My first night out with the new Thermion and Axion turned out alright. I missed out on a sounder, but still nabbed a decent-sized boar...
Lone Boar with the New Pulsar Thermion XM50 & Axion XM38
- Thread starter Brian Shaffer
- Start date
Good job getting on him in a hurry with "too much" magnification. Is that the 320 or the 640 unit?
Oooh, nice shooting!
Interesting new toys, too.
Interesting new toys, too.
Getting to play with new products is fun. I am glad to get rid of the ones that I don't like and sad to give back the ones I do.
LOL, did NOT give up on the TNTs. The SSTs are what I had with me when I went to the range with this set up and so this is what I am hunting with. I am perfectly happy with either round, but prefer the TNTs, actually.
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Glad to see the Hessian is still alive and kickin'. Ya won't know how to shoot with the new decking boards on the bench. That ol' boar sure let out a squeal when hit. Nice, big hog, congrats.
What do you think of that new style thermal scope?
My buddy is supposed to have one sent to him sometime soon.
My buddy is supposed to have one sent to him sometime soon.
Honestly, it is a bit of a mixed bag. The electronics are good for a 320. 5.5x on the XM50 is a lot of magnification with a narrow FOV. The user interface bothers me, but that is probably a lot of personal perception and stuff that can be gotten used to with time.
When I think about evaluating a product, I tend to think that everything should work well and then I look for what doesn't seem to be up to par or is just terrible.
The eye cup attaches to the scope with a MAGNET. This is not something that is going to survive field use. It will knock off too easily and be lost. As this is not MY scope, I can't try the eye cup in the field out of fear that it will be lost. However, with it on the rifle, you can brush your hand against it and knock it off fairly easily. Basically, the only thing it seems to be good for is using the scope in bright sunlight, such as when zeroing the rifle in the day time, which you are someplace like at the range.
In order to see the entire screen, you have to have your eye too close to the lens for firing. If you are far enough back to limit scope eye issues, then you cannot see most of the information display on the data bar at the bottom or the sides.
You have controls in two different places (left turret and ocular) and sometimes you may need to move your hand between the two locations in order to accomplish a task. For example, if you want to zoom by increments, you need to press the zoom button on the ocular and then transition to the turret knob. I don't like that.
The buttons on the ocular control power/nuc, recording, and zoom. These buttons need to be pressed in the center to activate properly. If you are trying to hit the record button, you have to move close to the lens to verify visually that record has been activated or once activated, stopped. There is no clicky feel to the buttons to let you know that you have activated what you intended to activate.
The turret knob has detents (clicks) that are so subtle as to be virtually useless. There is a selector button on the knob that if you don't press it properly/straightly, you can unintentionally rotate the knob while trying to press the button and end up selecting something you didn't intend to select.
I find that like the buttons on the ocular, the button on the turret is vague in its responsiveness. Multiple presses are sometimes necessary to get the desired effect. There may be a learning curve to this that I haven't mastered. I acknowledge this, but that doesn't mean I like it. Button responsiveness could have been much better.
The focus ring on the scope I have is tight tight tight. Initially, I had the impression that it was a faux focus ring and that the scope was fixed focus because I could not get it to turn until I really torqued down on it. It takes several pounds of force to turn it. However, unlike previous Pulsar units, focus is a little slower and it takes a bit more turn to attain focus. Previous models were such that subtle adjustments would make significant changes in focus and this model seems better.
Aside from the magnetic eye cup, the most stupid thing on the scope is the proprietary battery. You won't confuse which end to insert into the scope, which is a very good thing, but it has to be rotated into the correct position. To help aid you with this on a device meant to be used in the dark, they have a little gray dot painted on it so that you can "see" how to orient the battery. Instead of a tiny grey dot, they should have used a decidedly raised bump or other tactile feature, but they didn't. HOWEVER, they did key the battery so that it can only be inserted one way. So in the dark, you try to insert the battery and if you don't have a miracle and get it right the first time, you can partially insert it and it will stick, not bad, but such that you can't just easily rotate it in place. My point here is that while keying is an excellent idea, it could have been keyed in a much more user-friendly manner.
Reticle colors appear crisp and bright in the scope, but appear much more washed out on video, with the exception of black and white.
The scope has excellent contrast capability in very high humidity conditions.
That the scope can be mounted on rings is nice for the purposes of putting it on a bolt gun more easily, which is nice.
Zeroing is easy. The menu functions are a new variation on the Trail which was an improvement over the Apex.
There aren't as many reticle choices and they have taken away my favorite reticle, but they have added reticle colors. However, most of the reticles are the nice thin lines which allow for more precise shooting, which is still really nice.
Some of the color palettes seem pretty useless. Again, this is my opinion.
Most of these issues are not deal breakers, but facets that the user will be faced with in using the scope.
When I think about evaluating a product, I tend to think that everything should work well and then I look for what doesn't seem to be up to par or is just terrible.
The eye cup attaches to the scope with a MAGNET. This is not something that is going to survive field use. It will knock off too easily and be lost. As this is not MY scope, I can't try the eye cup in the field out of fear that it will be lost. However, with it on the rifle, you can brush your hand against it and knock it off fairly easily. Basically, the only thing it seems to be good for is using the scope in bright sunlight, such as when zeroing the rifle in the day time, which you are someplace like at the range.
