Thread: I've Experienced the Advantage of Hunting with Thermal and Night Vision

I've hunted for a long time. I took me a while to use a telescopic sight on a regular basis. I grew up with open sights, and I felt that scopes were complicated and more likely to fog up or fail. But I considered them essential for shooting after dark. So I've had a scope on a .22 for many years.

Early this year I started hunting on small farm belonging to some new friends. This couple have a planted a lot of young trees that were being damaged by hares. I went to the farm several times during the late afternoon and shot maybe five hares. After that I saw very few animals. I thought that there wouldn't be a big population on this small farm largely surrounded by pines. I decided to go up after dark with a spotlight. I got a few more. Then a while later I had the use of a thermal monocular and a Pulsar NV scope mounted on a Ruger .223. The results were very good. I shot hares which I didn't know were there.... and at a long distance across the clean paddocks.

it took a while to get used to the effect that the thermal viewer had on my eye. Moving around in the dark, after looking through the viewer, was strange. It was a bit like wearing an eyepatch... or having been whacked in the eye. I found that things weren't so disorientating if I used a red headlamp in an attempt to see where i was going without using a bright white light.

While a .223 is really good for shooting small game, it isn't a wise choice for some situations. I need to use a .22 sometimes. I hunt in different areas, and some have farm buildings and houses nearby, there are water supply pipes and trees which may be damaged, and shooting a possum in a tree is best done with minimal power. So I felt the need for an NV scope on a .22. While using an ordinary white spotlight for a possum doesn't seem to be much of a handicap, it is good if you don't have to turn on a bright beam. I also believe that some of the rabbits and hares I've been trying to get seem to know to take off when they see a light.

So I did the research and bought a NV scope. Because I intended using it on a .22 shooting subsonic ammo, I felt I needed a rangefinder. While I'm reasonable at estimating range in the daylight, I've found it very hard to guess how far I'm shooting when I've spotted something through the thermal monocular. It doesn't matter with the .223 so much because anything up to about 180 metres I can just aim at. The sight I bought is a Sytong HT-60 with a built in rangefinder. It worked well right from the start, apart from a glitch with the rangefinder that was fixed with a software update. I have to say that the salesman I dealt with (nightvision dot co dot nz) was very helpful. It was simple to mount on my Ruger American .22, although with the mount position I chose, I found I had to remove the flip-up lens protector as there was insufficient gap between the mount and the front of the scope for it to fit. No worries though, I seldom take a scope cover hunting .... and when a rifle is sitting in storage I sometimes cover the uppermost lens with a bit of plastic or paper to stop oil and dust settling on the glass.

The 'clarity' of the device when properly focused is pleasing. And I am very impressed with what the physically small IR illuminator (built in torch) can do. Last night I was stalking a hare which my range finder told me was 188 metres away.... too far to shoot, but the image was plenty clear enough to identify and shoot at. I managed to get a rest (carefully) on a fencepost (electric fence) which was 118 metres away from the hare according to the scope. I would have liked to have been closer, but the moon was about to rise and I've had animals spook and run before. The rifle was zeroed for 50 metres, and my home-brewed 'bullet drop' table stopped at 100 metres where I'd require a calculated 22 cm of hold-over. So I held a bit higher and squeezed off. i thought I heard the 'plop' of the bullet hitting and the hare acted as if it were hit. I fired maybe three more shots. The hare rolled out of sight in the grass.... and I had to walk quite a way to get through the formidable fence. It took a while to find the hare, but I was pleased to see that I'd scored two good hits. I think the range finder played a critical part in my success. That was hare number 22 from a farmlet on which I thought an estimated population of five hares was on the high side.

I also shot two possums last night using the scope. I didn't need to use the IR illuminator because they were visible enough in the light of my head lamp. Neither required exceptional marksmanship skills or special equipment. One of the possums was notably large and smelled a bit like a deer for some strange reason.

Now i'm wondering what a Sytong thermal monocular would be like. These devices certainly offer a huge advantage when there are shy pests around.

Here are pictures showing last night's success.

