by Ferrisweil » 05 Jan 2020, 6:26 pm
Hey Jimtom. BLR is spot on in that, when using thermal, 98% of the time I’m shooting under 100m, if not half that. As BLR said, the buzz for me is seeing how close I can stalk in start bopping them. You’ll be surprised how close you’ll get especially if you get used to reading the wind and watch the noise you’re making. We’re super quiet on the stalk. One of my mates I shoot with is SAS and he’s taught us a few good tricks....
Having said all that, there’s no reason you couldn’t take shots at 300m if you were so inclined. Wish you could post vids on here. I could show you a cool vid of a pig at 240m. You can even see the mist as it hit his head. You can also set up different “profiles” so technically speaking you can have a 100m, 200m, 300m or a “whatever distance you want” zero and with a push of a button the scope re-zeroes at the distance you need to shoot.
Again, nearly all our shots are however under 100m, and most often even under 30/40m. Like BLR said, if you can’t hear them munching, get closer lol.
We do however take shots on the run. When there’s a mob of pigs that close,’its game on and we open up. Property owners want numbers where we go and with mobs between 6-50, we’ll occasionally go through two mags each. Keep in mind, this is out on big paddocks on BIG properties.
For what it’s worth, my thermal is on a 6.5creed. I’ve found the eye relief on most thermals to be ****** and on a 308/270wm the recoil is a fair chance of smacking you with the scope in the eye. I could put a muzzle brake on (but I hate them) and don’t like wearing muffs when I’m in the field, so the 6.5 has good smack down power and that little bit less recoil which works well for my thermal.
Let me know which thermal you’re looking at. I use the Trail xp50 LRF and one of my best mates uses a Thermion XP38. We swap rifles so I’ve had a fair bit of time behind both. Another bloke messaged me the other day and I replied with the pros/cons of those two. Happy to put it up here if you want?
Hope that helps