In order to see the entire screen, you have to have your eye too close to the lens for firing. If you are far enough back to limit scope eye issues, then you cannot see most of the information display on the data bar at the bottom or the sides.
You have controls in two different places (left turret and ocular) and sometimes you may need to move your hand between the two locations in order to accomplish a task. For example, if you want to zoom by increments, you need to press the zoom button on the ocular and then transition to the turret knob. I don't like that.
The buttons on the ocular control power/nuc, recording, and zoom. These buttons need to be pressed in the center to activate properly. If you are trying to hit the record button, you have to move close to the lens to verify visually that record has been activated or once activated, stopped. There is no clicky feel to the buttons to let you know that you have activated what you intended to activate.
The turret knob has detents (clicks) that are so subtle as to be virtually useless. There is a selector button on the knob that if you don't press it properly/straightly, you can unintentionally rotate the knob while trying to press the button and end up selecting something you didn't intend to select.
I find that like the buttons on the ocular, the button on the turret is vague in its responsiveness. Multiple presses are sometimes necessary to get the desired effect. There may be a learning curve to this that I haven't mastered. I acknowledge this, but that doesn't mean I like it. Button responsiveness could have been much better.
The focus ring on the scope I have is tight tight tight. Initially, I had the impression that it was a faux focus ring and that the scope was fixed focus because I could not get it to turn until I really torqued down on it. It takes several pounds of force to turn it. However, unlike previous Pulsar units, focus is a little slower and it takes a bit more turn to attain focus. Previous models were such that subtle adjustments would make significant changes in focus and this model seems better.
Aside from the magnetic eye cup, the most stupid thing on the scope is the proprietary battery. You won't confuse which end to insert into the scope, which is a very good thing, but it has to be rotated into the correct position. To help aid you with this on a device meant to be used in the dark, they have a little gray dot painted on it so that you can "see" how to orient the battery. Instead of a tiny grey dot, they should have used a decidedly raised bump or other tactile feature, but they didn't. HOWEVER, they did key the battery so that it can only be inserted one way. So in the dark, you try to insert the battery and if you don't have a miracle and get it right the first time, you can partially insert it and it will stick, not bad, but such that you can't just easily rotate it in place. My point here is that while keying is an excellent idea, it could have been keyed in a much more user-friendly manner.
Reticle colors appear crisp and bright in the scope, but appear much more washed out on video, with the exception of black and white.
The scope has excellent contrast capability in very high humidity conditions.
That the scope can be mounted on rings is nice for the purposes of putting it on a bolt gun more easily, which is nice.
Zeroing is easy. The menu functions are a new variation on the Trail which was an improvement over the Apex.
There aren't as many reticle choices and they have taken away my favorite reticle, but they have added reticle colors. However, most of the reticles are the nice thin lines which allow for more precise shooting, which is still really nice.
Some of the color palettes seem pretty useless. Again, this is my opinion.
Most of these issues are not deal breakers, but facets that the user will be faced with in using the scope.
Last edited:
wigwamitus
LSB Active Member
Great first field review Brian !!
The interface issues sound tough ... maybe half of them will "ride up with wear" !!!
(i.e. mostly disappear when u get used to them) ???
The battery situation sounds awful. But then I'm staunchly opposed to proprietary batteries.
Which reticle did you like that is gone ?
I used the (almost) mil-hash reticle once for target shooting heated steel at 500yds ... but never for hunting/critter control. But I liked knowing it was there if needed.
When you say "The scope has excellent contrast capability in very high humidity conditions" I wonder what that means ?
For instance with the UTC-x (or Mk3 60mm) .. I can click up the gain (contrast) by 2 to 3 clicks ... and see the terrain much more clearly than not, in high washout conditions. But that comes at the expense of adding some graininess to the image. Which is a trade-off you think about as you click up. Are you saying the Thermion is somehow different in this regard ??
The interface issues sound tough ... maybe half of them will "ride up with wear" !!!
(i.e. mostly disappear when u get used to them) ???The battery situation sounds awful. But then I'm staunchly opposed to proprietary batteries.
Which reticle did you like that is gone ?
I used the (almost) mil-hash reticle once for target shooting heated steel at 500yds ... but never for hunting/critter control. But I liked knowing it was there if needed.
When you say "The scope has excellent contrast capability in very high humidity conditions" I wonder what that means ?
For instance with the UTC-x (or Mk3 60mm) .. I can click up the gain (contrast) by 2 to 3 clicks ... and see the terrain much more clearly than not, in high washout conditions. But that comes at the expense of adding some graininess to the image. Which is a trade-off you think about as you click up. Are you saying the Thermion is somehow different in this regard ??
Nice one!
I really like this one...
It means that I can more clearly see vegetation in high humidity with it than I could with either my Trijicon IR Hunter, IR Patrol, or Armasight Zeus scopes.
One of the real problems with doing video on the Trijicon IR Hunter is that when you turn of the contrast, the video quality degrades considerably. It degrades in the scope, but on video, it can look really grainy.
