Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Thermal or night vision scope?

I have been thinking of picking up a scope specifically for shooting pigs at night. Which is better? I would like to keep it under $3000 and $2000 would be better but can you get decent equipment for that price? What am I looking for and are there any specific models to look at or to stay away from. This is new to me but tired of them running off when you flip a light on.

use a red light they won't run. Or a green light is sorta ok. I've never had one look at a red light.

Thermal you can "find" them a lot further off.

But lately my buddy has been playing with his night vision scope, and a strong IR illuminator. Used to be on a dark cloudy night we had to be about 150 yards or so before you could shoot with confidence. Last hunt we toyed with it more and adjusted the beam and my nephew could ID what type of animals at about 350 yards.

You get what you pay for. Buy cheap and it likely won't work well at all, but then again it might work better than white light.

I've shot so many with a bow and red light and not turning the light on until I hear them. Turn it on pointing up, then slowly lower it...

Would a Gen 2 4x or 6x scope from TNVC be decent?

Lemme ask, but I think my buddy went Gen 3 for a reason. magnification is not an issue unless it is in your head. You can shoot a long ways with 4x.

Most of my hunting used to be with 3x9s and always left on 3x. Now I use a fixed 6x Leupold mostly and it works from 5 feet to further than 400 yards. Don't have a whole lot of places around here to shoot further

I spoke with my Flir rep as Flir is the #1 in Thermal and he replied:

Here you go…These are the top ones that I would suggest.



The Predator can get in 1-2 weeks.



The PTS233 is around 6-8 weeks.



TAT173WN2PRED21 Predator 336 2-8x25 (30 Hz) Thermal Imaging Weapon Sight, FLIR Tau 2 - 336x256 (17μm) 30Hz Core, 25 mm Lens


TAT163WN2PRED11 Predator 640 1-8x25 (30 Hz) Thermal Imaging Weapon Sight, FLIR Tau 2 - 640x512 (17μm) 30Hz Core, 25mm Lens


TAB173WN9RX0011 Thermosight pro PTS233 1.5-6x19 Thermal Imaging Weapon Sight, FLIR Boson - 320x256 (12μm) 60Hz Core, 19 mm Lens

Please check these out and let me know your thoughts

Thanks Doug!

My pleasure. Take a peek at those and give me a call tomorrow if you have time

Thanks for all the help. I ended up going with a Pulsar Trail 384 XQ30