hey everybody Brandon Mason here with Eastmans' Hunting Journals and today
we're out in the field doing some shooting and we're reviewing the Kestrel
2700 and the Kestrel 5700 to help us all maximize our personal effective range
now Kestrel has been an industry standard when it comes to measuring
variables while in the field the Kestrel units have been used by Special Forces
operations in the military has been used by combat weather teams has been used by
auto pit crews and and has been used by Mount Everest expedition teams amongst
many other things and hunters are starting to utilize these more and more
in the field or if nothing else preparing before you go into the field
to help you like I said maximize your personal
effective range Kestrel has long been known in a military world for long-range
shooting and being accurate up to extended yardages now in the hunting
world long range shooting long range hunting can mean it mean different
things to different people so we're not going to focus on that terminology what
we're concerned about is each and every one of us has a comfort zone and each
and every one of us does well to practice expanding past those comfort
zones so that we can make one clean ethical shot in the field that's what
we're about here at Eastman's that's what Kestrel is about that's what Hornady
is about and that's why we're working together so how we're going to use this
today in the field is we're gonna use some of the basic setups for each device
and we're gonna show at 200 yards which is my zero range from my set up I
generally shoot at animals at 450 or less but at the range I practice at
distances farther than that so that way when I'm in the field
I'm extremely comfortable taking those shots at 450 or less or maybe maybe even
reaching out to 500 yards if the conditions are perfect in optimal what
we're going to do today is we're gonna utilize the windy Wyoming spring
conditions we got a good steady crosswind which we're going to measure
with the Kestrel and I've already got all my ballistics pre-loaded but we're
gonna show how to utilize the Kestrel link ballistics app to do that it's very
simple very easy and then we're gonna arrange our target we're going to plug
the range into the Kestrel and the Kestrel takes care of the rest
of it it's seamless so there's a compass calibration we're gonna do it's
automatically calibrating to humidity conditions in Wyoming is extremely dry
it's almost always dry and so that's gonna affect how my shot placement is
compared to files are really if I was in a really humid environment I'm no longer
gonna be using Kentucky windage as everybody in the office makes fun of me
for and we're gonna be more precise and more importantly more ethical another
way to maximize your personal effective range when you're in the field is since
these units are extremely lightweight they weigh almost nothing where you can
keep them in your backpack at all times now when you're in the field you don't
always have time in a moment of truth to get to gather all these environmental
factors right before the shot but most of the time is Western hunters we're
sitting up on a high vantage point we've glassed out a basin or we've pattern an
animal in fact recently I was on an elk hunt where I knew an elk was in a
particular basin we watched him in the timber we watched him go to bed while we
sat on him most of the day which allowed me to prepare for the shot of wherever
he would come out of the timber I didn't know exactly where he would come out but
I knew he was going to come out in the dusk evening hours and so I was pre
ranging pre-qualifying each of the potential spots so that I could be
prepared no matter what the environmental conditions are with the
windage the elevation all of those conditions that we need to factor in to
shooters when the moment of truth arrived and it happened quickly right
before dark I can make a quick clean ethical shot which is what we want every
time
he's down killed a big bull
before we begin we need to calibrate both of the
instruments so again this is a Kestrel 2700 and this is the Kestrel 5700 with
Hornady 4 DOF ballistics loaded right into the unit you'll notice that the
2700 is mounted on the Kestrel accessory wind vane which allows it to spin freely
in the wind and this doesn't have to be calibrated on the wind vane the wind
vane is really handy in varying humidity conditions so that you're not holding it
close to your body which could you know potentially affect the humidity readings
and the conditions readings that are on the unit but just to show how
free-floating that wind vane is we're gonna do that one today right on the
wind vane this one we're going to do handheld and you'll see this one has the
Hornady logo on the protective covering on the fan or on the wind meter and that
opens to that and you could see any little slight breeze any little breath
on this will cause it to move so it's extraordinarily accurate when we're
calibrating on either of the two devices or any of the devices at Kestrel offers
it's very important not to cover up too much of the back of the device
