Thermal hunting

Rifle scopes, iron sights and optics. Spotting scopes and target acquisition devices.

Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brett1868 » 29 Jan 2018, 11:09 pm

andreweden wrote:
brett1868 wrote:
juststarting wrote:The price tag, holly crapola!


Come talk to me young fella, I'll hook you up with a mates rates price on a Pulsar :)
Actually thinking to sell my XD50 and buying the clip on version so I can use an assortment of rifles, no fun just dedicating it to the 308/338 SRS when I could bolt it to the .243.

Nah, he wants to build his own Mad Max beyond thunderdome jobby. I might take it off your hands ;-)


Lemme talk to Goran tomorrow and see what dealer pricing looks like on the Pulsar FXD50, not high on my list of things to spend money on at the moment. I've got Warracknabeal open in April then US titles end of June so funds are a bit tight.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by andreweden » 29 Jan 2018, 11:12 pm

No huge hurry here either, Singapore Airshow next week and work travel for most of Feb.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by Baronvonrort » 30 Jan 2018, 8:16 pm

juststarting wrote:Actually, since you've mentioned a clip-on - I have been looking at DIY IR scopes and I am intrigued, surely it can't be that easy to make one, but from everything I am seeing - it is. So I am going to try to build a spotter. If that works, will try to kick it up to clip on, if not - we will talk :) But I haveto try now.


Thermal is the go I wouldn't bother with IR, talk to Krusty if he will do a good price, he posted a video where it showed the footprints his cat left on the floor
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by juststarting » 30 Jan 2018, 8:23 pm

I am not that into it, to drop that amount of cash on what I wouldn't use more than once or twice a year... I'd rather spend that money on hookers, blow and something in 50BMG. :)
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by RoginaJack » 30 Jan 2018, 8:53 pm

Hey "Juststaring, you've got your priorities back the front - 1st 50BMG. :mrgreen:
Boom, Boom! Tikka, Tikka, Boom! Shoot first, video later.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by juststarting » 30 Jan 2018, 9:07 pm

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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by RoginaJack » 31 Jan 2018, 2:53 pm

:clap: :clap: :D
Boom, Boom! Tikka, Tikka, Boom! Shoot first, video later.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by axio » 16 Feb 2018, 11:17 am

Looks like they fixed a bunch of issues with the previous ATN night scope in the new 4k Pro model.

From ATN so i'd take it with a grain of salt, keen to see some consumer reviews when it's released. At around $1k for a 5-20x Night scope thats not bad.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by YoungBuck » 16 Feb 2018, 2:57 pm

I question whether that really is 4k. Might be recording at 4k, but there's no way there's 4k worth of pixels in the tiny eye piece
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by axio » 16 Feb 2018, 3:40 pm

YoungBuck wrote:I question whether that really is 4k. Might be recording at 4k, but there's no way there's 4k worth of pixels in the tiny eye piece


Correct, reading from the spec sheet the sensor is 4K > ATN 4K M265 Sensor, 3864 (H) x 2218 (V)

Eyepiece screen is 1280x720 which should be plenty for something that size

With a 4K sensor that should resolve a lot of the pixelation when zoomed in (heres hoping), that turned me off the previous ATN model.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by Elite_Sniper » 07 Oct 2019, 7:14 pm

My recommendation would definitely be a combo of both nv and thermal. All is dependent on the property's. Why I say that is I hunt a lot of different properties and will cover many miles driving blacked out during a night. Sometimes in a truck, sometimes in a side by side, thermal doesn't work through glass and doesn't work well for navigating and being able to see terrain features like nv can. So I use a pvs14 on my right eye and a Flir Breach on my left. Driving is easy with the 14 and can scan out the window with the Breach. I'm strong right eye dominant so I'm really not seeing the thermal at all until I close my right eye.

