Silva Compasses are some of the best made and most accurate compasses available. I personally own the Silva Forecaster 610 and the Matchcase 346 Aluminuim compasses. The Forecaster goes with me on every trip and the Matchcase 346 rides in my truck's Scramble Bag.



Here's the link to the website for the Polaris model:
http://store.silvacompass.com/products/345165/Polaris_177

The site includes the compass information guide that comes with the Polaris and it's free download.

First Impressions:

Wow! As good as the Silva compasses are, the "how to" guide is great! If you really want to know how to use a compass, this is one of the best guides I've seen in a long time.

The Polaris is credit card size and 1/3" thick. It's crystal clear and accurate. (I check it against my other compasses.)

One thing I really like about the Polaris, is the rotating bearing dial (in black on picture) that you can use for setting your bearing DIFFERENT from North.

This may not seem important to the outdoors man, but IF you are stuck in a large building or underground sewer - it's critical. Here's why...

When you twist and turn around objects or walls, you still need to be able to come back to your "bearing". Lets say you want to go West. You stumble around through several corridors (never seeing the sun) till you walked into a large dark warehouse that your flashlight won't illuminate across it. Now you have to walk using your compass and the bearing of West you wanted, but holding your compass up to point North and the bearing dial to West. Get the idea?

The Polaris' clear plastic also allows you to use it over a map. (Download the directions above and you'll get good instrustions.)