Thermal hunting

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Thermal hunting

Post by brinny » 21 Jan 2018, 10:00 am

Hi all....new here....I was wondering does anyone here use thermal in their hunting exploits....I have been into thermal hunting for some 18 months now and it is by far a game changer in how i hunt at night....
My set up is a Pulsar Apex XD75 thermal scope on a Sako 85 varmint in 204R, and a Pulsar Quantum XQ50 monoculor......Deadly combo....

Image
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brinny » 21 Jan 2018, 3:09 pm

For those unfamiliar with thermal, i can record what im looking at and shooting....this is what it is like...This fox was just short of 300m away....

https://youtu.be/ZIgbiEa6f1s
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by marksman » 21 Jan 2018, 3:34 pm

that is awesome brinny :drinks:
what was it in the background running off after the shot? :unknown:
I'm glad you've put this up as I am interested in thermal although I may not have the coin for it for a while :thumbsup:
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brinny » 21 Jan 2018, 4:29 pm

Cheers marksman....I have hundreds of such video clips as im really into my fox shooting.....Think it was one of the farmers sheep laying down over the brow of that hill i was looking at that wandered off after the shot....
The thermal gear is pricey, but after you get over the initial shock of the purchase, (and the ear bashing from the wife) you soon realise the benefits of it....I have cleaned up all the light shy critters that were about and some....with thermal there is no need for any light whatso ever....darker the better....

Heres another clip....

https://youtu.be/hCasPtAIfEs
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by andreweden » 21 Jan 2018, 5:24 pm

Do you prefer white hot or black hot? I notice it was different for each of the vids you put up.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brinny » 21 Jan 2018, 5:29 pm

andreweden wrote:Do you prefer white hot or black hot? I notice it was different for each of the vids you put up.


Prefer the black hot to white hot mate....image tends to stand out better in black than white....it was a bit of trial and error when i first bought it to find the better option....It is a hell of a lot clearer looking through the scope than what it is on the video clip.....
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by andreweden » 21 Jan 2018, 5:49 pm

After the last download of the trail cam at our farm we found a pack of wild dogs visiting at random times but always dead of night. Thinking I might have wife permission sorted for one of these. Why did you choose Pulsar over the ATN?
Do you swap back to a normal scope for day use or does it become your night only gear?
Or do you just use the thermal during the day as well?
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brinny » 21 Jan 2018, 6:04 pm

andreweden wrote:After the last download of the trail cam at our farm we found a pack of wild dogs visiting at random times but always dead of night. Thinking I might have wife permission sorted for one of these. Why did you choose Pulsar over the ATN?
Do you swap back to a normal scope for day use or does it become your night only gear?
Or do you just use the thermal during the day as well?


Righto....
First hurdle is wifes permission....your halfway there....
You will have more chance on the dogs with a thermal than daytime scopes and lights.....Set yourself up on a carcass and keep scanning and they have NFI your even there....untill its too late....I have walked within a few meters of foxes with the wind in my face, just for the excersize to see how close i can get....
I chose the Pulsar through recomendation and no other reason, to be honest i didnt even look at the ATN.......it is a fantastic scope that has given me no problems at all to date....Same with the monoculor...
My thermal setup is a dedicated setup and i only use it at night.......I have it on a Sako 85 varmint in 204R....I have another Sako 85 varmint in 223 with a leupold VX3 6.5-20x56 on it for daytime/night time shooting....It was my go to rifle until i set the thermal up....now it seems it is a safe queen...
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by andreweden » 21 Jan 2018, 6:16 pm

Thanks for all that. Good info.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brett1868 » 21 Jan 2018, 7:06 pm

Good stuff, I've had the XD50 since they came out a few years ago and have it setup on a .308 as I'm targeting something a bit larger then foxes. Awesome bit of technology and as brinny said the footage on YouTube doesn't reflect the full quality of what you see in the reticule. I'm guessing your using the CVR640 recorder, they do the job but I'm not sure if it's a limitation of the recorder or the video out of the scope that limits the quality.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by marksman » 21 Jan 2018, 7:27 pm

andreweden wrote:Thanks for all that. Good info.


