I got a chance to test out a Pulsar Apex XD50 thermal scope and take it hunting. This is a scope that is coming out in May (scheduled) and is the higher end of a budget-line of thermal scopes.
You can look up the specifics online, but here are a couple of vids showing actual use in hog hunting. In short, it is a 2x (optical) scope that will zoom to 4x (digital), but also has a neat Picture in Picture mode where the small picture is 4x and the big view is 2x.
In this first video, we were hunting coyotes and had a call and wiggler out at about 70 yards when a hog showed up at the feeder about 220 yards away. There is a tiny + shaped crosshair (does not show well in the video) in this reticle and I had zeroed at the top of the little cross and not where the lines cross. In this way, I could use the height of the tiny cross as a drop reticle. At 220 yards, the shot should still been within the height of the tiny +. Even so, the hog did not drop and the followup shot did not have enough lead. Sadly, the hog was lost, but the video shows about the limits of the capability of the scope.
This second video shows a sounder spotted at over 100 yards and between 60-80 when the shooting started and with a short shot at 40 and long shot at about 80 yards. I used the PiP 4x for the first shot and when the hogs started to scatter, used the big picture for the rest of the shooting.
As we didn't recover the hog in the first video, I don't know about the terminal ballistics. In the second video, the first hog went down with neck/torso through and through. The second hog was hit in the right shoulder with a quartering shot that broke the leg and was likely terminal, but a follow-up shot through the snout dropped her. The third hog was hit in the armpit with and exited the opposite side of the chest, blowing out a racquetball-sized cavity and hitting and breaking the opposite leg. Even so, the hog ran. The second shot center-punched the hog and slowed her down and the third shot was a through and through across the shoulders that finally dropped her.
All three of the hogs were sows that had produced litters or were about to and the largest was likely several years old.
You can look up the specifics online, but here are a couple of vids showing actual use in hog hunting. In short, it is a 2x (optical) scope that will zoom to 4x (digital), but also has a neat Picture in Picture mode where the small picture is 4x and the big view is 2x.
In this first video, we were hunting coyotes and had a call and wiggler out at about 70 yards when a hog showed up at the feeder about 220 yards away. There is a tiny + shaped crosshair (does not show well in the video) in this reticle and I had zeroed at the top of the little cross and not where the lines cross. In this way, I could use the height of the tiny cross as a drop reticle. At 220 yards, the shot should still been within the height of the tiny +. Even so, the hog did not drop and the followup shot did not have enough lead. Sadly, the hog was lost, but the video shows about the limits of the capability of the scope.
This second video shows a sounder spotted at over 100 yards and between 60-80 when the shooting started and with a short shot at 40 and long shot at about 80 yards. I used the PiP 4x for the first shot and when the hogs started to scatter, used the big picture for the rest of the shooting.
As we didn't recover the hog in the first video, I don't know about the terminal ballistics. In the second video, the first hog went down with neck/torso through and through. The second hog was hit in the right shoulder with a quartering shot that broke the leg and was likely terminal, but a follow-up shot through the snout dropped her. The third hog was hit in the armpit with and exited the opposite side of the chest, blowing out a racquetball-sized cavity and hitting and breaking the opposite leg. Even so, the hog ran. The second shot center-punched the hog and slowed her down and the third shot was a through and through across the shoulders that finally dropped her.
All three of the hogs were sows that had produced litters or were about to and the largest was likely several years old.
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