Thread: Thermal vs NV vs Spotlight

I'm trying to work out all the Pros and Cons of Thermal versus Night Vision versus a good ol' fashion Spotlight. We do a bit of small game night shooting on private land and I've been holding off on the technology upgrade, mainly because of the cost of course, but also some confusion on the way forward.

Do you go for a Thermal handheld? A Thermal scope? NV scope? NV Goggles? Or just continue with the more sociable ol' fashioned spotlight?

I'm running a pard 007 NV attachment on the scope. Mostly for shooting on vineyards, it works well but having to scan with the rifle and scope it's tiring by the end of the night.
From experience with thermal units, both mono and bino versions scanning for animals is significantly faster and more efficient.
A good combination I reckon would be thermal for scanning and NV for shooting.

What Joe said - thermal handheld to locate, NV to shoot is ideal - more economic, better magnification and images

Unless commerical hunting, then all thermal

Can take the 007 off and use it as a handheld too or a NV handheld, the eyes pop fine and its even more economic as well

I used torches for ages, then tried got a thermal handheld and used a torch with a scope. Then went to nigh vision scope, then when I could afford it went to a thermion. I do Petfood and culling. The thermal scope is so much quicker. If you get a night vision get the best one available. You also need a high quality thermal scope for image quality. Thermals take a little time to learn and proper identification of the image is important. Make sure you know what your shooting at. In the end it comes down to how much you have to spend. Remember these electronic scopes have a life, it will be out of date in 5 years or less. Will batteries be available etc. picking a brand that is well known could be important.

Got a thermal imager before this year's wallaby trip took a little learning but upped the numbers big time over just a spotlight one of us spotting the other shooting.
Currently looking at paring it with a lazer mounted off the tripod socket so the shooter doesn't need a spotlight to find the target as things get a bit twitchy under lights after a while.
Still use my maxtoch lots though it's easier on your own even with the thermal.
The pard units also look interesting.

Main negative with Thermal Scope is:
You will not see any light scrub/branches etc in front of animal
I had a clean miss other night at 30m - bullet deflected of a small branch (a young Feijoa in our garden :-)

The ultimate is to have both hand and scope Thermal - but cost is a bit rich for non commercial shooting
As said above - NV Scope and even a cheap Thermal as hand as you only need to identify its Deer or Pig over say sheep/goat etc
The older Pulsar NV are a bit bulky and heavy - the Pard I am hearing good reports on for very low $$ outlay too

This is what I'm playing with. The rail needs shortening and the lazer moved forward as it interfees with how you hold it but as proof of concept it works. You can use the pip function to centre the target. Just have to bite the bullet and mill a little keyway into the tripod screw hole to ensure consistent alignment. It should really speed up spotlighting as well.
We'll done mods photos now upload thanks for fixing it��

Think Joe_90 is on the money with the thermal spotter and IR NV scope.
I run a Pard NV008 on my .22, and it's a challenge scanning an area with a minimum 6.5 x magnification in a tight orchard. Over open paddocks it's perfectly fine.

I stopped shooting some properties when I was using a spotlight, as it got the the point I was seeing no animals over a few hours. When I went to a IR NV scope, it was obvious that there were still a lot of rabbits about, albeit well aware what a spotlight meant.

Pretty sure moving up the price scale to having a thermal spotter, will also reveal a number of animals I did not see previously.

I have a handheld thermal which is great for finding animal but when you put the spotlight on them you can't see them, this happened alot during the last Wally shoot. Decided after that shoot to put a red dot on it so the shooter knows were to look/shoot with spotlight in the scub.
Great for the big country down south but in Sth Akl lifestyle block it's a little different, scary rabbits with spot lights so I"m thinking of buying a Pard 700 to work along side the thermal which seem to be the advice I had a couple of years ago.
The other problems is 3 noisy boys wanting to follow me around, worse than a herd of buffalo so no lights might help with thad.
Pard I think is cheap specially when the rabbits ate $450 of newly brought trees in 2 nights.

Originally Posted by Marty Henry

Got a thermal imager before this year's wallaby trip took a little learning but upped the numbers big time over just a spotlight one of us spotting the other shooting.
Currently looking at paring it with a lazer mounted off the tripod socket so the shooter doesn't need a spotlight to find the target as things get a bit twitchy under lights after a while.
Still use my maxtoch lots though it's easier on your own even with the thermal.
The pard units also look interesting.

one of the cheap simple lazer pointers in hand of spotter works a treat.....even with spot light it speeds things up no end...more than once shooter cant see waalby and I haved waved red lazer and said shoot the dot..boom and wally behind a thistle has died.

Looked at green light for spotting Laser Genetics anyone tried .?

Thermal and NV are all well and good so long as one does not have to justify cost and i don't think animals 'stand' as well for LED's as opposed to older style bulbs.

Pretty new to the thermal game, have used a pulsar thermal hand held and a spot light. Ideally Ild like to go to night vision scope and do away with spotlight.

The real game changer in the UK has been the thermal hand held spotter and the standard is the Pulsar XQ38f which can be used for night time work and daytime stalking. Not cheap but if I was starting out then that would be my first buy and an add on or dedicated Nightvision scope of some description next, in the mean time I would use a powerful torch of some description mounted to the rifle.

When you are ready to buy night vision for the rifle then decide wether you want digital, thermal or tubed (light enhancing) and how far you want to shoot out to and what’s your budget. Pard are pretty good, and with a good IR Torch will easily get you to 200 yards.
Ive had a dedicated digital scope (Drone Pro) which at the time was the very best out there and is still rated but now have tubed (Starlight Archer) which I feel sure will not be available in NZ. My night time rifle is a Tikka 22-250 which is zeroed at 200yards and so is pretty flat out to 300, because ranging distance at night is very difficult to guess so the flatter shooting the better.

The key is to research the kit you want to buy from individuals that have used it and not the manufactures hype. For example all night vision is effected by the moisture content (Thermal more so) but few manufactures will tell you that.

Here is a UK site that will help a great deal in your research https://www.nightvisionforumuk.com/i...f3fe34a7523851

Buy once, cry once and have deep pockets. Very deep.

Good luck
bryn

Pulsar thermal scopes and handhelds come with rangefinders built-in on most models now.... I use the handheld daytime mainly and even then you can find animals you would never have known were there , even over long distances if it's a 50 model.