+1 :drinks:
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brinny » 21 Jan 2018, 7:37 pm

brett1868 wrote:Good stuff, I've had the XD50 since they came out a few years ago and have it setup on a .308 as I'm targeting something a bit larger then foxes. Awesome bit of technology and as brinny said the footage on YouTube doesn't reflect the full quality of what you see in the reticule. I'm guessing your using the CVR640 recorder, they do the job but I'm not sure if it's a limitation of the recorder or the video out of the scope that limits the quality.


Good stuff Brett....love to see some of your footage mate....
I started off with the CVR 640, but couldnt record sound with it, but i wanted sound, so had a look around and ended up getting a GSCI sound recorder...great quality and picks up ALL the noises.....Just had to make up a bracket to mount it under the scope and it plugged straight in ready to use....Only thing wrong with it is it has a screen on the side that would light up the city of Melbourne at night, so a few layers of the grey plumbers tape fixed that problem....
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by YoungBuck » 21 Jan 2018, 8:30 pm

Nice haul mate, I'd love to get a thermal scope as I also love my foxing. If I wanted to - I could go out and buy one tomorrow but I just cant justify the price of one considering I haven't got land to shoot on and don't own rural land myself.
Unless I could arrange access to multiple properties to make it worth while (and recoup some of the cost via the bounty) I'll just keep using my trusty scope mounted spotlight :)
It'll shoot the fleas off a dog's back at five hundred yards, Tannen, and it's pointed straight at your head!
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brett1868 » 21 Jan 2018, 8:33 pm

Good stuff Brett....love to see some of your footage mate....
I started off with the CVR 640, but couldnt record sound with it, but i wanted sound, so had a look around and ended up getting a GSCI sound recorder...great quality and picks up ALL the noises.....Just had to make up a bracket to mount it under the scope and it plugged straight in ready to use....Only thing wrong with it is it has a screen on the side that would light up the city of Melbourne at night, so a few layers of the grey plumbers tape fixed that problem....


I'll check out that recorder cause I gave up for a couple reasons, quality wasn't very good and I couldn't mount the recorder to the rifle as it wasn't a fan of recoil. I've found that thermal is awesome if I'm on my own laying in wait to kill a pest but it takes all the fun out of spotlighting with the cousin. I think of spotlighting as a bit like fishing, the driving around looking for movement and getting that shot away whereas thermal is a bit like buying your fish in the shop. Same result but one is more fun then the other :)

Clip in the link is me stalking our cat when she was a kitten, not the best focus up close as it needs a minimum of 10m.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dZ9uOBWiNs

How did you zero yours? I ended up using some 1" foil dots to create a temp differential on the target as I couldn't see any of the print.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by andreweden » 21 Jan 2018, 9:00 pm

That is something I am attracted to on the ATN is the in built recording.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brinny » 21 Jan 2018, 9:03 pm

brett1868 wrote:
Good stuff Brett....love to see some of your footage mate....
I started off with the CVR 640, but couldnt record sound with it, but i wanted sound, so had a look around and ended up getting a GSCI sound recorder...great quality and picks up ALL the noises.....Just had to make up a bracket to mount it under the scope and it plugged straight in ready to use....Only thing wrong with it is it has a screen on the side that would light up the city of Melbourne at night, so a few layers of the grey plumbers tape fixed that problem....


I'll check out that recorder cause I gave up for a couple reasons, quality wasn't very good and I couldn't mount the recorder to the rifle as it wasn't a fan of recoil. I've found that thermal is awesome if I'm on my own laying in wait to kill a pest but it takes all the fun out of spotlighting with the cousin. I think of spotlighting as a bit like fishing, the driving around looking for movement and getting that shot away whereas thermal is a bit like buying your fish in the shop. Same result but one is more fun then the other :)

Clip in the link is me stalking our cat when she was a kitten, not the best focus up close as it needs a minimum of 10m.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dZ9uOBWiNs

How did you zero yours? I ended up using some 1" foil dots to create a temp differential on the target as I couldn't see any of the print.


