What's Best for Night hunting Optics

[vaguru]

Considering getting into night hunting using optics. Thermal or Night Vision? Looked at many units, some well out of my price range, very confused. Would also like optic to be usable during daylight, apparently this eliminates thermal? Considering the ATN X-Sight LTV in 3-9X as this does both.

So inform me on pros and cons of each style and other manufacturers.

Have done a good bit of night hunting with shotguns and pistols using a red light calling, but this appears a much better method. Looking to become knowledgeable on hunting after dark with a rifle.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks

[VASCAR2]

Double Naught Spy and HuntTx are very knowledgable forum members. DNS has been testing new Tourer Rix night vision and thermal scopes on his channel. I suggest you watch his videos as he has evaluated/tested several options. Here is a link to his youtube channel. He can also be found on player (old Utreon) video hosting site.

https://m.youtube.com/@CarpeSus/videos

Here is a link to Carpe Sus on player.

https://playeur.com/c/CarpeSusHogHuntingandMore/videos

You can use the google custom search to find discussions about night vision and thermal on this forum. There has been a lot of good information posted in this forum about night hunting.

https://cse.google.com/cse?cx=016368947416500061353:paqd_0xcu1o&hl=en

[VASCAR2]

https://www.amazon.com/oneleaf-ai-Commander-Monocular-Hunting-Observations/dp/B0BYHPZ564/ref=sr_1_2?crid=ZU2NPTYDFBZN&keywords=One+leaf+night+vision&qid=1693865845&sprefix=one+leaf+night+vision%2Caps%2C551&sr=8-2

Your probably better off spending $3000+ and getting quality as I believe you get more value in the long run with higher quality optics.

[Klem]

Vag,

Sounds like you are on a budget. Passive shooting at night costs money, however active shooting is a lot cheaper.

DNS and the other gurus know more about thermal than me.

By active I mean with lights and lasers that the animals can see.

Active
If you are shooting by yourself then unless you have a truck with a fixed light mount or you are static and have lights that can point in place, or remote control, you're going to need a light on the gun. Shooting with a separate light is much easier because you can swing it around without having to swing the gun around with it. With separate spotlight then I recommend a decent collimated reflector like a 240mm diameter with a 35W or even 75watt Xenon HID globe, adjustable for focus. Plug it into the vehicle's cigarette lighter socket, or clip onto a battery: either vehicle's, or Li-ion in your backpack for walking around. For example, his hand-held spotty is made by Lightforce (which is the parent company of Nightforce). Adapting it to a 75W ballast is DIY with a soldering iron, but they are sold with inbuilt 35W ballasts. Don't use incandescent/Halogen globes, it's cheap but ancient tech.
HID - Copy.jpg

Gun-mounted needs to be more compact and lighter. I recommend a Laser Excited Phosphor 'LEP' flashlight (different tech to the standard Light Emitting Diode 'LED'). LEP is a collimated beam which is perfect for a scoped shot. A light that is all throw and no spill means it can be compact and light. LED is harder to collimate so for the same reach it will need to be bigger, and end up too bulky and heavy for a gun. The downside is LEP is more expensive.

Here is the Acebeam W10 GenII rifle mounted, On the top of a standard hunting rifle scope, and offset with 1" DD mount on a Picatinny rail. The battery is a newer, larger lithium-ion 21700 rechargeable (5000mAh) so it runs for longer while still in a compact 1" profile. Olight make a LEP version of their Valkyrie, but it is only 250lumens and more suited for handgnus. It runs off 2xCR123 batteries and unless you have a taxpayer supply of batteries this can get expensive quickly. Weltool's tactical LEP is the W35, however it is 335lumens and takes an 18350 rechargeable (1200mAh). When collimated, The Acebeam's 450lumens gets out to 400M. For the avoidance of doubt, the results when up close on the target is from a vehicle's headlights.
400M - Copy.jpg400M Scope view - Copy.jpg400M gong - Copy.jpgLEP - Copy.jpg

