Joining the thermal club - Good deal

[West_Fork]

The NV scope I have is quite functional, it's just I have no chance to use it. When I go to the property at times I COULD use it, I'm doing other things. For example if I'm there to deer hunt, I can't be sitting out all night calling coyotes. The best time to use them would be late winter, but generally I can't get near the place unless we have an extremely mild winter/early spring.

Sounds familiar. I will probably be using this thing around the house more than anything. We have plenty of coyotes come in at night trying to finish off the cats. I am down to one good mouser, so I need to start wacking those things.

And I also see me using this thermal for auto repairs, electrical troubleshooting, etc. That's why I did not want high magnification.

 

[omicron1792]

I have been watching a lot of hog videos, and OMG that looks fun. I will be restricted to yotes. Going to look at 22 semi autos today.

22 arc is your huckleberry in semi auto. 22 creed in bolt.

 

[West_Fork]

22 arc is your huckleberry in semi auto. 22 creed in bolt.

I am thinking suppressed 22lr for around the house, but I will have to check out the arc. I have just never been a big fan of the 223 for some reason, and I need an excuse to turn a new barrel.

 

[Feelslikefar.]

Sounds familiar. I will probably be using this thing around the house more than anything. We have plenty of coyotes come in at night trying to finish off the cats. I am down to one good mouser, so I need to start wacking those things.

And I also see me using this thermal for auto repairs, electrical troubleshooting, etc. That's why I did not want high magnification.

I have a Burris thermal viewer. I ended up using that a lot more than I thought I would. Trying to locate shot and hopefully dead deer and looking for (to avoid and not spook) deer walking back to camp in the evenings. I sort of hoped it might work for blood trailing, as I'm colorblind. But blood cools off almost immediately, so it doesn't work. It's not really made for up close stuff either.

 

[West_Fork]

I have a Burris thermal viewer. I ended up using that a lot more than I thought I would. Trying to locate shot and hopefully dead deer and looking for (to avoid and not spook) deer walking back to camp in the evenings. I sort of hoped it might work for blood trailing, as I'm colorblind. But blood cools off almost immediately, so it doesn't work. It's not really made for up close stuff either.

The cheap digital NV viewer I have has a base magnification of 3x and its not good for anything closer than 20' and its not good for much beyond 100' unless the moon is bright, so.....

The thermal I ordered has a base mag of 2x. I played around with a 2x scope in my garage and it seems useable up close.

Have you looked at the UV lights for blood tracking?

 

[West_Fork]

I was able to spend a couple hours looking around last night. It's fascinating. I spotted a panther in the closet, it was perched on the top shelf ready to attack. Then a wolf like creature followed me in to the kitchen around midnight, maybe it was my dog?

The ironic thing is I woke this morning to find a fox in my front yard in broad daylight. He got 12ga'ed.

I will try to get some pictures posted later.

 

[Thomasc19]

Taken using my Nocpix Lumi H35 that just came in the mail. So cool and can't wait to use it on predators

 

[West_Fork]

I found that a plastic make a good target backing.
Also, I had some foot warmers. These are perfect because they have adhesive and just stick to the backing. However, mine were so old they absorbed heat, showed black and it worked out well. I could see my misses and dial in correction, slicker than snot.

The image in the scope is much better than the compressed files. Low left of cross hairs, The dark spot is the endothermic foot warmer. The light spot is the shot. The circle is a plastic lid, 100 yards, zoomed, 2x optical and 8x digital.
360 yards

 

[West_Fork]

I found wood is even better than plastic for sighting. Any dead tree makes a great target. Also notice the difference between dead wood (darker) and live.

I have probably spent more time looking at veg than animals. Why is the base of some plants hot?

Sheep! Look at all those glowing buttholes.



I will also point out that I believe what triggers the red highlight is a temperature differential and not absolute temperature, but not positive yet. You get a lot more accurate picture without it (red hot).

My biggest complaint so far is this manual focus. I have a hard time believing that with how prevalent digital cameras are with auto focus that it would not be a overly significant cost. I also feel that frame rate is something to consider. This is 50Hz, and I can see it.

 

[West_Fork]

I still have not shot any critters yet, mainly just after some coyotes coming in to the neighborhood. I always seem to pick them up at 500 and running away. I think rat hunting with the air rifle is going to be the most satisfying.

I picked up the lrf for mine. It works but is limited to less than 600 yards and does not seem to precise as far as ranging targets. I am going to be exploring the less expensive Bluetooth lrf from ATM and AGM, which look to be made by the same people, but have more power.

The ballistics is a bit to deal with getting setup, but seems to produce reasonable results. I have yet to confirm it at the range.

But I am having a blast just watching what goes on at night. So far a pair of owls hunting has been the coolest.

I still seem to struggle with remembering to focus.


The range is on the tree in the foreground, I believe it was like 280 yards, 8x means 16x because of the 2x optical.



This the rig I have been using the past few night trying to get a coyote.
While the lrf is weak, at least it's flexible and can mount on any pic rail. The forward rail on the wildcat is not parallel with the bore.

 

[West_Fork]

The Guide LRF is redeeming itself. My biggest complaint was what I thought was a lack of accurate reticle for the LRF. It had a ranging reticle, but I had sense it was not accurate because you can adjust its x,y in the menu. So ranging targets was still a guessing game, I thought. So I decided to bust out my cheapo digital NV and see if I could see the LRF's ranging laser. I set it up in the garage, put the LRF on scan mode and sure enough I could see it. I went back in to adjust the ranging reticle and adjusted to where it was hitting. Then I noticed a red laser on the wall, exactly where the ranging laser was hitting.
When you open the menu that allows you adjust the coordinate of the ranging reticle, it emits a red laser so you know where to move it to. Neat. I suppose you could use it to aim the weapon too if you wanted a really awkward way of turning it on.

I confirmed its absolute maximum range on vegetation is 600 yards. Weak. I would like 1k.

I was just shooting my 25 cal PCP rifle 173 yards using skirted pellets and get within minute of coyote using the scope's ballistic calc., and I did not have an accurate velocity and the BC of the pellet was a rough guess. I can see most of the impacts through the thermal.

I never thought I would be looking up the BCs for pellets..