Thermal vs Night Vision

[ratpaker]

Well so far we only have the spotter as a demo, the SA series is in huge demand overseas so we are waiting on a delivery of those.
Been promised delivery before the end of January so here's hoping!
Will know a lot more about them once we have them in hand...gee....we might have to do some extensive "field testing" involving many hours of real world hunting....hehehe

[Ferrisweil]

Where you based Ratpaker? Get you out and test it against some Pulsar and Night-tech stuff maybe

[ratpaker]

Where you based Ratpaker? Get you out and test it against some Pulsar and Night-tech stuff maybe

Would love to, just so we know where we stand...but Im in Victoria, near Dandenong, when the SA series scopes arrive, we might have to do a demo night...

[Ferrisweil]

Check your messages

[JimTom]

For those who are interested I ended up purchasing the ATN Mars 4, 1.5-5x, 384x288 thermal. Entry level thermal. Would have loved to have had a look through one prior to purchasing however near on impossible when you live regional. Have done a lot of research though and figure this is the best fit for me at this time., given there is quite a wait to get the Pulsar Thermion. Should get the ATN in a week or two.

[Tilb004]

Hi Jimtom
Thermal is the way to go if you have the spare 5k + but for me i went the night tech thermal monocular from nighthunter .com.and the pard 007 nv.
With the night tech i can spot foxes to about 250m if they are on the move .
can spot cow at my neighbours place at 1 km.
Monocular $1600,pard 007 $700.
Its the most i can afford at the moment , when i save some more cash might get some flasher stuff..
The system works well as you can scan the paddocks with the the thermal then move in to a shooting distance with your nv.
Its a lot easier to put the monocular up to your eye than your rifle to scan paddocks.
Just my 2 cents worth.

Tilb

[Blr243]

That sounds like a good plan tilb. If it’s not to wet and I manage to get out next week I’ll be doing the usual finding with my thermal binos and there will b times I take my bushmaster fitted with my new pulsar nv. I’m very curious to see what it’s like locking onto game sub 100 m. I won’t bother trying to locate stuff beyond that. No point when I’m finding with the binos. Well done jimtom. Sounds Like you will have some fun times pre hunt practicing in readiness for the real action in the field. I had been thinking about your decision on what rifle to use the new scope on. I tend to think the 6.5 because it has a flatter traj and it’s so hard to judge distance with thermal. And just use the 300 AAC for the daytime quad missions , Either way. U will work it out

[JimTom]

G’day Tilb004. Mate I had thought of getting a thermal monocular and a night vision scope. I have been thinking about monoculars, May progress to that in the future. Thanks for letting me know what you do, definitely food for thought.

[JimTom]

Thanks BLR243, will try it out on the little
Blackout in the first instance mate and see how it goes. Will prob give it a crack on the 6.5 also to compare the two. I have much to learn mate. Would be handy if I had someone to learn off. Looks I will be learning the hard way, bouncing around paddocks in the middle of the night solo. Sometimes the best lessons are learned the hard way eh. Thanks for the input and help along the way mate. Appreciated.

[Blr243]

Jim Tom I think you are in north q ? I only did one hunt roughly charters towers I think. Chital and pigs. But I done ooodles of cape York bow hunting Tell us a bit about the size of places you hunt. Grazing or crops , creeks dams , water courses and what pigs do and how they behave in your area. I t will be interesting to see how you adapt to the night change in your neck of the woods. I was always a morning and arvo stalker and a night time sleeper after a bit of a spotlight. If I got bored in the middle of the day I would flush pigs out of thickets on the two wheel bike .... how I survived those days at moonie I will never know. Now the only daytime hunting I do is in the peak of summer...... mostly I bludge all day in the shade and try to force myself some shut eye so I can go hard at night. I have mostly worked out how I hunt the dark down here safely and effectively , Initially I had a problem with bloody hundreds of pigs jammed into a thick patch of scrub it’s so thick you can’t even see your face in front of your hand in there in the middle of the day , bloody impossible to see or move quietly in there It was so frustrating knowing how many were in there and right under my nose but never being able to get at them. I always thought about them and never gave up hope that one day I would work out how to get them. I tried grain baits to draw them out but they turned up their noses in disgust at my offer. Eventually I worked out they were feeding out into the open dirt paddocks in the dark of night. And I mean just dirt nothing else. I never even thought to glass those paddocks at night .... I only did so after a random chat with the owner gave me an idea. The owners know absolutely everything about all the animals but sometimes you just have to drag it out of them. It surprised the hell out of me that they did that like why would they wanna be there. Right out in the open sometimes a k from the safety of the scrub. So I really did strike gold when I worked them out.