With that being said, a used pvs14 or 7 can be had for a very reasonable price then put the rest on a thermal. The xp50 would be a solid choice some of my friends have them. I've got the Reap ir and love it but it's around your whole budget. The N-vision Halo is pretty badass as well. Looked through one a few months ago and the image was comparable if not slightly better than the Trijicon. Feel free to extend your knowledge about modern options through reading an article about hunting scopes, those guys create really useful and unbiased reviews :thumbsup:
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by 8x57 » 08 Oct 2019, 7:33 am

Had my first trip with thermal( pulsar) recently and it was an eye opener. I only had a monocular and even though it was great at locating animals that I would have never seen, I found switching from Thermal to white light to take the shot was a bit cumbersome.
I will definitely be picking up a pulsar rifle scope to complete the transition.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by Baronvonrort » 08 Oct 2019, 7:46 am

The best solution for those with $$$ might be a roof rack mounted thermal hooked up to a laptop with mouse for scanning then taking the shot with rifle mounted thermal scope.

https://www.flir.com.au/applications/marine/
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by 8x57 » 08 Oct 2019, 8:14 am

Baronvonrort wrote:The best solution for those with $$$ might be a roof rack mounted thermal hooked up to a laptop with mouse for scanning then taking the shot with rifle mounted thermal scope.

https://www.flir.com.au/applications/marine/

I’ve seen this set up on another forum minus the thermal scope , they had the thermal aligned with a spotlight and a red laser pointer, wifi to laptop in the vehicle. Basically the laser pointer was to align the shooter with the target prior to turning on the white light seemed a pretty efficient set up.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by Blr243 » 08 Oct 2019, 10:26 am

I do mostly walking with my thermal gear but when I’m temporarily mobile because of bigger distances I have to cover I greatly favour my quad rather than my hilux. ( the cold tortures me in winter but at least I don’t have a windscreen in the way. ... I tried a thermal bino on top of my dog cage that sits at the back of my quad .. it sent a wifi signal to my iPad that I had mounted up front so I could see it at all times ... but I found that as I was driving slow and quiet with not even my red head lights on, it was easier to simply hold the binos in my left hand and scan like that, stopping for a better and more stable look when required. Then when game is identified I know I can rely on the silent approach on foot. I would dismount with binos and rifle and walk into the wind towards my target/s I am so incredibly lucky that this 8-10 sq kilometres of farming land is s o incredibly flat with not a single ditch or watercourse to run into. If it were not for the occasional tree or pile of logs I could drive it in the dark safely blindfolded. The flatness also suits my bipod / prone shooting position .. there’s never even a slight mound of earth in the way .....I just need to win lotto so I can hunt there for a week every month
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by xDom » 08 Oct 2019, 1:22 pm

I posted a while back that after a fair bit of home work, I bought a cheapie "Night Tech" Thermal imager. It was always gonna be a toe in the water for me, so far I've been quite impressed. I have been reading more about them since and this is a run down on what I've picked up.
There are quite a few specs that need to be taken into consideration before buying a thermal spotter, without knowing the basics you could easily drop a large amount of dosh on something that's gonna disappoint. These are some of the ones I know about.

Imager Resolution: This the amount of thermal capturing "units", called microbolometers that are contained within the imager sensor. The lowest resolution that's seems to be acceptable is the 320x240. The next up from this is 384x288 ( what my unit has ) and after that is the 640x480. The higher the resolution the better the captured image detail. Of all the specs, this one in particular has the greatest influence on $$$.

Refresh rate: This is the amount of times a second the viewer will display a new image. A higher refresh rate gives a smoother view of the heat sources movements. Really you don't wanna go below 25 HZ as the human eye can then detect the break in images. There are some cheap units that run a 9Hz refresh rate which would give an extremely chunky view of what's happening.

Lens Size: This is the physical size of the germanium lens with in the unit. The larger the lens the further the imager can detect a heat source, there is, however a trade off. The larger the lens the smaller the field of view, also costlier. Generally for spotters, the larger field of view is preferred while on a scope the opposite is true.

Display Resolution and type: This is the details on the actual display that can be seen with the eye. It is referred to in pixel quantities. For example the Pulsar XM38 has a 1024x768 AMOLED display. This is considered to be quite high. Once again the higher the resolution the better the detail of the heat source that is captured by the imager.

