I looking for good thermal monocular for under 5k. What should I looking for? What manufacture has the best quality?

I would put a plug in for the pulsar ld/hd-38. I have been more than happy with mine I recently purchased. I got the ld verison, which is 9Hz vs 30Hz for the hd models.

Ergonomic, great resolution, great detection, eye easy screen. Very nice unit for the price.

Typically FLIR brand is going to give you a good unit.

There are many people on here very knowledgable about thermal stuff. They tend to hang out in the hog/varmint section, so feel free to post over there, you will get lots of answers there.

The HD38 is sweet. Try renting from bearclaw on here before you buy.

I had one guy tell that the core is the most important part of a thermal. Not sure what the core really is?

The core is the sensor, like a sensor in a digital camera. The better the sensor the better the resolution and heat detection, the better the unit.

Ok, what is good vs best (when reading specs)?

tagging to follow this thread

I have to defer to someone else on that question as I don't know the answer. Send bearclaw a PM or give him a call, he will gladly talk thermal stuff with you and will steer you in the right direction, and you can buy from him as well.

Sorry man, I know a little, but not a lot about this stuff.

Call Jason at ident marking... Has lots to choose from and you can go up and see through all of it before you buy.

I checked out indent marking web site but I only saw a few thermals. Does he have more in-house?

I m looking to buy an ATN Thor 3x after seeing these night hunts for hogs
Just seem like the deadliest way to exterminate them

If any of you have used this unit please share your good,bad experiences
If you recommend something else please tell about those

It will go on an AR10 or AR 6.8

The ThOR line is great, I would spring for as much resolution as you can, if you can afford a 320 3X and that's it, then great, but if you can afford a 640 2.5X (or higher) you might consider that one. I don't know the different prices on any of these, so don't kill me when I am saying buy an 11K unit. However, the better resolution units will be much easier to use and better sensitivity for identifying animals. Zoom helps, but without the resolution, all you have is larger pixels.

I played with a 320 2x for a weekend. It was a blast. Saw plenty of animals and it had enough resolution to where you could comfortably make the call of a calf vs hog at around 200 yards. Of course, most animals under thermal can be identified much easier by the way they act, something that comes quickly with a little scope time.

On caveat to all this. You may find pulling the scope up to your eyes to scan the area for wildlife to get tiresome after a while. Most hogs hunters will have some sort of hand held unit which they scan with and a weapon mounted scope unit for shooting only. It is possible to scan with the scope, it just gets tiring after a full nights work, unless you are stationary.

Bearclaw is local to Dallas and would rent you one with the rental price going toward purchase price so you could play with it before you buy it. give him a shout on the hog forum or via PM, he is a good guy to work with and knows a lot more than I do about this stuff.

thanks , I'll bug him

Share your results after speaking with bearclaw. I may be his next victim

First off, thanks for all the plugs and referrals guys. I sincerely appreciate it.

Here's a little bit of info and ill post later to go further into detail if needed.




Cabosandinh
This is a great middle of the road unit. The detection range at 1,100 yards is impressive. Most customers can comfortably take shots out to around 200 yards(which is a long shot at night). You can apply all of your rental fee towards a purchase if you decide you want to pick one up.

Here's a link to some more info on that unit:
http://www.thermaloutfitters.com/atn-thor-320-3x.html




Texashelms,

In a nut shell, there are 3 main factors that contribute to the detection range, price and overall quality of a thermal unit. This is a basic list and obviously doesn't even come close to touching on all important factors. Call me and I can go more into detail with you if you like.

1) The core - the most widely used and trusted thermal core is called a FLIR VOx(vanadium oxide)core but there are other quality cores like the ULIS(silicone) in the Pulsar LD38. I would only suggest weapon mounted units with a 320 core and up.
2) The lens - generally the bigger the better. Look for units with a quality germanium lens. Larger lenses give you higher magnification and better/larger field of view
3) the screen - OLED is better than LED. You want it crisp, bright, and with no dark pixels although its ok if a few pixels go dark after a while and most screen manufacturers won't cover up to a specific 2-10 dark pixels.

The faster the frame rate the better(measured in hertz or hz)

Keep in mind optical magnification is much more important than digital/ezoom magnification. Some companies will advertise the thor 3x as a 6x because it has a digital zoom. (Which goes up 12x)

There are no optical adjustable zoom
Thermals that I know of for civilian use. Only digital zoom.

FYI the thors are made in the USA unlike some other atn products.

We rent so you can have the chance to get a better idea what all this thermal Mumbo jumbo means and can know what you like best.

Made a little demo video to show what a thermal unit can do for you...

the problem with videos is they are only as good as the input/output, so the quality is nothing of what you see through the unit itself, but I hope this helps a little.

[video:youtube]KVXXZcXuz8k[/video]

Approximate distances for those animals:
Rabbits ~ 20-25 yards
Cat ~ 75-100 yards (the interesting thing with this detection was the ability to see it coming off the road, as the road was still putting off lots of heat. Once it was in the field it was quite easy to see)

First skunk ~ 30-40 yards (this was the same skunk that crossed the road)

Second skunk in the field ~ 100-120 yards in field grass

Detecting in an suburban or urban environment is much different than in the field due to the increased levels of heat retention and heat signatures of things such as roads, houses, bricks, and concrete.

I will post a follow up video from my lease in the next couple weeks to show the difference in detectability of animals and hopefully some kill shots.

yes, Jason Crum has a plethora to sample and view

It here a reasonable limit as to what caliber rifle you can use it on? Iit was recommended to me to keep it at .308. Does anyone have an experience with other calibers?