Double Naught Spy
New member
I recently joined the pro staff of a local thermal and night vision company here in Texas called Third Coast Thermal. I have the fortunate job of getting to field test some of their gear. My first project is with an entry-level thermal weapon sight from Armasight called the Predator.
Here is the initial field tests video showing various critters at various distances and in various conditions (hot and mildly humid for a Texas August)...
https://youtu.be/zKO4DBAPQcw
Hopefully, I can get some video of it in action on hogs or predators, but they have been scarce of late where I am.
"Entry level" is a bit of a misnomer. At about $3k in price, this is an inexpensive scope by today's standards for thermal scopes, but 4 years ago, the technology would have been higher end and the scope would have cost 2-3 times as much money. The salient point here is that folks were hunting with scopes like this 4 years ago quite successfully.
So how far is the scope good for? This is a question always asked and is a bit complicated. Most night hunting (shooting) for most hunters takes place at 100 yards or less and very, very little takes place at over 200 yards. For hogs in an open field on a decent night, just over >200 yards would appear to be about the limit of useful shootability, I would estimate. Coons and bobcats would likely be around 100 yards and coyotes closer to 150.
Spotting of animals is possible, depending on animal size and environmental conditions, out to several hundred yards. Identifying well enough to shoot them is going to be within the distances I noted above.
So what does $3k get you? It get you a 1.6x, 336x256 resolution, 25mm objective thermal sight that has better visual capabilities than optical scopes like the FLIR PS32 or L3/Eotech X320 for about the same money. Note that MSRP on the scope is a bit more, but various vendors have it offered at just below $3000.
So why are scopes like this priced so low? In the last couple of years, competition has increased as demand has increased and one of the primary vendors of thermal cores (the sensor that 'sees' heat), FLIR, dropped the price of the cores just after they offered their RS line of thermal rifle scopes. In 2015, there have been some MSRP price drops from a couple of vendors on their higher end units and Pulsar became the first company to offer a sub $3K priced weapon sight, the Apex, apparently recognizing a part of the market that the other companies had ignored. Now Armasight is addressing that part of the market as well.
The bottom line here is that now folks have a couple of options for relatively inexpensive thermal weapon sights. These are not cutting edge or high end scopes and they are not priced like cutting edge high end scopes, but for most folks basic night hunting needs, scopes like the Armasight Predator WILL hunt.
Here is the initial field tests video showing various critters at various distances and in various conditions (hot and mildly humid for a Texas August)...
https://youtu.be/zKO4DBAPQcw
Hopefully, I can get some video of it in action on hogs or predators, but they have been scarce of late where I am.
"Entry level" is a bit of a misnomer. At about $3k in price, this is an inexpensive scope by today's standards for thermal scopes, but 4 years ago, the technology would have been higher end and the scope would have cost 2-3 times as much money. The salient point here is that folks were hunting with scopes like this 4 years ago quite successfully.
So how far is the scope good for? This is a question always asked and is a bit complicated. Most night hunting (shooting) for most hunters takes place at 100 yards or less and very, very little takes place at over 200 yards. For hogs in an open field on a decent night, just over >200 yards would appear to be about the limit of useful shootability, I would estimate. Coons and bobcats would likely be around 100 yards and coyotes closer to 150.
Spotting of animals is possible, depending on animal size and environmental conditions, out to several hundred yards. Identifying well enough to shoot them is going to be within the distances I noted above.
So what does $3k get you? It get you a 1.6x, 336x256 resolution, 25mm objective thermal sight that has better visual capabilities than optical scopes like the FLIR PS32 or L3/Eotech X320 for about the same money. Note that MSRP on the scope is a bit more, but various vendors have it offered at just below $3000.
So why are scopes like this priced so low? In the last couple of years, competition has increased as demand has increased and one of the primary vendors of thermal cores (the sensor that 'sees' heat), FLIR, dropped the price of the cores just after they offered their RS line of thermal rifle scopes. In 2015, there have been some MSRP price drops from a couple of vendors on their higher end units and Pulsar became the first company to offer a sub $3K priced weapon sight, the Apex, apparently recognizing a part of the market that the other companies had ignored. Now Armasight is addressing that part of the market as well.
The bottom line here is that now folks have a couple of options for relatively inexpensive thermal weapon sights. These are not cutting edge or high end scopes and they are not priced like cutting edge high end scopes, but for most folks basic night hunting needs, scopes like the Armasight Predator WILL hunt.