especially the sensor that you can see is underneath my index finger also we
want to keep the wind meter clear clear of any obstruction kestrel in there
engineering and design have thought ahead of this to encourage people in
users to hold this where it's supposed to be held is this is a contoured grip
and your index finger just naturally goes there it's very comfortable to hold
in the hand so do not hold it like you would hold your smart device because you
won't get as accurate or reading another important key you'll notice in this wind
vane and also how I'm going to hold the 57-hundred they need to be vertical
they're not as accurate when they're on their side one slight exception to that
is when we're taking air and temperature readings you can move it in the breeze
or in the conditions like this or you can do it like this for a few seconds
into you get an accurate reading in a
consistent reading on temperature to maximize your calibration efforts on
either the devices and the usages of both devices download the kestrel link
ballistics app it's free on itunes or on Google Play and it's got so many
features in there that allows you to like I said maximize the usage of any
Kestrel device that talks bluetooth and can communicate with the phone so
there's several ballistic profiles the Hornady 4 DOF system is preloaded in
here but I'm going to show you how to set it up really quickly and really
effectively even if you're not quite tech savvy so first thing we need to do
is connect to the device that we're trying to connect to you can see it's
scanning for available devices that number right there coincides with the
serial number on the back of the Kestrel device that is trying to pair with which
we can see right here so the device comes up we select that device you can
see that the selected device is connecting and it'll go through the
stages and that's authenticating and boom we're connected and this is all
happening within that happened in less than five seconds very quick and easy to
do so gun profile management but as you can see I already have my specific
profile set up but to show you how easy that is we get to name the profile I can
name it my own name because this app is able to store several different profiles
and so maybe it's my name and my son's name and my dad's name or maybe I have
different rifle setups in there so that's what I chose to do I set it up
for my 30-06 and when I select from the bullet library the caliber that I'm
going after you can see under the 308 caliber there's 30-06 and then I scroll
down to Hornady there's 41 different options and I'm looking for the eld X
which is right there for the Kestrel 2700 it doesn't have the Hornady 4 DOF
it's got the standard G1 and G7 ballistic profiles so I'm going to
select the G7 that's the one that I tend to use if I'm not using the Hornady
4 DOF system so you can see it's selected it automatically puts all that
information into the unit now the zero range that I
have is actually at 200 next we need to select our elevation in windage units I
use traditional MOA so we're gonna select those for both of them
now in my menu up here we hit save profile now there's an option to get a
profile or send a profile we're gonna send the profile to the Kestrel 2700
that we're using right now now it just warns you that sending a new profile
will erase the current profile that's on there that's okay cuz we want to do that
and update it it's updating a profile and boom all the information is
completely loaded in the Kestrel 2700 now we're gonna finish our calibrations
on the 2700 and on the 5700 and send some shots downrange okay first we're
gonna calibrate and get set up with the 2700 I've already done the compass
calibration on this device I'll show you how to do that on the 5700 when we set
that one up and so you can see the readings that's given me from a previous
shot angle shot distance everything that I had set up already on a previous shot
when I was target shooting yesterday and so to begin our setup we pushed the
middle button once and it's taking our ambient air temperature which right now
is 47 degrees once that is established and you can see by the thermometer icon
on the right side of the screen that you know that you're at the right screen to
do that and now we're gonna take our angle of our shot so I'm sitting right
here and I'm looking at the 200-yard zero
target once I'm satisfied with the reading and it's consistent I push the
center button again now does I'm gonna go ahead and set it in the wind vane
that Kestrel has as an accessory to get more of an error free wind reading so
that I'm not accidentally holding it in the wrong wind direction I want that
wind vane to hold it exactly where it needs to be
so I got it on the wind meter and you can see it's free-floating you got about
a 10 mile an hour wind on average gusting sometimes up to 15 lock that in
now it's telling me where to hold again I have this set on MOA so with my scope
that I have set up which is an MOA scope I'm gonna know where to hold so my
