Hi everyone, and welcome to this information video about thermal hunting.
Now I get a lot of questions about scopes and spotters and specs and base magnification
and what am I buying or where do I start.
So hopefully after you watch this you’ll have all the information you need to be able
to go out there and narrow down the choices, understand what all the damn numbers mean
and be able to compare devices in your price bracket.
Now just FYI I don’t sell anything and I have no affiliation with any particular brand.
I’ll give you the facts, information and some real world examples but the decision
is ultimately up to you.
This video will be a little longer than usual but hopefully you’ll come away from it knowing
what to do next So where do you start, well I have to say
you start with a budget, what do you want to spend on a scope and do you want a spotter
as well?
Most people don’t have an endless supply of money and aren’t going to drop 15 grand
on a spotter and a scope, so work out what you want to spend and go from there, also
keep in mind that most thermal scopes will do the job, just with less detail, the more
detail you have the better you can ID things at greater distances
So what’s first, . If you can’t have both, well then I would recommend a thermal spotter
first and a thermal scope second.
Get a spotter and decent night vision setup.
I know lots of people who use thermal spotters and then spotlight or use a good night vision
scope on the target.
While having both a scope and spotter is nice, the reality is some people just can’t afford
it.
If you only have a scope youll get pretty sick of looking through your gun all night,
especially if your walking around scanning paddocks, but also you’ll end up pointing
your gun somewhere it shouldn’t be pointed
But let’s say you can afford both, decide what you want to spend on both, more of the
budget should go into the scope in my opinion, it’s doing the final ID and then the shot
so get the best that you can afford, I would also suggest a wider field of view in the
spotter if you get the choice for safety reasons, itll help you be aware of your surroundings
and also make it easier to scan paddocks quickly and see more of whats happening around you
So how do you narrow it down, well some basic questions will help get you on the right track,
for example let’s say you like the traditional scope look, well then it’s easy, pulsar
and the iray tube series have that market cornered in Australia, standard 30mm rings,
so go look at them.
Done easy
But say you don’t mind the look of either, well then what’s your budget, let’s go
look at what you can afford, low budget, Night Tech MS19, high budget, Thermion 2 XP50, do
you want a range finder, iray or pulsar trail 2 are the go to with those, some of theses
simple questions will quickly help you narrow down the choices, things like
Do you prefer a Clip on, pulsar, iray and hikmicro are some of the choices there.
I have seen clips ons be used as the spotter and as the scope, if your quick enough you
can spot it and then attach it to the scope for the shot, this is a popular option, especially
for those who run the same scopes on all their rifles
So what now, well what’s important to you, warranty, battery life, re sale, what are
you hunting?
Rabbits, foxes, pigs?
once you’ve decided on your budget and what you want to be able to do with the scope,
some of the basic features like a range finder, look, dedicated scope or a clip on will have
narrowed the field down already before we even looked at the specs
now let’s delve into the numbers, base mag, core, micron, NETD, what the hell does it
all mean.
A few people push base mag over core, get a 384 core with a higher base mag they say,
well that’s not me, there is no one spec that makes the scope better than the other,
it’s a combination of the scopes specs that make it good and unfortunately when you are
comparing them all across different brands, they all differ in specs, so youre not comparing
apples with apples.
So what im going to try and do is, I’m going to give you a quick example of what I mean
now don’t get me wrong, base magnification is important, but you shouldn’t base your
decision on just that and ill try and show you why, So lets try to compare apples with
apples, these 2 scopes are very close to apples, one is half the resolutions of the other,
but with a higher base mag, , now same manufacturer, so what does it look like, now If I zoom in
the 640 to the same size picture as the higher base mag, which one looks better, I’ll let
you choose no point zooming the lower res one but we will anyway, let’s look at a
distant object, same scopes, on the same time, same day.
Now remember we lose quality in the recording but it should be lost equally.
So does the 640 out perform the lower core, yes, did base mag matter?
And now if I run base mag with Picture in picture, what gives me a better pip image?
The higher res core does, so if I want to be in base mag with a nice looking PIP, which
one will give me a better image
Now if I zoom out, I get a much wider field of view in the lower base mag, so I can see
my surroundings, one thing about high base mag is if you miss, you better be quick and
accurate to follow the target.
I have once scanned over the rabbit that was too close.
And a fox once that popped out of a creek in front of me and we both crapped ourselves.
? So what am I getting at, well a 640 core gives you more pixels, which means it gives
you more to work with from the onset, so my point, you cant take one spec and say its
more important, take all the specs and compare the devices, a better device will give you
better picture and more uses
So what about the core, well the core in conjunction with the netd gives you your picture, more
pixels across and down means a better image, and a lower netd means it can tell the smaller
differences in temperature between surfaces, also leading to a better picture, so core
you in my opinion is the highest you can afford, but keep in mind the lower resolution cores
will still do the job just with less detail
Now the NETD you want low, so it can see more differences in temperatures between objects,
this is especially important in bad weather, bad weather is where the higher NETD scopes
will start to wash out, if you’re outside freezing your ass off then guess what, everything
is freezing its ass off so a higher netd means it sees less temperature detail between objects.
make sense?
Hope so
Lenses, so you will commonly see a couple of numbers with the lense, one will be size,
and the other will be an f.
Now the germanium lense is the expensive bit.. so what does it mean, well simply put, the
f of the lense is the aperture, the lower the f the more light that gets through, so
you get a better picture so f1.0 is better than f1.2, now most lenses on scopes are aiming
for 1-1.2 so if you want to be picky, then you want 1.0
Next up, Battery life, how long does it last, can I change batteries on the go, do spares
cost a fortune, the scopes start up time, does it have a sleep function, can I record,
does it record audio? these factors may also influence your decision but they come second
to getting the best sensor, start up times and sleep functions while important aren’t
the main focus till later on, other things like recording, audio, wireless apps.
Whilst these are important to some they aren’t to others.
So I suggest writing these ones down after you’ve narrowed the field and depending
on your usage they may be important enough to lean you towards one scope or the other.
Now I hope this has helped you understand where to start, you should buy the best scope
you can afford, that’s a no brainer, but can you base it off one thing, well no, don’t
buy a scope based off base magnification alone, in fact don’t buy it based off any one thing.
It’s a combo deal, so to recap, how do I start narrowing it down, well, what’s my
budget, best core I can afford, base magnification, style, battery life, warranty.
There will always be new scopes, better specs, new brands emerging.
But if you can narrow it down now, and the one you buy does the job you need it too then
you wont need to swap it over for quite a while, as they get better we get more detail,
some people don’t want or need it, If I can shoot the fox, then I can shoot the fox
Now be warned and be careful out there on Social media, it’s is a double edged sword,
some people push what they sell and bad mouth the other brands, some are honest reviews,
some are endorsed, some are paid and some just like shooting.
So listen to all the info but do try talking to mates as a preference, honest opinions
of people who are currently using the stuff is the best source.
And there is no substitute for going out and actually seeing the device in action
Now I do suggest talking to friends, your local shop, asking questions in facebook groups
and getting as much hands on as you possibly can so when you do pull the trigger you get
exactly what you need
Well that pretty much wraps it up, hopefully you can now compare the specs of each scope
and understand what the difference between them will be.
thanks for watching, I hope you got something out of this video, if you did please hit the
like and the subscribe button, post any questions or comments below and we will see you in the
next video