Primary Thermal Optic

[Terry]

Just looking for some feedback from thermal users. My question is for those that own both a thermal viewer and a thermal scope which system do you use most on an average night out?

Personally, I've had both a thermal mono and scope for a couple years now and always used a 1X scanner just for detection and then followed up with a higher end themal scope for ID. I use a thermal mono 10 to 1 scanning for targets infact some nights the scope barely gets turned on maybe 15 to 30 minutes minutes total. Thats compared to several hours for the thermal viewer.

The last six months I've been using 30mm and 50mm lens for my OTS-X and I'm really enjoying the better clarity at range and my thermal scope really only gets turned on for shooting now as I can ID well with the 30mm and 50mm lens mono.

This brings to question would you be better spending more money on a higher end 640 thermal viewer if that's the system you use 80-90% of the time? Maybe have a 30mm/50mm 336 core thermal scope for shooting. It would be nice if you had both a top end scope and top end viewer , but many have to cut cost somewhere so that's not possible.

 

[TEXASLAWMAN]

I do the same as you use the thermal mono most of the time to spot then identify with the pvs-14 or thermal rifle scope. 336 resolution is good for hunting in my opinion 640 does look better but is not necessary, one of the main reasons to go with 640 in the newer scopes is the ability to digitally zoom and still have decent resolution. But to answer the question I would think a higher end scope would be better since you are shooting with it while the mono is just for spotting.

 

[Dry Creek]

I use a 320 core on 1X for scanning 99% of the time and am perfectly happy out to 400 yds on most nights unless the fog rolls in. For the other 1%, shooting my Zeus 5X 336 core with 75mm lens is exceptional. The 5X is overkill unless you hunt out of a tower like I do. At some point I will upgrade to a 640 thermal scope to also get better resolution. I agree to spend more $$$ on the scope because the shot is the most important part of the equation to me.

 

[hdfireman]

I agree with the above. The size of the lens is important when it comes to thermal. You noticed it when using your spotter with the bigger lens. So a 640 mono is only going to do so much and it's a spotter. You aren't trying to ID the target with it at range.


If you shoot under 150 yards the 320 with a 3x or 5x optical zoom should work fine. As TLM stated the 640 comes into play if you have to use the digital magnification.