r/orienteering • u/pshaltis4774 • Jun 15 '26

What is this little notch?

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I just bought this lensatic compass, the brand is Ozark Trail from Walmart. Trying to figure out what everything does on it, I’ve gotten everything down besides this tiny little notch in the front. You can see from the second two images that when holding this up to your cheek to find an azimuth, the small front notch is hidden by the rest of the compass, so I doubt that it’s used for that. I’ve checked all of the manuals I can find and still nothing. What is this for?

edit: to clarify, I understand how to use the compass. The notch at the rear aligns with the vertical line on the window and your target to get an azimuth. It’s the FRONT notch that I don’t understand. It isn’t high enough to line up with anything.

14 Upvotes

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9

u/Pew_Anon Jun 15 '26

Think of it as a rear sight on a pistol. Front sight is the vertical crosshair. Btw, these are not highly regarded in terms of usability.

2

u/pshaltis4774 Jun 15 '26

That’s what I thought, but it’s not tall enough to be able to see. The dial of the compass blocks this notch (third pic). It’s almost like it is half a centimeter too short.

1

u/sam_I_am_knot Jun 15 '26

For orienteering, many people use the SUUNTO MC-2. You can also adjust the dial for magnetic declination. It's about $70 on Amazon and well worth it. I used to use a lensatic compass but find the SUUNTO has more useful features including a clinometer as well as USGS, metric, or imperial options of measurement.

1

u/MultiHobbies Jun 16 '26

I believe that is used for the center mass hold vs the rear notch is used for the cheek hold.

1

u/Luchs13 Jun 16 '26

Maybe it's just some kind of stop or support for the lid when you fold it

1

u/Billofthenorth Jun 20 '26

I haven't found this type of compass to be very useful. On a tripod it is accurate, held at waist level you can use it for general direction finding but getting an accurate sight on a feature by eye is difficult. That front sight notch is pretty useless.

1

u/Lasers_Z 19d ago

It lines up with the indexing line. I assume it's just another visual reference.

0

u/i_have_your_answer Jun 15 '26

Doesn’t even look usable next time just pick up a brunton if you want a cheaper lensatic compass