Embarking on a safari adventure or a hunting expedition requires not only skill and preparation but also the right gear. African Sporting Creations (ASC) has established itself as a provider of high-quality, innovative sporting goods designed to enhance the African hunting and outdoor experience. From custom-crafted shooting sticks to durable safari boots and essential optics, ASC offers a range of products tailored to the needs of adventurers and professionals alike.
Essential Optics for the Safari Experience
For any African hunting safari, good binoculars are indispensable tools. The vast and diverse landscapes of Africa require sharp observation skills to spot wildlife from a distance. For the best hunting safari experience, choose binoculars with 8x to 10x magnification, multi-coated lenses, and rugged waterproof construction.
At Bowker Hunting, we believe high-quality safari binoculars are the most important piece of hunting gear for a safari. We spend hours glassing through varied terrain while game viewing. All our guides carry high-end optics with range finders. They will give you an exact range as you prepare to take your shot. If budgets allow, we suggest having binoculars with a range finder, further enhancing your African safari experience. We use 10 x 42 Leica and Swarovski Safari binoculars.
Key Considerations for Safari Binoculars
- Magnification and Objective Lens Size: For an African safari, a moderate magnification of 10x is recommended. Higher magnification may result in shaky images due to hand movements, challenging spotting and tracking wildlife.
- Field of View: In the vast landscapes of Africa, a wide field of view is advantageous for locating and tracking animals with binoculars. When selecting safari binoculars, opt for models with a field of view of at least 300 feet at 1000 yards.
- Size and Weight: Compact, lightweight binoculars with a durable, ergonomic design are ideal for safari adventures. Look for models that are easy to handle and fit comfortably in your hands.
- Durability: African hunting safaris can expose your equipment and binoculars to challenging conditions, including dust, moisture, and extreme temperatures. Opt for models with a robust, rubberized exterior that provides a secure grip and protects against impacts.
- Optical Coatings: The quality of optical coatings on binocular lenses plays a critical role in determining image clarity, brightness, and color accuracy. High-quality optical coatings minimize glare, enhance contrast, and deliver vibrant, true-to-life colors.
Lens coatings significantly impact how binoculars handle light. Multi-coated or fully multi-coated lenses reduce glare, enhance contrast, and maximize light transmission, contributing to sharper and more vibrant images.
Eye relief in binoculars refers to the distance between the eyepiece lens and your eye at which you can see the entire field of view without vignetting or shadowing. For individuals who do not wear eyeglasses, eye relief may not be a critical factor, but for eyeglass wearers, it becomes crucial. When wearing glasses, the eyes are farther from the eyepiece, and if the eye relief is insufficient, you may not be able to see the entire field of view. Binoculars with long eye relief (usually 15mm or more) are suitable for eyeglass wearers.
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One of the primary responsibilities of any ethical hunter is to ensure precise shot placement. Range finders provide hunters with accurate distance measurements to their target, allowing them to make informed decisions about shot placement.
Like any essential piece of safari equipment, binoculars are available across a wide range of price points, making it important to set a realistic budget based on your needs, preferences, and intended usage.
When selecting safari binoculars, look beyond core specifications like magnification and objective lens size. A diopter is a unit of measurement used to quantify the optical power of a lens, particularly in the context of adjusting the focus of binoculars or other optical devices. The diopter adjustment on binoculars allows users to compensate for the differences in vision between their two eyes.
In the context of binoculars, a roof prism is used to invert and revert the image, allowing for a more compact and straight-barrel design. While roof prism binoculars offer a more streamlined design and are often more waterproof and dustproof due to their straight-barrel construction, they can be more complex to manufacture and align optically compared to Porro prism binoculars.
Selecting the right binoculars for a safari can be challenging due to the many available options. Swarovski stands out for having the best glass, particularly noticeable in low-light conditions, though they come with a hefty price tag. Another excellent option is Leica, with fantastic glass quality and the added benefit of a lifetime warranty, albeit on the expensive side. However, if you’re looking for a more budget-friendly alternative without compromising too much on quality, I recently opted for Vortex Fury HD 5000 in 10×42. What sets the Vortex Fury HD 5000 apart is its exceptional range finder, which I found to be the best I’ve used.
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Here's a comparison table of popular safari binocular brands based on glass quality, rangefinder capabilities, warranty, and price:
| Brand | Glass Quality | Rangefinder | Warranty | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swarovski | Excellent (Best in low light) | Available in some models | Limited | High |
| Leica | Fantastic | Integrated | Lifetime | Expensive |
| Vortex Fury HD 5000 | High Quality | Exceptional (Best Rangefinder) | VIP Lifetime Warranty | Moderate |
| Leupold | High-Definition | Available in some models | Limited Lifetime | Moderate |
Courteney Boots: Handcrafted Adventure Footwear
If you’re looking for a fantastic walking boot, take a look at the Courteney Suede Hippo Safari Boots from African Sporting Creations. Today Courteney enjoys an almost cult like following among global adventurers who want a warm weather, all leather boot that is cool when it is hot outside. Professional Hunters (PH’s) affectionately call them the “10,000 mile” boot.
“African Sporting Creations have sold them all over the world and stock over 500 pairs in Ohio which is the largest inventory outside of Africa. Gale Rice, John’s widow, continues to produce them in modern day Zimbabwe. Forbes did an article on them that was titled, Out of Africa: The Best Boot Company You’ve Never Heard Of.
The hippo hide is soft, durable and features a beautiful texture that is similar to elephant hide. It has a pleasant texture that is nice to the touch. The Safari offers a wide-cut fit with a roomy toe box for great comfort.
