Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Thermal or Night Vision

Looking at getting some sort of night scope for coyote hunting. The people that have either thermal or night vision, why did you choose the scope you got. Which one did you get and would you buy it again? TIA Tom

Im no expert, especially on model, current offerings, cool new features, etc. I’ve just spent a lot of hours behind NV stuff in the past and a couple of thermals over the last 4 years. If you can afford to, you might want both. Thermal scanner/spotter, and NV for shooting. If only one, then thermal if you can afford it......remember, you can only see in the black, THROUGH a device.....if that device is permanent mounted to a 9# rifle, you’re spotting and scanning with a 9# scope....not optimum. You’ll see more with a thermal. NVs will see more than anything but a thermal, and shoot well, but they’re still reliant on your eyeball finding what’s there. A thermal can shoot just as well, but it’s gonna hilight what’s there and draw your eye to it. A $3k NV/IR is likely to be far better quality/resolution than a $3k thermal, but the thermal may make up for it in adverse conditions, cover, fog, overcast, etc. Ideal has been a small thermal spotter, and a 2nd thermal sight on the gun. Both have a learning curve for your perception and use vs your natural visual cues. NV is faster to adapt to initially, at least in my use. If I could afford a decent thermal, I’d pick it first. If I needed scanning first, I’d then buy a NV sight until I could get a second thermal for my rifle, too. Either can get it done, but once you’ve used a good thermal, NV/IR is second fiddle, IMO.

You have to wonder how well something like the ATN Thor 4 at $2000 will actually work and how robust it is.

I had joined several Face Book groups for the ATN scopes. I got tired of reading post after post of people having problems with them. I scratched them off of the list.

I don’t own either but have been on two guided Texas hog Hunts where the guides had both night vision and thermal scopes. The thermal was tons better. He had XP 50 I think. It was amazing and much much easier to pick up the hogs in the night vision.

I use a Pulsar thermal monocular to find the deer. Get the rifle pointed at the deer (you can do this through the thermal although a little awkward) put aside the thermal, switch on the scope mounted spotlight and try and get your shot away in 3 seconds or less.

Im partial to thermal but nv has its benefits. Nv allows you to make out details better. Thermal helps find animals and humans in concealment and you can find heat signatures where things were.

I forgot to add the word than in my post a couple up. I meant it was a lot easier to pick up the hogs with the thermal than it was in the night vision

I pulled the trigger. Bought a Pulsar Helion XP38 thermal monocular and a Pulsar Digex NV scope.

The thermal monocular has a bunch of uses. May upgrade to a thermal scope later.

Let us know.

FWIW, you can see AT LEAST as much detail in a thermal as you can any NV....it just depends on the resolution and quality of each. Most any decent thermal will FAR out range NV, regardless of ambient or additional IR lights.

I have one of the ATN Thor4 3x6 and a friend has one as well.

They have been used almost every night for 4 months.

The one i have has been on 2 different ar-15 uppers and have had no problems with sighting in and staying there.

For a rather low end thermal it does a good job.

If money was no object i would have loved to have one of the other brands.

I use a green led light for scanning and then use the rifle for shooting.

Not a bad deal for 1300.00 or so.

That is an excellent summary, and I agree 100%.

I have been using thermal exclusively for hog hunting at night for the past 3 years and it's been a game-changer! I now have 2 thermal scopes and a 3rd older generation thermal I use solely as a "locator" monocular. I will never go back to other methods and optics for hunting hogs and predators. Lots of fun!

+1. I have a thermal monocular (Pulsar Helion XQ38F) for detection but will be using a gun-light for actual aiming/shooting. I don't need the thermal mono for deer, as my scopes take me to the end of legal shooting time. However, this past season we have some feral hogs and these can be hunted 24/7. So, thus far I have just practiced detection on deer.with the thermal. The technology to me is simply amazing. If I could afford a good thermal scope, that is what I would use in combination with the thermal spotter.

That is a pretty good combo!
I scan with a Trail XQ38 and shoot with a Photon RT.

I think, you have one hell of a combo there. Finding it hard to imagine one better. Please keep us posted with your expiriences with those.

I've been hunting hogs with a combination of a Blindsider motion detector light and a camera on bait using a Leupold VX-R 4X12 with firedot. My neighbor recently bought an ATN Thor LT that wouldn't hold zero and it blinded my low light vision for 20 minutes after looking through it. The hogs we could see in it were indistinct at 200 yards and I'm not shooting something that "might" be a hog. He returned the scope. I'm glad he bought it instead of me.

Of any hunting-related customer service issue I have ever had, ATN is the absolute worst experience I have ever had. It pisses me off so bad I am about ready to just throw it in the trash and get it out of my mind. I bought three of them at the same time, 2 function ok, 1 never has.

Based on my experience, you have a 33% chance of buying a non-functioning POS.

Couple things of note here:
1. The LT series ATN scopes all have very low resolution 160X120 pixel sensors (not to be confused with display pixel array), which is one of the primary reasons they are much less expensive than most thermal optics. I personally would never buy or recommend any thermal optic with less than 320X240 sensor resolution (320 core).
2. ATN stuff is made in China. They are the least expensive in their class for a reason.
3. ATN has the worst reputation from a reliability and customer service standpoint by far of all of the Thermal/NV brands. Friends don't let friends buy ATN products.
4. I know of a major thermal/NV retailer who stopped carrying ATN products because the high rate of customer returns and ATN customer service complaints was negatively impacting his profitability and reputation.
5. Decent quality thermal scopes start at around $2500, and more realistically $3000. The lone exception might be the Pulsar RXQ30V at $1900, but it's a very "bare bones" thermal with fixed focus and no internal video recording. Thermal optics contain expensive components (germanium lenses, thermal microbolometers) and are relatively low volume production, meaning they are very costly to build. If this is more than you're willing to spend, you're better of not investing in thermal altogether or waiting until prices continue to decline, IMHO.
6. The strength of thermal optics is in detection, not ultimate resolution because it mainly defines the outline of critters, not so much detail internal to the critter. As such, they aren't really "long range" positive ID optics by conventional optics standards. This is just the reality of the NV world. Positive ID distance depends on several factors - sensor resolution, sensor pixel pitch, base (native) optical magnification, presence/absence of image focus, display resolution, image enhancement adjustment features, ambient temp and humidity, etc, so there is no universal "effective range" of thermal scopes. The better resolving stuff comes at a price premium. However, in general, you can expect most thermal scopes to be "sub 300 yards" effective range optics, with most being sub 200 yards, given positive ID of your target.

^^^^Which is what I was alluding to, but didn’t explain in that much depth.
I’ve been fortunate to use some higher end, military grade stuff. Even then, for positive I’d on game at longer ranges (over 200) there’s some time behind the scope involved. You learn ‘tells’....how bright certain parts of animals are, how a deer is distinctive in head/neck movement and appearance, vs a hog or coyote...how a coyote has a ail vs a deer or hog, how it holds its tail, compared to some roaming dog....how hogs can look and move distinctive, and show uneven returns. You and your eye ‘learn’ these things over time behind the screen. It’s not always doable until you get well under 200, but sometimes I can tell a deer vs a coyote at 1x, past 400, just because of how they move. It’s just different than ‘seeing’.....you’re analyzing characteristics of a return, at longer ranges. Inside 200, in good conditions, you can often see the hair blowing on a coyote, and the ear hairs on a hog. It’s weird with thermals and air quality and range. Just my non-expert experience.