Silva Ranger 2.0 Compass

Good cooperate

Everything one needs in a compass

Most of the time I use one of several Type 4s I have, one I bought when I was 15, some 46 years ago! It still works perfectly, and the only reason I have more of them is that I taught navigation to Scouts and I 'needed' more. For serious mountain or very featureless moor land I use this. It is perfect, and is always slightly more accurate than the Type 4, being. sighting compass, and one where I can set the declination so I don't nee to worry about doing so each time. The clinometer is an added bonus, and it is useful for assessing avalanche risks, but my days of needing that are now far behind me. I would never rely on a GPS or mobile flippin' 'phone, and I will ALWAYS have a map, a spare copy of the map and a spare compass with me. My motto is that if I always know where I am, I will never be lost. Practise, practise, practise using it, and it will become as natural as telling the time; fail to learn how to use any map and compass until it is second nature, and you are asking for trouble, and trouble you will have at some point. This compass is sturdy, accurate, easy to use when you are familiar with it and, for what it does, light. Yes, I do recommend this.

Despite its production origin, it's a decent bit of kit, although lacking in support information with the packaging. It took a while to find the lanyard and then the declination adjustment tool in the lanyard (I guess I'm not the sharpest pencil in the box!). It lacks the nighttime performance that I have got used to with my Recta DT420 or that my Silva 6/54 used to have, so I'll use it during daytime. I miss tritium! Update: item returned as night performance inadequate and sighting mirror too loose when sighting.

I have been using Silva compass products for over 40 years without any issues. Unfortunately having bought this Ranger compass I can confirm that the item I received was poorly manufactured with a bezel that seemed to be fitted off centre. This meant that when set to 270 degrees the North arrow and gridlines were not at 90 degrees to the compass body! Consequently measurements using the compass are approximately 2 degrees out of true. The inbuilt clinometer was also affected and inaccurate. Silva compasses used to be second to none in my opinion but sadly if my example is representative of current quality then that is no longer true in my opinion. I returned it for a refund and then bought a Suunto compass instead.

Is a bit bulky to use and the part that attaches the lanyard wasn’t in the packet