Features are: brass speed lacing, padded ankle collar, soft impala tongue, plus a double-stitched and reinforced vamp, provides the exceptional durability that has garnered the Courteney® boot company a world-wide following among those who seek adventure. The casual cleat sole in natural rubber makes this model ideal for office use or a night on the town.
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The toe box is roomy which I like. Great when your feet get swollen and roomy enough for thick socks if you need them. The 4″ tall ankle support is enough to give you what you need when walking and it is stylish yet simple. The brass tabs are very useful to help you speed lace your laces. The collar itself is soft but strong, and durable.
All of the Courteney boots are treated to be water repellent but are not water proof. The application of the Courteney conditioner will keep them water repellent. Due to the hot temps in Africa, these boots are designed to breathe so that moisture does not accumulate in them and cause blisters.
African Sporting Creations notes boots are: “A slightly modified, four-inch ankle height boot, the Safari affords the very same features as our Selous with the same hand crafted construction and genuine Buffalo hide upper and natural rubber tyre tread sole. Brass speed lacing, padded Impala collar plus double stitched and reinforced vamp, provides an exceptional choice as a true stalking boot. The wide-cut and roomy toe box provides unmatched comfort. Available in Men’s US 8.0 - 12.0.”
Overall, I would definitely suggest the Safari boots from Courteney Handcrafted Adventure Footwear for the sportsmen looking for an extremely versatile boot to last. Handmade with the highest level of craftsmanship and will last forever will be easier on your wallet in the long run than having to replace a pair yearly.
PRODUCT SCORES
- Functionality: 5/5
- Weight: 5/5
- Durability: 5/5
- Cost: 3/5
- Comfort: 5/5
- Total: 23/25
Custom-Crafted Shooting Sticks
On a separate note another item ASC offer is their custom-crafted shooting stick that they make in-house. They are the only sporting models on the market covered by an unconditional lifetime warranty and the big difference between them and every other model is that the connector on theirs is the strongest part of the entire device and on every other pair of hunting sticks it is the weakest part.
They later said, “Absolutely the finest sticks available today are made by African Sporting Creations….I’ve broken a few sets of modern sticks and have seen many more broken, but even African PH’s, who work their sticks incredibly hard year round, don’t wear out or break those made by African Sporting Creations”.
Jim Carmichel featured our products in a write-up he did for Outdoor Life. He is also a nationally ranked bench rest shooter. When we met with him, he said after a comfortable pair of boots, a straight shooting rifle and high quality optics came a good set of shooting sticks.
The sticks are too light to support a .50 caliber sniper rifle (they did make some that would). They were featured in Guns & Ammo, Hunting, Shooting Illustrated, etc..
There are a couple of reasons for this. First is that shooting big bores from a bench is punishing as your body takes the full impact of the shot. When you use our very strong and rigid sticks, you can roll with the shot and thus felt recoil is reduced considerably. The other reason why the groups are so small is that we use Hickory and select exotic woods that offer unmatched rigidity.
All of our models unscrew and can fit in a full-length rifle case. Most of them are harder and heavier than oak. This requires special construction techniques, extra heavy-duty equipment, and more frequent sharpening of the planer/saw blades. However, the end result is worth the extra effort.
In terms of cost, all of our exotic woods are much more expensive than premium domestic hardwoods. Our best selling exotic wood costs five times as much as hickory. When you start utilizing exotic versus domestic woods it adds another very significant cost to the product and it is the second most expensive component of our product. Our raw exotic woods cost 5 times (Jatoba) to 10 times (other exotics) as much as Hickory.
We use the finest components available and every set requires over 150 steps before they are completed. I make every set, primarily by hand, right in our wood shop in Ohio. We do not import or assemble Chinese parts here, we actually do it all from start to finish. Our connectors alone (forgetting about labor and the other components utilized) cost us more than the selling price of many of the other shooting sticks available today.
Thomas McIntyre, the Shooting Editor of Field and Stream sums up our commitment to quality best in the note we got from him after he received his, “My wife may not hunt but she recognizes quality craftsmanship. When I showed her your product her immediate comment was that you can always tell when someone cares about the product he makes.
Our new take-down stalking sticks take the innovative features, attention to detail and custom craftsmanship that have made our African Shooting Sticks such a perennial favorite, to a whole new level. For example, the exposed part of the antler top is capped with the same species of wood as the shafts and secured with a small sandblasted cap that matches the connectors.
Our new take-down stalking sticks take the innovative features, attention to detail and custom craftsmanship that have made our African Shooting Sticks such a perennial favorite, to a whole new level.
The heart of all of our take-down models is our patent pending, two piece aluminum take-down connector designed by a specialty fittings engineer who has over twenty five years of experience. This connector features two points of contact for tremendous strength. Putting them together is fast and easy as they screw together by hand without any tools in just a few seconds. Each connector is precision milled from a solid piece of high strength, light weight Aluminum bar stock and is then sand blasted to a non-reflective, matte finish.
ТОП-7. Лучшие бинокли для наблюдения🔭. Рейтинг 2025 года🔥. Какой лучше для охоты, путешествий?
Additional Gear: The Rugged Belt
This rugged belt features Cape buffalo hide bullet loops specially designed to facilitate the removal of big bore rounds, thick bull hide leather and heavy-duty hardware.
- Large African: Fits .416 Rigby-.500 NE and holds 4 rounds per side for a total of 8.
- Belted Magnum: Fits 7MM Remington Magnum-.458 Winchester Magnum and holds 5 rounds per side for a total of 10.