Passive
If you want to go passive and use a NV device with a scope then I would look to mount it behind the scope, not in front like a PVS22. It's a lot cheaper mounting a PVS14 behind and it also doesn't need collimating with the scope - you just need to make sure the scope's parallax is adjusted. Another upside of mounting the PVS behind the scope is that you are magnifying optical not digital view. Mounting a NVD behind a red dot has been around for a while but it's 0 magnification so that's a limitation. You can mount an NVD behind a normal day scope if you have a long rail and room to get your head back, and the illuminated reticle is lower intensity. You will need to push the day scope forward to give room for the NVD, so will need continuous rail on the receiver like an AR. An adjustable stock helps here too: collapsed short for day scope use, and extended long for nighttime with NVD. Mounts are available to mount NVDs behind scopes.

You'll probably also need an IR light to see the game properly for at least half the month, when the moon is not up or full. On a full moon you can get away with no external illum, and even non-illuminated reticles, but only if there is enough contrast downrange at the target, which is not always guaranteed. Once you turn on a normal illuminated reticle it flares in the PVS, unless you can lower its brightness or put up with lowering the NVD's gain. Nightforce has Digillum where one of the three brightness ranges is pretty close to NVD friendly. March has an after-market replacement switch module that lowers the reticle to below naked visible, for NVD shooting. The March night reticle is perfect, but the scopes are not cheap.

Be aware IR torches always bleed into the visible spectrum and are seen by animals and humans as a dull red glow. They may know something is there but less intensity means less spooked.

Passive night shooting is not cheap, whichever system you go with.

[oyster]

It would help to know what you're hunting. I started with NV but it was too limiting for me, think of it like a flashlight. I went thermal and haven't looked back. If an animal is behind a bush you won't see it with NV but with thermal, it's hard to hide from heat and yes you can use it during the daytime. The drawback with thermal is it's harder to identify animals until you spend a lot of time behind it. I shoot hogs/deer so they're easy to tell, even at a distance. Telling a coyote from a fox from the neighbors dog, well that's harder.....
Jay

[vaguru]

Keep the info coming guys, I will inform on critters to be hunted after a bit. And yes, on a budget as with my age (72+) not sure just how long I'll get to use the product/s.

[603Country]

[Double Naught Spy]

Hey, DNS here. I am not an expert, but have been involved in the T&E and reviewing of a bunch of thermal units and a few night vision units (primarily digital, which fits here).

I am just going to throw this out as my opinion. Friends don't let friends buy ATN. It has been my experience that ATN's customer service is hit or miss. I see that in their reviews. They may take fine care of you if you have a problem (and you will likely have problems because 1) electro optics all fail at various points in time - ALL , and 2) because ATNs seem to fail at a higher rate that other brands.

Now for the required questions:

What are you hunting?
What is your normal shooting distance when hunting?
What is the longest expected shooting distance for hunting?
What sort of environment(s) are you hunting in (grazed open fields, overgrown open fields, parkland, woodland, etc.)
What is your budget?
What caliber(s) are you shooting?

Without knowing any of this, the cheapest best way to get into night hunting with NV/thermal would be to go with a digital rifle scope and an inexpensive thermal to just spot (not necessarily to identify) targets that can then be identified with the rifle optic after you think it may be a possible prey). Something like a Sightmark Wraith Mini in 2x or 4x depending on your needs with something like this... https://opticsforce.com/products/agm...8aAsu_EALw_wcB

and you can be more than functional for $1200 (and closer to 1400 if you pay list price and all the taxes). The thermal isn't going to be great, but it will help you spot things more readily and keep you from having to wave your rifle all around all the time just because you want to have some idea what is out in the dark world around you.

Thermal rifle scopes are more expensive, but they are likely what you will ultimately want.

[vaguru]

DNS, 603,

This exactly the type of info I was looking for, thanks. At this point I believe I have enough info to start searching and evaluating.

DNS, also replied to your PM, thanks.