Hunting the west and its vast open spaces requires glass and really good glass is key to sitting for extended periods of time. These extended periods of time are often what it takes to find that buck of a lifetime laying in the sagebrush.



Leupold has delivered an excellent, high magnification product in the BX-5 Santiam HD’s, which are not only good glass, but are ergonomically designed to allow for comfortable glassing for hours. Leupold employs the Abbe-Koenig prism, calcium-flouride lenses and fully phase coated glass and combined with the Xtended Twilight Lens system, gives you great low light, high magnification binoculars which will allow you to pick those shadows apart for as long as it takes, without severe eye fatigue.

Not only is the glass on these good, the chassis design is conducive to being comfortable and easy to adjust. Unless you have giant hands, the larger barrels of this 56mm object lens might feel a bit awkward if it weren’t for the perfectly placed thumb notches. The open hinge design allows for your fingers to wrap around the barrels and the large focus knob is right at your fingertips. Handholding 15X binoculars isn’t the ideal situation, but based on the design, you can pull it off for short glassing sessions. Binoculars of this magnification should be used on a tripod and Leupold has included a universal tripod mount in the package which is ideal for settling in for long glassing sessions. They are equipped with rollup eye cups for those that wear glass as well as a diopter adjustment to insure both eyes are focused perfectly.

The BX-5 HD’s weigh in at 45 ounces and come in either a shadow gray finish or Sitka Gear’s ever popular Subalpine pattern. The aluminum housing is shrouded in a rubber armor coating which is not only durable, but provides a very positive grab.

You can’t harvest trophy animals unless you find them and most hunters give up on glassing way too early in the game and start burning boot leather. The Leupold BX-5 HD 15X56 binoculars are the first step, giving you a comfortable platform to spend hours, if not days behind your optics, helping you find that buck of a lifetime.