This is a journey I am currently on. Not using a thermal though, just a Syntong NV clip on with a newly purchased red light courtesy of Piercing the Darkness.

Plan is to get some shoots in over next two weeks.


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Great write up.
Ive been toying with the idea of getting a clip on unit. Your comments on the range finder make me question how effective it would be in reality.

You can get a clip on with a rangefinder, and I was tempted to get that instead. Ive tried a Sytong clip-on without a rangefinder and I took it on a successful hunt. I put it on a standard scope that did not have parallax adjustment... and this meant that when it was in infra-red mode, either the cross-hairs or the target image were out of focus. Something to do with wavelength I think... and this is apparently fixable by altering the parallax adjustment on a scope. It was still functional and accurate. Another family member has taken custody of the add-on for now, but one day I'd like to try it with a parallax adjustable scope.

The clip on is great if you want to fit it to different rifles. If the scopes are securely mounted and zeroed, then moving the clip on can't affect accuracy.

While I haven't used the new Sytong NV scope much yet, I am glad that I made the choice to set up a dedicated .22 rig with a rangefinder. A decent parallax-adjustable scope is likely to cost a good portion of what you have to pay for a something like the HT-60 with a rangefinder, and then you have to buy the clip-on unit anyway. But, like I said, the clip on will work with an ordinary scope, but I prefer the image of the dedicated NV scope.

I should have noted in my opening post that I chose the version with the 3x - 8x power for my .22. In fact, even if I were going to buy one for a centrefire I'd probably choose this lesser magnification. A higher zoom power doesn't make me hold my rifle any steadier and it would probably reduce my field of view significantly. I like to have a good view of the surrounding area for safety reasons, and so I have a better chance of knowing what the heck happened after I take a shot.

@Coote & @tiroahunta & others who have just started hunting with this type of Kitt ,can you keep putting up posts/info as you progress on the Good ,The Bad & Ugly of this seemingly Black Art to those of us only just looking at getting in to it ,like many l am toying with buying some as l have just been given access to another 2 joint owned properties to look after their pest problems ,but pigs in particular raiding at night .

Can you also give a rough idea on cost of your set ups & after using them for a while on hunts what the Pro's & Cons of your gear is ,l do not really want to spend Six Grand on a set up & am hoping a clip on with either a good lighting system or combined with a cheap hand held will do the job as l am not really interested in it for Deer or long range hunting etc .

I have really not even done any indepth research as we have had too much on with our Farm expansion this year ,but if any one can point out good unbiased info to read/watch over the holidays would be a help well ,there is a growing interest among hunters so it will help many of us here .

Rangefinder is increasingly popular part of your setup. Either as a function of the digital night vision on your rifle or as part of the thermal used to find game.

If your going to use any sort of thermal spend the time to learn what different animals look like in thermal as it’s easy to confused and stalk in on the wrong critter.
@bunji pigs glow real well under the thermal, a fresh shorn sheep are similar and can be a bit skittry etc after getting shorn kind of like pigs

A key difference between sheep and deer is the deers long neck, woolly sheep their head glows and rest of body is dull due to the wool

If there is any other questions feel free to ask I use thermal for a lotsve my work and I’m happy to help where I can

What specific problems are you having Muzza? I'm pretty new at all this myself, but I've had to sort through a few issues.

Originally Posted by muzza

I have a Sytong Ht-60 that I am slowly coming to grips with. The set-up instructions arent overly usefull to an old codger like me , so its a slow journey so far.

Any one have any helpful hints or sources of information?

Try this video: https://youtu.be/Fax1QOlzqx8

I have been doing thermal and NV for about 5 years now, great for night shooting on farms to control numbers, I don’t have a range finder thermal but in hot spots I go in the day and stack rocks at 10 yd intervals beyond 60 yds, at night the rocks stay warm enough to see in the thermal and I can range accordingly. This obviously only works in rocky areas.

I don’t use it much for hunting as it sort of takes away some of the fun by making it too easy. I prefer not to come to rely on it.

