Allen Company Liquid-Filled Ball Compass with Pin, Multi, One Size (484)

Reliable.

I wasn’t very happy with this compass to start with. It seemed to be stuck on one heading no matter what direction I faced. Then I realized that it was being affected by my spare mag in the shirt underneath the jacket…. Duh…. Compass works great after that. Wish it was easier to see at night but for the money I’m not complaining. The one drawback is the pin that fixes it to my clothing is too easily bent going through thick brush. Brass? After almost losing it twice I wrapped it with some electrical tape I always carry and problem solved. Good piece of kit. Good to have when you need a quick reference on a track or the primary fails. One is none!

Arrived basically non-functioning. Build quality is so cheap the ball cant spin freely. Pin is thinner than the Coghlans compass and not fixed in place. Overall kind of junk. Allen compass on bottom below pointing in the oppisite direction of north.

I bought this for mounting on my snowmobile and knowing what direction we are headed at a quick glance. It's no surprise though that while riding, it's about useless unless the trail is 100% smooth. I had to mount this as far away from the riser block as I could because of all things that influenced the reading, it was that block of aluminum. Regardless of this, I like it a lot. A friend of mine has one on his sled and it comes in handy when looking over a map of the trail (because a lot of places we ride there is no cell reception and paper maps are sometimes just easier/quicker to look at).

It is a perfectly fine compass, just no one can use a tape measure the specs say item dimension is "6.9 x 3.8 x 1.2 inches" the photo in the listing says it is 1.5 in 3.81cm the Q&A says "about 3/4” (0.75 inches in diameter" I was hoping that last number was right(That is the size I needed), but NO the one I got was 1 1/8 in 3cm. They probably count on you not taking the trouble to send it back since it is inexpensive.

I bought this compass about a year ago to replace the same style of compass when it broke. This compass is perfect for finding your general direction. I have used it to teach my 6 year old nephew about directions. I have used it to get my bearings when hiking in Arizona, bike-riding in Arkansas and sight-seeing in Mexico. You can take it in your carry-on on an airplane. This is cheaply made so if you throw it on the sidewalk or a rock it will break.

I love pinning this to my jacket during hunting season. It’s convenient to just look down and make sure I didn’t get “turned round” (literally)Pro tip tho: put a second pin on it to make sure it doesn’t get brushed off when squeezing past some brush.

So to cover the minuses:-1 : Description said these ball compasses had a luminous dial. They do not in fact have a luminous dial. I tested them, at night, by shining a bright white LED flashlight directly on the compass arrow for over a minute, then gave my eyes time to adjust. No glow. Tried this multiple times. This test worked for other glow in the dark equipment, but not these. So they're not glow in the dark.-2: When I received these, they had all fallen out of the packaging, which was luckily in a yellow amazon envelope, so all contained. Not too big a minus in my opinion.-3: I ordered 3 of these ball compasses. Two of them rotate to north fine, but the third does not. The compass sphere doesn't "float" properly in the spherical shell, like the other two. It tends to sink to the bottom, and drag. Which impedes it's ability to rotate to point north.-4: Not readily apparent from the picture, but the clip that holds the ball compass is actually loose. Not loose in the sense that it will fall off a shirt it's clipped to; but loose in the sense that the ball compass will slide and flop around on the clip, rather then being held solidly. Makes reading the compass more difficult.+'s If you get one that works (2/3 probability based on my order), it'll do it's job of point north, during the day.