Pixel Size: The size of the pixels contained within the sensor. Smaller the better. 17um seems to be the accepted with 12um being a step up on some of the Pulsar Axions.

Detection distance: This figure will be given and it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. How it is determined is by the distance the given object will be detected by one imager pixel. So that figure of say 900m for a man size object would probably be halved to give a useful sort of image. There is the ID distance and the detection distance. The detection distance is the distance that you will see something where the ID is where the object can be ID'd.

These figures all contribute to the quality of the viewer. They need to be considered in conjuction with one another. There are certain models that have a lower image sensor resolution yet compensate for it by higher display resolution and smaller pixel size. If you take a look at the monocular that's shown on this page:

https://www.nighthunter.com.au/thermal- ... hd-25-lite

This is the model I went for. It's a common body shape that's used in a lot of different viewers that are manufactured under different brand names eg, Night Tech, Pearl, Guide, Stag, IMax and Iray being a few of them. If you want to go for a known and respected brand eg Pulsar, you wont get the same level of specs for a particular price point than if you go for one of the, can I say " knock off ", brands that I just listed.
On the other hand there are some cheap units that come from respected brands that offer extremely low level specs ( to the point of almost being useless). The Leupold Tracker is probably the best example. If you want get into thermal at entry price point then I feel you're much better going for one of the "knock off" brands.
If you don't mind spending big then by all means go for the premium brands. I know my next purchase will be a Pulsar ( XQ38f ) a way down the track though.

After all this, I'll say that my budget handheld thermal is awesome, it makes hunting so much more enjoyable and I use probably 3 times a week.
Last edited by xDom on 18 Oct 2019, 6:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by Blr243 » 08 Oct 2019, 1:31 pm

Thanks for that. I learned a couple of things. I will keep spotting with my thermal binos but once within 50-75 metres I’m going to experiment with my currently inactive n v scope it’s got a pretty good Illuminator mounted on it. ...if I can clearly identify my target and make nice accurate ethical shots I will pursue it a bit to see how it goes ..... if it gives me any grief I will resort back to my current set up
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by xDom » 08 Oct 2019, 1:43 pm

Blr243 wrote:Thanks for that. I learned a couple of things. I will keep spotting with my thermal binos but once within 50-75 metres I’m going to experiment with my currently inactive n v scope it’s got a pretty good Illuminator mounted on it. ...if I can clearly identify my target and make nice accurate ethical shots I will pursue it a bit to see how it goes ..... if it gives me any grief I will resort back to my current set up



For what it's worth your Pulsar XP50 is an awesome bit of kit.. However if you feel like stepping things up, check out this bad boy.

https://www.opticalsolutions.uk/index.p ... order=DESC


I wanna buy a couple of them to mount on top of the ute.. F##k Yeah!
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by Blr243 » 08 Oct 2019, 7:24 pm

Seeing things like that makes me wish I was a barrister instead of a carpenter. I ain’t buying one of them
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by JSS » 09 Oct 2019, 7:43 am

So i've been toying with the idea of a thermal rifle scope for a while and think it may progress to the "how can i possibly live without one" stage quite easily. A bloke i know has a pulsar trail and he loves it, but it's a couple of years old now so i assume the tech may have progressed since then?
So what are the top pics out there at the moment? BLR what are your thoughts on yours? is it the trail or thermion model?
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by Blr243 » 09 Oct 2019, 10:48 am

I asked my dealer and as far as picture quality, resolution, detection range etc he said there was no difference Thermion turns on quivker if u are in a hurry. Lowest mag on thermionn is 2 times power. It’s 1.6 times power on the trail. Thermal scopes are a bastard regarding field of view at close range when u have to shoot fast The diff between 1.6 and two might seem like nothing but remember in daylight you can use your peripheral vision to help u swing onto rapidly departing targets when u have scope set on low power. ..... But at night peripheral vision does not exist and you rely on your scopes wide field of view to help you swing onto targets Thermion targets / animals are visible in lots of pretty colours but are you an artist or a hunter?.....Thermion fits straight into rings where trail mounts to a base that clips over a pic or weaver rail. .........based on the field of view stats I would take the trail. They are both similarly priced.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by Blr243 » 09 Oct 2019, 11:00 am

