Though I loved the idea of the binoculars in FONV, I thought they were implemented badly. Early on until you got a scoped riffle they had some use and if you were unlucky you would have picked up a scope for the varmint riffle before you left Goodsprings which as far as I could tell had the same magnification. So my feeling is that they should have been a piece of apparel instead of a weapon. Now if they were equipped as a piece of apparel and you had your weapon holstered and you right clicked to zoom instead of the short zoom you would get the zoom from the binoculars instead. You could take that one step farther and have the binoculars showing on the chest of the character in third person. Would anyone know of a mod that does that or if not be willing to try?

Well, not exactly a mod that makes the Binoculars visible, but this one makes them an upgradable misc. item(Lightweight, Nigh Vision, Magnification etc.)

http://www.newvegasnexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=36968

I will have to look into that one
Thanks