elevation is saying at my zero that I need to are where I'm set up in 200
yards that I need to hold 0.3 high and 1.1 to the right we've got a strong wind
and so I need to hold a little bit to the right
so that one's all set up let's set up the 5,700 one of the things that I love
about the Kestrel 5700 with that Hornady 4 DOF system loaded into it is that as
you go out to expand your personal effective range whatever that may be
mistakes at close ranges are exponentially increased out like a fan
at longer ranges and so if you're off a little bit at a hundred yards you're
gonna be off drastically at five six seven hundred yards even at 300 yards
and so using the Kestrel system along with that 4 DOF system which isn't
using ballistic coefficients anymore it's using drag coefficients which are
more accurate downrange so the farther down range you get the more they come
into play as far as the needs of having those calculations to build your
accuracy okay first we power on the device by holding it in right here
there's a power button and now the 57-hundred is has a pretty much a full
menu on it this is a more of a fully featured device including the Hornady
4 DOF system and again 4 DOF just stands for four degrees of freedom so
you got windage you have elevation you have your range and then you have your
angle of attack or otherwise known as our angle compensation what a lot of
range finders have in them now and so with those four factors factored
in we can get a really accurate profile on where we're
supposed to be holding downrange and again some people like using these in
the field some people just like using them in the range but it's great
practice time for you to intimately know your setup know the conditions how it's
going to perform in various circumstances so the first thing we need
to do since we have not calibrated the compass on this device is we're going to
scroll down to compass calibration and it's telling us to hold the Kestrel
upright rotate three times slowly roughly about ten seconds to turn and so
we're gonna hit start start button in the middle and again we holding it
upright and it's just giving us an accurate reading while it's in hand so
now we're on to complete turns and there's three calibration is complete
okay next we select our target range and our first target range is right at 200
yards okay so now we're going to get our target setup push the center button and
we're going to capture our environmental readings it suggest that we do this
every 30 minutes so we're gonna go ahead and start capture again by pushing the
center select button and here's where we're gonna swing back and forth wave
the device or we can swing it by the tether to get an accurate temperature
reading and it's at 43 degrees I'm happy with that it's consistent it's not
fluctuating I'm going to end capture now we're gonna point the back of our device
at our acquired target so that we get our degree of freedom
so we're gonna capture that and capture the wind which is what the 2700 is doing
on the wind vane we're gonna do this manually with our hands holding the unit
in our hand and you can see how I'm not obstructing any of the sensors now our
win is coming pretty strong out of the north here and we're shooting more
towards the west and so we're gonna have a right-to-left wind out of the north
and so I'm going to start the capture of the wind I'm gonna wait for about five
seconds then we're gonna end the capture
so all my readings should be good to go and now it is telling me where to hold
with the conditions that we just measured you can see what my elevation
is on the top and my windage telling me to hold almost 1 MOA to the right
okay well let's send the shot down range and the Kestrel can give me accurate
readings no matter what the conditions are so again what this is is this is
essentially a confidence builder ok so we took one shot at my zero range at 200
yards before using the Kestrel system and after using the Kestrel system we
got an adjustment that we needed to be almost right on the money
some of that was user error a little bit but we're pretty much hitting dead
center which is what we want well because it's so windy today we're
going to take a quick hike through the sagebrush and go see how we did okay so
as we said you can see that I took a shot post Kestrel adjustment and the
wind is screaming this way and I didn't take into account elevation changes or
anything I just put it on it and that's where I hit after taking into account
the calibrations of the Kestrel brought us back closer to center well there you
have it the proof's in the pudding after testing and reviewing the Kestrel 2700
in the Kestrel 5700 we are doing what we set out to do and that is building
confidence and maximizing our personal effective range now if you have
questions these devices are extremely techy we went through a basic setup if
you have questions leave them below in the comments and we will respond and get
back to you and don't forget to subscribe and turn on your notifications
so we can send you updates on great gear reviews and tips and tactics just like this