I got my thermals and recorder through australian shooters supplies in WA....Alan is his name and one of the most knowledgable blokes to talk to with no pressure sales pitch at all...If your after a GSCI recorder, look him up....great to deal with....I do more walking now than ever before with the thermal thats for sure....but as im getting old, fat and lazy, thats nort a bad thing...keeps me fit......I did the same as you with the tinfoil....seems to be the system of choice with sighting in the thermals....but my square was a bit bigger than an inch.....took some mucking around to try to get my head around the one shot sighting in system too.....works well now that i know how to do it...but it was more like 25 shots to sight it in at the start, but got there oin the end....

Here is some footage having a crack at a 3 inch bit of bisaloy on a pendalum at 130m in the daytime at my sighting in facility.......
https://youtu.be/PfwnZ1JvsD4
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brett1868 » 21 Jan 2018, 9:11 pm

Love your work and I'll investigate the recorder, I have a dealer account with the Australian importer of Pulsar (Extravision in QLD) which makes shooting a bit more affordable for me.

A word on ATN....I've owned ATN scopes and will never own another, the 1 I had was returned and money refunded.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brinny » 21 Jan 2018, 9:13 pm

YoungBuck wrote:Nice haul mate, I'd love to get a thermal scope as I also love my foxing. If I wanted to - I could go out and buy one tomorrow but I just cant justify the price of one considering I haven't got land to shoot on and don't own rural land myself.
Unless I could arrange access to multiple properties to make it worth while (and recoup some of the cost via the bounty) I'll just keep using my trusty scope mounted spotlight :)


Cheers mate....yeah...they are costly thats for sure....but hell we only live once and i dont have any other interest so i thought what the hell....My scope when i bought it was $8,400, and that was with a battery pack and CVR 640 recorder...the GSCI recorder was another $500 on top of that...the monoculor was just under $6,000....Will take a hell of a lot of fox scalps to recoup the money i have put into it....but its not all about the money....its about the hunting and technology available to us these days.i guess that interests me enough to warrent spending the money.......oh, and nothing wrong with the trusty scope mounted light either..... :thumbsup:
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brinny » 21 Jan 2018, 9:16 pm

andreweden wrote:That is something I am attracted to on the ATN is the in built recording.


Dont know anything about them mate, so cant offer comment or advice, but Brett1868 here seems to have, be worth having a chat to him....Pulsar have a new line out now with built in recorders too....
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by andreweden » 21 Jan 2018, 9:17 pm

brinny wrote:
andreweden wrote:That is something I am attracted to on the ATN is the in built recording.


Dont know anything about them mate, so cant offer comment or advice, but Brett1868 here seems to have, be worth having a chat to him....Pulsar have a new line out now with built in recorders too....

Choices choices! :clap:
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by bigfellascott » 21 Jan 2018, 9:26 pm

I used my mates ATN I think it was, it didn't do much for me at all, I found it annoying to use to be honest, I had issues of not being able to see for a minute or so after using it, I tiny screen to look for things etc, much rather a spotlight and scope myself and the price of these things is way too much for me to have tied up just so I can shoot animals.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brinny » 21 Jan 2018, 9:34 pm

bigfellascott wrote:I used my mates ATN I think it was, it didn't do much for me at all, I found it annoying to use to be honest, I had issues of not being able to see for a minute or so after using it, I tiny screen to look for things etc, much rather a spotlight and scope myself and the price of these things is way too much for me to have tied up just so I can shoot animals.


