New Toy

That don't look like an airgun. Lol

Hmmm! you joined the rest of us who use powder. I can see the demise of chicken murderers...

Nice

Just a question and not a criticism but in the early forum days nobody would post a gun picture with the serial number exposed. No longer a concern? Probably not a problem unless the gun was purchased out of some guy's trunk in a back alley.

I still use air for hunting. This is for bad guys. I had a methhead trespasser invade my homestead July 4th weekend. I went out to confront him and realized I couldn’t see anything even by moonlight and I needed something light weight and practical for spotting someone hiding in my blueberries. I have a nice ATN night scope on an airgun but its too heavy to use to sweep an area with and even then it isn’t going to expose someone hiding well. Its a lot harder to hide from the thermal. 

Thanks Joekat. That’s better. 

You can see that the thermal scope is barely bigger than my Aimpoint and a lot smaller than my ATN 4k Pro digital night scope. Currently the ATN is my nighttime varmint getter. That's about to change. The ATN is great, but so big and heavy. It's fine for stand hunting. But the thermal will be so much easier to stalk around with.

This model is a Sightmark Wraith Mini. It's considered a descent entry level thermal scope. It only has a 2x zoom and some digital zoom I don't find that useful. But it's plenty for spotting humans at 100 yards or varmints at 50 yards and IDing the target. It has multiple vision modes. Here's some of my animals at various ranges. The dog's furtherest range is 43 yards. The picture is much sharper and less pixilated in person and in video mode than in the still shot mode I was using tonight.









Some neat things I've learned:

It can see footprints:


Also where something lay. Bullet holes in cardboard at night glow for at least 30 seconds after the shot.

Snakes and toads have no significant heat signature, while dragonflies glow bright hot.

Chickens will reflect sunlight off their feathers during the day, but when they are not in sunlight only a chicken's face and legs emit significant heat.

That’s a very beautiful toy.
I’m waiting prices go down a little more to buy one. If it will be allowed here since at the moment the use is forbidden for hunting (but it seems things are changing)

I have a similar night vision and it's incredible how well you can see with a upgraded IR light, but it's HEAVY! A good option for stand hunting but as BF mentioned, too cumbersome for lugging and scanning. Judging distances can be a challenge as well...

I will eventually buy a thermal. My buddy has one and he can easily pick out hogs and coyotes at night long before I can with my IR night vision set up.

I was looking at the Wraith a couple years ago and tried to buy it but with Covid, I guess there was no stock anywhere that I could locate.

I built a 308 AR10 for my son that could use a good thermal.

Someone warned me that once I got thermal, the night scope would go by the wayside, and I think he was right. Because its so small and the quick detachment back to zero seems so trustworthy, I could foresee myself in fact maxing out all 5 gun-zero slots and using this on 5 different guns. For instance, I have a small .30 carbine airgun I use for squirrel hunting and brain shooting deer and hogs. I could easily plug this thermal on that setup and popping off squirrels hiding up trees would probably be wicked. No more spending 15 minutes trying to spot hair through the scope. It might make hunting less challenging. But if the end goal is the kill and not the game leading up to it, a scope like this is the way to go. If I squirrel hunt, I just want a bag full of squirrels to clean and eat. The easier the better. Like bream fishing. Give me a bucket of big bream. I prefer them to be plentiful and stupid. I’d like to catch my fill in an hour and go home. If I’m coyote hunting, I just want to kill the coyote so it can’t eat more game animals or livestock. I don’t care how that’s accomplished. So if the scope gives me a major advantage, great.

I thought about doing the quick detach swap outs with my night vision, but I'm too lazy to mess with it. One thing I really like about my Aton is the battery life! That's a very important consideration of you don't want to carry around several batteries or a charging station. My current set up allows for a easy 12 hrs of hunting, which is stellar in the world of night hunting. The scope also works GREAT during the day.

To my knowledge, no thermal gets that kind of life on a charge. It's a small trade off, though, for what you gain in night time acquisition performance, and I'm sure battery life will only improve over time or possibly with higher end models...

Daytime video on the ATN. 

This reminded me of bullfrog when I saw it.

I took the thermal out for a spin tonight on my .30 carbine air rifle. I'll do a more thorough writeup in my chicken thread when get the video edited. Long story short, I have a half acre electric net up in the woods that I'm about to move some chickens to. But a limb fell on it and I didn't find the limb for a good while. While the fence was shorted out, some varmints got into the paddock. I started hunting them tonight and got two coons.

The thermal is a game changer. I saw the coon in the picture when it was slipping through the thick and was able to take the first head shot that presented itself. With a regular night scope I wouldn't have seen the movement in the brush and may have only saw bright eyeshine and not the head behind the shine once the coon stuck his head out.

It can kill anything up to a black bear with a head shot. On lung shots, this one is good on coyotes and smaller. This gun is set for 75 fpe. It can run up to 110 fpe. I have other airguns that are several times more powerful and can lung-kill bear. Effective range is 100 yards for most air rifle. Most of them. Their killing power extends to several hundred yards but they only shoot flat to 75-100 yards.

Accuracy is one perfect hole the size of the projectile at 50 yards and nickle-sized groups at 100 yards.