Beware. Thermal hunting is an addiction that does not stop once the scope has been bought . It will make you hunt more , more expense , more wear and tear on your car , buying more car tyres , more time off work away from family and friends ......something often overlooked is that if u were to hunt with a bunch of mates in summer that don’t have thermal gear , they will be hunting in the heat , morning and arv ....while they sweat away , u can lay back in a chair under a shady tree and drift offf to sleep ....then once the sun is down u will have ten hours of cool to hunt in. And u will shoot most of the pigs then go back to camp to sleep again. Then your mates will wander off into the heat again looking for pigs but they won’t see any because you already shot them all last night. .....I have shot 97 this year and I hope to make it 150 before the year is done .....downside is I’m so broke from all this hunting and not doing much work
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by 8x57 » 09 Oct 2019, 11:58 am

Blr243 wrote:Beware. Thermal hunting is an addiction that does not stop once the scope has been bought . It will make you hunt more , more expense , more wear and tear on your car , buying more car tyres , more time off work away from family and friends ......something often overlooked is that if u were to hunt with a bunch of mates in summer that don’t have thermal gear , they will be hunting in the heat , morning and arv ....while they sweat away , u can lay back in a chair under a shady tree and drift offf to sleep ....then once the sun is down u will have ten hours of cool to hunt in. And u will shoot most of the pigs then go back to camp to sleep again. Then your mates will wander off into the heat again looking for pigs but they won’t see any because you already shot them all last night. .....I have shot 97 this year and I hope to make it 150 before the year is done .....downside is I’m so broke from all this hunting and not doing much work



nice one, some very valid points
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by JSS » 09 Oct 2019, 3:26 pm

Thanks BLR, some great info there, i guess i have to figure out if i want the purdy one or the wider field of view, i'm thinking f o v will win as like you say you're shooting in the dark so peripheral is just not there.
Another addiction............ oh well, the mrs never pays any attention to what's in the garage anyway.........what she doesn't know won't hurt me :lol:
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by xDom » 10 Oct 2019, 6:52 pm

BLR, did you have much trouble getting hold of your Pulsar gear? It’s rare as hens teeth.
Ringing around to all that advertise it, they can only get them in small quantities and they’re mostly snapped up before they arrive.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by xDom » 10 Oct 2019, 7:11 pm

Also, how do you go with the binoculars as opposed to a monocular. ? The model I’m looking at isn’t a lot more for the binos.
There are some that say you lose your night vision in both eyes with the binos but others say they’re better than the mono’s.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by Blr243 » 10 Oct 2019, 7:25 pm

The binos are small light weight and very easy on the eyes. No strain what so ever after I have used them I never feel like I have lost my night vision. There’s is no time to recadjust I don’t know why it just is real easy on the eyes I scan with binos then stalk useing binos during the stalk whenever required then I lay down with the thermal scope and shoot. Even if I did lose my night vision it would never be a problem because the moment I want to shoot I’m loooking through a thermal scope and at that moment night vision is the least of my worries because I don’t need it
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by Blr243 » 10 Oct 2019, 7:28 pm

Physically I would rather be looking through binos than a tube like mono. I just don’t want a telescope hanging off my body swinging around My binos sit flat against my upper chest. Right there when ever I need them. They are my best mate
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by Blr243 » 10 Oct 2019, 7:29 pm

If u are haveing trouble with stock maybe contact a wholesaler and ask them to recommend shops for you
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by Blr243 » 10 Oct 2019, 7:29 pm

Physically I would rather be looking through binos than a tube like mono. I just don’t want a telescope hanging off my body swinging around My binos sit flat against my upper chest. Right there when ever I need them. They are my best mate
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