Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Predators and Varmints Recommendation on Thermal Scope

Looking for recommendations on a good thermal scope for predator hunting. I’ve been looking at ATN’s and Pulsars but I’d like to hear first hand from owners. Thanks in advance!

I’m in the same boat. But from what I’m reading avoid atn

Bering optics is one to look at.
I’m thinking hard about super hogster or hogster r35

Seems AGM and IRay are well respected too

The thing with the thermal game is the more you spend the better the quality of optics. You need to determine your budget first. That being said if you are using mainly for coyotes I’d be looking real hard at these 3 units if your budget allows: Bering Optics Super Yoter .. Pulsar Trail 2 LRF XP50 .. or the Iray Rico 640. The Pulsar would probably be at the top of my list for the fact it has the laser range finder and also great battery life. The Iray Rico 640 unit is a close 2nd and I believe it can have a range finder added to it. They claim the Iray app for downloading video is simple and easy as well. Lastly the Super Yoter is a great optic as well.

I don’t own any of these units but I constantly research them and am around guys who use them. They will all kill coyotes. They all have a few different Pros and Cons … you just have to decide what’s best for you. Of course if you want the hands down best thermal optic you can make the leap and buy the N-Vision Halo XRF and then never look back! Lol

I'd check out the Late Night Vision Show on Youtube. Lots of thermal reviews and comparisons there.

I'm not far down this rabbit hole yet and only have a Pulsar 384Res 3.5x Axion spotter on hand. Was watching deer in a pasture the other evening at 250yds and the picture would have been good enough for a kill in a rifle scope. The 640Res stuff starts at $4k and goes up. It used to be more like $5-6k and up, so it is getting more affordable.

I have the Pulsar trail xp 38 and have had zero problems with it. I'm going on 4 years and still enjoying it.

Pulsar here too. Be prepared to spend some time with the manual, but it’s a good unit.

I have an ATN Thor 4 , 1-10x 640.

It's great at 1 power, but as the power is dialed up, it really craps out. I don't know if it's an issue with the ATN scope, or if all thermals are like that.

If I were to buy again, I would select something with the lowest power that I could actually use. Something that starts at 4x and goes up from there and just use it as a fixed 4x.

Tony

Tony brings up a good point; the digital magnification of the thermal image is not like spinning a variable power scope from low to high power. Your best picture quality is at the lowest end of the range for your scope. Images at the upper end of the range are not as useful as you would think. You will be best served to carefully assess how you are going to use the scope/rifle combination and then decide what primary power you are going to use.

A coyote hunter in open terrain will have different needs than a pig hunter that wants to connect at less than 100 yards.

Yep. 4x 384 unit left at base magnification and a 2x 640 unit zoomed in to 4x will have nearly the same image quality because you cut the 640res in half when you zoomed in double.

I added a Burris clip on thermal this fall. I love the handheld aspect for scanning instead of twirling around the bog pod all night. Just clip it on the rail and use existing scope. I put a 1.5 - 5 with lighted reticle. I prefer to zoom slightly on the scope instead of the units 2x or 4x magnifier. The range finder feature would be nice but I will not shoot over 200 yards at night so the .223 is flat enough to take care of the distance and you can tell at low magnification pretty close by the spread between the eyes. Night calling is a whole new experience for sure. Still learning...

After a bunch of internet snooping and talking to some of the guys who sell them I bought a pulsar thermion Xp 50. I’ll report on it when it arrives.

I don’t think you’ll be disappointed; I wasn’t.

Read the instructions in detail; some aspects of the scope aren’t “intuitive” based on experience with “normal” scopes. The click “value” varies with the zoom setting when you are zeroing it. If you are looking for a precision zero, that will likely throw you for a loop. It sure did for me!!

I have a friend who is selling a Pulsar Thermion XQ50. It's new. He's asking $3,450.

If you'd like to talk to him about it, pm me and I'll put you in touch with him.