Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics educate me. thermals and night vision...

I bought a Sniper Hog light and it is great. I picked the 50LRX Gun Hunters Package IR 850nm and for $20 got and extra bulb in Green. They shipped the following day and got it quite fast and I was able to use some sort of coupon to bring the price down by $20

Here is the link. You may not want all the accessories, but the light itself is more than what I need with my Wraith 2-16x NV and way better than the IR illuminator it comes with. The green bulb is also excellent.
IR illuminator from Sniper Hoghttps://sniperhoglights.com/50lrx-gun-hunters-package-with-1-4-colors/

From looking at the price now hasn't changed much in the past 3years

Never messed w this stuff.
See the Sightmark mini Wraith is under 500 on sale.
I don't hunt much below freezing.

The guys came over to shoot today, and I played with the wraith/grendel. The sun warmed the gongs up enough to see them well, and it was no problem banging them to 300 yards. Now to catch a coyote out in the meadow one night.... I named the little Wraith 'Hansel'. Hansel and Grendel.....

I use the Night Snipe n750 from Predatorhunteroutdoors.com

Supposely it will illuminate 1,000 yds. It allows one to telescope as well as change intensity of the illumination. Far superior to the illuminator that comes with the kit.

https://www.predatorhunteroutdoors....g-dimmable-hunting-kit-nightsnipe-ns750/

I've taken a ton of hogs during the time I've used it.

It has served me well for st least 5 years coupled with my Browning X-Bolt and the ATN 4K Pro 5-20 NV optic.

The distance in the Vid is 120 yds.



ya!

GWB

The new IR illuminator is a tad better but had 3 pigs in the woods on the edge of a pasture, could see em plain as day at 200 yards with the thermal but had to get up to under 100 to see them with the NV and even then I just couldn’t get a confident shot.

Lesson for the day? Thermal is king.

Edit to add; the new IR illuminator is maybe a whole bunch better if you use it as intended. I had it focused all the way in thinking that was giving me the spotlight but instead that was the flood mode. Just mounted it on a more even plane with the scope and tried it on actual spot light mode and I can see trees and past trees out to about 200 yards now. I might make this work after all.

The focus really matters, even on the big lights. 250yd “shootability” should be rather realistic when focused tight.

Just mounted a iRay Bolt 35TL on my 6.5 CM. Working to get it sighted in now. Lots of menus to learn, for sure

Make sure your light is shining the same direction that your scope is looking as well.

If you have an adjustable mount for the light, you have to "sight it in" so to speak to aim where you are looking. With a good light, and a tight beam, you should be able to see much, much further than you can shoot. I have no trouble seeing 800 plus yards with mine.

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I tried it around the house but I didn’t have any adjustment in the mount and thought it would be good enough. Open ground I saw skunks, coyotes and deer out to 250 yards or so (night time distance is a guess at best). The flood in the trees really cut down any usefulness.

Lessons learned.

One thing I learned though is to have a small red light handy. Sometimes the simplest things make you go WTF in pitch black dark.

Went out tonight and tried the new Armasight Watchman IR illuminator in the offset and it lined up perfectly. Saw and ID’d deer and coyotes way out there.

Thermal is still my goal but this will work for now.

One more thing I know I've read and heard but bears repeating is a scanner is great with a 1.5 or 2x magnification to have a good FOV but the sight needs to be higher magnification regardless of the resolution. Every time you increase zoom, the resolution gets cut in half. Trying to ID something at 1000 yards and cutting your resolution down drives me insane.

So question, how do the clip on thermals work when you zoom your scope instead of the thermal?

I ran this past my Burris Tech Rep and he replied:

"Burris clip-on thermal *does* still have a zoom function, and it works just like any other thermal zoom. When zooming the dayscope however, all you're doing is zooming in on the display screen at the back of the clip-on. This isn't much of an issue at low powers, hence why I much prefer to use the BTC with LPVOs like the RT-6, or a fixed-power prism sight like the RT-3 or RT-5.

Something to keep in mind is that the clip-on's zoom may not be centered on the same point as the dayscope's crosshair, which is why we have the image shift function built into BTC's menus - typically though, I don't recommend using it as it can change your point of impact when the clip-on is attached. In the field, I'll use the thermal zoom to ID a target, then zoom out and use the dayscope zoom to actually engage it."

That is funny!

It's the same sort of dilema.

With a clip on you have 2 options.

#1 Leave the day scope the same and using digital zoom of the thermal.

#2 is to zoom the day optic into the thermals display.

Both options are 2 sides of the same coin.

One major advantage of the clip on at 1x is using the dials on the day scope for hold over. If one uses the digital zoom on the thermal then that advantage goes away.

Just went outside to compare thermal digital zoom to day optic zoom into the thermal display with a StingIR 640 res clip-on mounted in front of a Leupould 3-18x50mm VX-6 HD.

Both day scope and thermal are 1.640" above the rail (2.875 over bore line) and I have a 25mm reducer on the objective to limit the amount of stray light entering the scope.

Deer at 500yds are identifiable both ways but I prefer the thermal on 1X and use the zoom on the day scope. I prefer the image of thermal at 1X and scope zoomed to 9X if I was shooting.

Adjusting the digital zoom on a clip on is a pain due to the thermal being out in front of the scope and harder to reach. Finding the right button to push to zoom couldbe problematic in a hunting situation where as zooming the day optic is very simple.

The AGM StingIR does not have digital zoom in clip on mode but you can use it in scan mode to test the effect.

The StingIR is 8 ozs and really does a lot of things pretty well.

Thanks Doug and John.

To me with the day scope it seems you would be zooming on 640 vs cutting down the resolution to 320 by zooming the thermal. By just holding my scanner in front of a 1-6 Trijicon, the image seems better.

Lots to learn.

John, I guess you have to focus the reticle of the day scope onto the screen of the thermal clip on? It seems weird, and I am still torn between a thermal scope and a clip on. I have a Trijicon Creedo 1-8 FFP which is a good scope, or a NF 2.5 x 10 x 42 I could use. It sounds like either way will work, and there is no real advantage to a clip on or a dedicated thermal.

The Arken NV showed up and I can't even try it out. The frigging thing don't even ship with a battery. And there are no 18650 flattop batteries within 50 miles of here to get 'er going. The thing is sure little, and it looks solid. On the hunt for batteries.....