrain. In my opinion, and after many years using Silva Rangers, this is by far the perfect compass to use with a topo map. As well, Suunto MC-2 is one of the rare compasses that can readily be used in extreme cold, due to it's liquid formulation that keeps from forming bubbles, which can be a pain during land nav. All in all, you won't regret picking up a Suunto MC-2, and more so now that some of the newer Silva Ranger models have gone down in quality over the older ones. This is honestly worth the money you'll pay for it.

Es un producto confiable, de buena calidad de materiales