Orienteering Map Compass Sighting for Camping,Hiking,Hunting and Survival

I've used a Silva Ranger compass since 1974 when I enrolled in a Forestry Technician School and still use a Silva in semi-retirement as a Consulting Forester. Silva sets the standard for quality hand compasses used in Forestry and Forest Engineering. With that being said, I was pleasantly surprised when I purchased several of these for a compass and forestry presentation to be used by several school aged children. The Funtalker compass is an exact copy of the Silva down to the brass magnetic declination set screw. For the price and decent quality, I recommend the Funtalker compass for recreational use. For everyday professional use, I wouldn't be without a Silva Ranger compass.

The flip-up lens on the style "A" compass is pretty much useless, since the compass does not have a direct-read military-style compass card. On a lensatic compass, the purpose of a flip-up lens is to enable you to view the magnetic bearing on the floating compass card that lines up with the stationary indicator/direction-of-travel mark at the front of the bezel while sighting a landmark at the same time.This compass however, has a typical needle and an orienting arrow ("the shed"). The sightline/direction-of-travel mark lines up with whatever reading you turn the bezel to, so looking through the flip-up lens at the bezel will not show you anything useful if the needle is not near the direction-of-travel mark. On a sighting compass with a mirror, the mirror serves to let you view and align the needle and the shed, while sighting a landmark at the same time. This flip-up lens does not have a sufficient field-of-view to see the entire capsule so it cannot help you "put red Fred in the shed". I actually took the flip-up lens off this compass and it makes a good budget orienteering compass with an extra-long folding baseplate, for teaching Scouts. I actually swapped the lens I took off this compass for the one that came on my Coghlan's Combination Compass  Coghlan's Combination Compass with Custom Case  which is a direct-read military-style lensatic, because the lens on the Funtalker is larger and more powerful.

This is a surprisingly decent compass for the price. It's obviously a clone of some very popular and much more expensive compass models. I have purchased 4 of them over about a year period. All of them have been good. So the consistency is decent. Perhaps the only inconsistency is how smooth the compass dial rotates. Which is true even on my more expensive compasses. The magnetic declination adjustment works adequately. I've busted one apart before to see how it works, and its just a little brass gear between the outer plastic ring and the needle enclosure. In that case, the little gear had gotten knocked out of position while I was fiddling with it and I was able to fix it. I have a much more expensive model, and in terms of quality, design, and features they are about the same. So when people say "I wouldn't trust my life on it" implying that they only trust the expensive one, I say how about we don't trust our lives to any of them and carry backups. Because the expensive ones aren't that much better to justify the cost difference. If they were twice as much...maybe...but sometimes they are 4-8x as much (or more), and now that I have both I can say that the quality of materials doesn't justify the difference in most cases.

I bought this mirrored compass used at my Search and Rescue training for field certification exam. It is much cheaper than some name brands, but you got what you paid for. The one i got is Defective On Arrival. The fixed red arrow plate should always points to N or 0 degree on the outside dial, but mine is point to 30 degree instead. I was trying to fix it by adjusting the declination. But it can only be adjusted by 5 degree using the screwdriver. Basically, it is useless. So i have to buy another one, express shipped for my field exam.

A low cost, high value compass--that describes this compass best.I like my compass a lot. It has some nice features. I particularly like the sighting device that makes shooting a bearing so effortless. The compass has both a mirror and magnifying glass built in to it. The mirror is integral to the compass's sighting feature, and it does its job. However, when I first got the compass, the mirror detached from the inside of the compass lid, necessitating my gluing back into place with glue from a "hot" glue gun.I might add that if one is in an emergency situation, the mirror can do double duty as a signal mirror. And the small magnifying glass in the base of the compass can be used to start an emergency fire. I haven't yet experimented with how well it works for fire making, but I suspect that it will be adequate. The compass is also light in weight. I like that. Some of the military compasses I have procured are unnecessarily heavy.Everyone should have a compass and know how to use it. This compass can meet most peoples' needs without breaking any budgets.

Not sure why I've been teaching navigation to Boy Scouts for 8 years without owning this. I've always had cheap compasses. The cost of this compass is cheap but it's very effective and useful. I plotted an orienteering course with my gps and verified it with the compass. It was right on every time.

I bought this for Search and Rescue however the declination adjustment did not work. I did not discover this defect until I was out on a search. A waste of money and more importantly a risk of life for someone on my mission. I would suggest you find a better compass.

Excellent quality mirrored compass for the price. comparable in quality and accuracy to my $45 SUUNTO. I bought this for my son to use in boy scouts, for orienteering after he lost his more expensive compass. I've bought cheap ones before that were so disappointing I just threw them away. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this compass.