One important thing that not many people mention is that (with my pulsar unit not sure about others) you get a lot more from the thermal by setting the brightness and contrast to suit the conditions on the day. In really cold conditions I turn the brightness low and the contrast high, this makes anything that is significantly hotter than the surroundings glow like a torch, with the surroundings being quite homogeneously dark. higher brightness and lower contrast make it work more like a black and white NV, very clear to see through but not great for picking up animals.

While it often helps with target identification, I don’t rely on it for this, often it can help with mis identifying your target (cats can very easily look like rabbits etc).

There was a thread about this….it got the purge….was heaps of good info on it.

Currently not using a parallax adjust scope as that’s a little out of my money tree range at moment.

The adjust from a thermal monocular to a NV scope wouldn’t be as bad as going from white light(spot light) to NV I find it hard to spot a animal in a NV after looking at it from a spotlight.

Have bought a red spotlight. Have yet to try that combo. Going to put on a cheap ($20 delivered) laser pointer so have a point of reference for easier target acquisition.

Only used mine on small game. In the long run a thermal monocular would be the way to go I think. Alas if m not made of money so that’s a long term plan….


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you CAN use a cheap laser as a range finder.....set it up so it crosses your X hair at given range...eg at 50 yards and set lazer either above or below centre of scope...set it below...if red dot is below the range is less,if its above X its more than 50 yards better still is to set it above centre of scope,so it crosses X at 50 yards and will at some point further out..say 75 yards be close to smack on POI again...little bit of tootooing and its plurry usefull we used this years ago with normal spotlight set up....with two people one handheld lazer beam ($2 shop pointer) works as fella on light,who can see animal can put dot on it for shooter....still applicable to these fancy set ups if two people involved.

You've got me thinking about what you really need to shoot at night. There is quite a selection of gear available to help ensure success. I have to add the disclaimer that I prefer to hunt during the daylight.... I have never shot pigs (other than trapped ones) after dark.... and my experience is mostly limited to small game.

As you'll know, a telescopic sight on a good rifle, accompanied by a bright enough light is the way it has been done for years. When gel cells were available, it made life a lot easier for the folks that carried a car battery around. Now there are LED flashlights that have made the old halogen spotlights and heavy batteries obsolete for me.

I reckon that if you know your hunting area well, then a rangefinder that works in the dark is not necessary.... especially if you are using centrefire ammo with full loads.

If there are certain locations where animals are known to appear, then waiting and listening may alert you to their presence and you can make yourself ready before switching on a bright spotlight.

Animals that haven't been harassed may not immediately run off when you turn on a light. But some might. And this is the problem about hunting with a spotlight..... locating animals without scaring them. So having a thermal monocular or a night vision device can give us the advantage of maybe seeing the animals before they are aware of our presence. Some folks say that using a red (or even a green) light might spook animals less. Some even say that animals can't see a red light, however I think that mostly they are aware of it. But it might not bother them as much as a white light. It is worth playing coloured lights though. I bought a reasonably bright red LED flashlght through Aliexpress that would probably enable me to shoot with a scope out to 40 or 50 metres.... although I've never measured the distance.

I have to go out now. I may write some more later. Happy Christmas.

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

you CAN use a cheap laser as a range finder.....set it up so it crosses your X hair at given range...eg at 50 yards and set lazer either above or below centre of scope...set it below...if red dot is below the range is less,if its above X its more than 50 yards better still is to set it above centre of scope,so it crosses X at 50 yards and will at some point further out..say 75 yards be close to smack on POI again...little bit of tootooing and its plurry usefull we used this years ago with normal spotlight set up....with two people one handheld lazer beam ($2 shop pointer) works as fella on light,who can see animal can put dot on it for shooter....still applicable to these fancy set ups if two people involved.

Agree with the above. In fact I might happen to know someone who made a ‘laser/reticle dial confluence range finder chart’.
Some may laugh but there are numerous rabbits that didn’t find it funny.

If any of you chaps are around central otago and want to have a play with thermal scope (conotech 350) clip on night vision (part 007) green or red spotlights then flick me a message. I've been collecting gear over the last couple of years....