Hear where your comming from mate....each to their own....the black spot in the eyes is very common, but does dissapear quickly though....Thermal has its benefits, like being able to spot critters out at one and a half kms away...cant identify them of course at that range, but you can see that there is something there and go take a look....cant do that with spotlights...can find critters easily with thermal after shooting them at distance than you can with lights....especially in thick scrub etc...there is good and bad points to both....comes down to personal choice i guess....
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brett1868 » 21 Jan 2018, 10:01 pm

Check out the Leupold LTO Tracker which retail around the $950 mark, I bought one to do the initial scanning and spotting. Much easier and lighter then swinging a rifle around and excellent for following blood trails or finding pests post shooting to ensure they're dead. Leupold also have a cheaper model "LTO-Quest" that combines a thermal imager along with a torch though I haven't played with one yet.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by Stix » 21 Jan 2018, 10:47 pm

I too like my foxing...but for that price ill keep with the sporting option & stick to my spotlight.

Good footage though...i would like to give it a crack.

Id imagine you'd want access to many properties to avoid shooting out all hunting stock pretty quickly.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by juststarting » 21 Jan 2018, 11:06 pm

This is something I've been keeping an eye on, specifically the ATN X-Sight II scope. Especially that I am a night owl and this could work for Friday night hunts. I heard good reports about it. Especially when the IR torch is replaced by something with a bit more power.

brett1868 wrote:A word on ATN....I've owned ATN scopes and will never own another, the 1 I had was returned and money refunded.

Brett, can you share more details? Model, issues, inherent issues in future models perhaps, etc?
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by brinny » 22 Jan 2018, 3:39 am

brett1868 wrote:Check out the Leupold LTO Tracker which retail around the $950 mark, I bought one to do the initial scanning and spotting. Much easier and lighter then swinging a rifle around and excellent for following blood trails or finding pests post shooting to ensure they're dead. Leupold also have a cheaper model "LTO-Quest" that combines a thermal imager along with a torch though I haven't played with one yet.


The leupold tracker is a hell of a lot cheaper than the Pulsar XQ50 monoculor....What functions does it have on it Brett?....can you record with it at all?....I bought my monoculor for the very reason you say about swinging your rifle around....after lifting the rifle up and down 150 times a night the arms are about ready to drop off.....Im pretty impressed with the monoculor and all its functions, although i dont use a heck of a lot of them....

My Pulsar monoculor
https://i.imgur.com/6t2ZrKg.jpg

Here is some footage of a fox i took filming with the monoculor early one morning.....
https://youtu.be/Au92iy49bLM
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by RoginaJack » 22 Jan 2018, 9:02 am

Nice work and very, very interested. Went to the Brisbane gun shop to check out the ATN but too many kids playing with them. I'd need a day/night scope combobut not too sure.about the ATN.
Anyway, enjoyed the videos and report.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by marksman » 22 Jan 2018, 9:42 am

juststarting wrote:This is something I've been keeping an eye on, specifically the ATN X-Sight II scope. Especially that I am a night owl and this could work for Friday night hunts. I heard good reports about it. Especially when the IR torch is replaced by something with a bit more power.

brett1868 wrote:A word on ATN....I've owned ATN scopes and will never own another, the 1 I had was returned and money refunded.

Brett, can you share more details? Model, issues, inherent issues in future models perhaps, etc?


I owned an x-sight 2 5-20 and it went back, do not believe the bullchit from the atn sales man or x-sight owners group, I would not buy again :thumbsdown:
it is to good to be true and they are made for an ar format they do not fit hunting rifles properly, you cannot stretch your neck enough :shock:
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by juststarting » 22 Jan 2018, 10:07 am

My feedback, though brief, came directly from a person I know... So I am interested in specifics, rather than blanket statements like 'dont believe the salesman'.

So far we have height.
Anything else?

I'm not saying anyone is full of crap, by the way. I'm just after technical review about what makes it bad. Entry level is circa $1k which is a lot of money for a toy. Hence I'd like to know the details.
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Re: Thermal hunting

Post by andreweden » 22 Jan 2018, 10:36 am

I am also curious if those that have sent ATNs back whether they were thermal or night vision?
I think the X-sights are all night vision which all require some form of illumination whether moon/starlight or an IR spotty.
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