Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Thermal optics?

Can anyone break down the basics for me, and perhaps make suggestions as to best medium to high quality makes and models for a friend, please? Drawbacks and pluses?

Unsure as to what exactly he has in store for one, but he is a PH in a southern African country and has asked me for some help. I told him I didn't know a bloody thing about the technology or any particulars but would try to find out some information for him.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Can't make things easy for you but your friend might spend a little time checking out some Texas hunting forums. Texas boys do a lot of hog hunting at night with the most amazing variety of night vision equipment. Some of it thermal. Some of it pretty spendy.

That way he could directly contact some of these folks to get their personal hands on opinions. Just a thought.

Thank you for the response.

I''m currently looking at Thermal scopes. I've been hearing good things about the Pulsar Trail models. This one seems like a decent price and has always had great reviews everywhere I can find reviews.
Pulsar Trail XQ38

Pulsar has great thermals. If we can assist you it would be our pleasure

Saw a guy struggling to get one zeroed at the range, using hand warmer packs. Do any of those things have a conventional reticle you can see in daylight?

Are you wanting a thermal (not night vision) rifle scope or a thermal viewing device (as if to find game, but not aim at it?) There is a really interesting blog called "Straightforward in a Crooked World." The author is a private security professional. He did a nice write up of the Leupold thermal imaging "monocular" that you might want to read. (I happen to find that blog way interesting in general.)

Doug,
I didn't see Pulsar listed under your "brands", do you carry them?

As of a few weeks ago we are an authorized Pulsar dealer. Our web builder is working on adding their products.
Lots of work at the moment for our web builder.
New products from existing brands we carry. Adding Pulsar and Sig products to the site, lastly 2019 price increases

Quality IR is spendy. I'd look at Trijicon, near milspec hardware.

I looked at pulsar, along with many others out there. After several months of research I ended up buying the Trijicon Mark 3
60 mm. It just stood head and shoulders above the others. It is very, very, bright, I've seen animals out to a ranged 1400 yds
(Couldn't identify),. I don't think I can emphase just how crisp the animals stand out. Where other units showed the critters
most of the time, they were fuzzy in comparison, just were not in the same league, at all.

I do have to say, I spent more on this Trijicon that Ive ever spent on any scope before (or after!). But for me the value was certainly there!!

Respects,
Richard

Many thanks to all who took the time to offer their thoughts and experiences. My buddy said that he's looking to mount a unit on a .30 cal bolt gun mostly for jackal control/hunting, and he had been told that night vision optics were known to suffer damage from exposure to bright light sources and as such wanted to know about thermal options. No idea if that is accurate or not on the NV but am trying to dig up some stuff to try to help him. Again, kind thanks. I do appreciate folks taking the time.

Your friend is partially correct, as it depends on the NV. I consider the subject matter experts in this field, a outfit called TNVC. Have your friend give them a call, they carry high end NV and IR.

Agree
I spent a lot of time looking into NV and the cheep ones had a lot of issues with light damage
the pricey high end ones not so much.
I ended up with an Aurora 8010 Day/Night and can not be happier with what I bought but I have never looked threw any others to compare.
No IR needed as of yet for me even though I picked one up.

I was looking at the Thermal Scopes but at the price and for what I have right now it is not in my list of things right at the moment.

Good luck in what you choose.

It was asked, "Do any of those things have a conventional reticle you can see in daylight?"

The simple answer is NO. The image you see in thermal imaging is a recreated picture - it is not "direct-view" optics. Also, most high-end light amplification optics have recreated imaging. In other words, when the switch is off, the screen is blank.

Thanks. The guy I watched was having major trouble gettting on target at 50 yards and was planning a night coyote hunt, that night! Didn't look like it was going to be much of a success. Has to be a better way than what he was doing.

There are scads of videos of night operations against British rabbits and foxes on the Fieldsports channel on Youtube. Those guys have some serious coin invested in their stuff as pest control is a big deal there. You can see the bullet traces most of the time.

Several companies make sub-$3k thermal sights these days that are good to shoot anything to at least 100, and see it WAY out there.