[JimTom]

Yeah mate not far from Charters Towers, however pretty hard to get into anywhere. I go up to the Gulf a few times a year. Terrain varies from dryish savanah with dams, to thick rubber vine along the rivers, mangroves, open salt pans, as well as swamps. Most of my hunting until now has been done off the Ute shooting what the dogs don’t catch, hunting on quad, or stalking through swamps.

[Blr243]

Couple of tips here if you are night walking. Remembering that when we are day walking our eyes are in constant connection with our soroundings and as we move forward the opportunities to see pigs is ever increaseing and changing as our view around the edges of bushes improves. And if we are really onto it walking slowly glassing and stopping obviously we are going to see more pigs ...... but when I did two or three hunts with a thermal scope prior to thermal binos I had to force myself to stop and scan as often as possible Terrain and thickness of scrub obviously dictated how often I needed to do this. It’s easy to see that at night if I’m stopping and scanning every 20 m for 5/10 seconds that I’m not at all in constant connection with my surroundings So I used to do a step counting method of forcing to stop and look eg every 20/50 / 100 steps depending on conditions and vegetation... this definitely helped me to increase the amount of looking and improved my detection rate. Also if standing and bring the rifle to the shoulder and useing both arms to support rifle while scanning and if done often enough it’s tiring and could encourage you to scan less. I quickly adapted to this by by resting the butt o f the stock on my shoulder , rotating the axis of the rifle 90 degrees so that the flat part of the stock sits on my shoulder ... then both your arms are closer to your body and it’s lesss physically demanding when scanning the bush for game

[Blr243]

I have probably done 50 plus nights last year with my dedicated red light worn mostly on my skull and my white led lender slung around my neck. So whenever I needed some good white light I had to swap them or temporarily fit my led lender around my head same time. But just yesterday I realised I could easily wear both at same time and just operate them as required. There not obstructing each other and it works much better Not sure why it took me so long to work that out

[Blr243]

And for anyone who’s ever been annoyed by sloppy worn out elastic on their head torches. You can buy black elastic of variable width from spotlight and just tie a knot in the back of it. That was suck a relief once that was sorted.

[Blr243]

And for anyone who’s ever been annoyed by sloppy worn out elastic on their head torches. You can buy black elastic of variable width from spotlight and just tie a knot in the back of it. That was suck a relief once that was sorted.

[JimTom]

Thanks for the tips mate, appreciate it.

[ratpaker]

Ok guys, pard thermals are here, I have a sa45lrf which is 45mm lens and built in range finder.
Priced at $4900
Also have the SA35 without range finder, priced at $3200.
Lucky we got these before the Aussie dollar dropped (66 us cents at the moment! )
Anyway, I don't drop in here that often so any questions please give me a call on 0420363045.
Cheers, Neil

[mchughcb]

Do you have an av plug to record some footage?

[ratpaker]

Do you have an av plug to record some footage?

Unfortunately no, not yet, they have an AV output but haven't received the lead yet to adapt an DVR onto it, pity, its an odd looking plug, not something I can source locally unfortunately

[rbaron25]

The last pig I shot

That’s not a pig that’s a monster

[rbaron25]

Unfortunately no, not yet, they have an AV output but haven't received the lead yet to adapt an DVR onto it, pity, its an odd looking plug, not something I can source locally unfortunately

A shame they didn’t go with a USB c or something generic. How much for a rangefinder if you buy it seperate?

[Blr243]

When I walked over to t hat pig it took me a while to process it it was so big I thought there w a s something wrong with it it has taken me 25 years to shoot one that big