I do a 3 shot zero with the Alpex. To be fair, when I do it again, I have to try to remember which flipping button to start e me off.
Fully Digital Deer Stalking
- Thread starter Rural Management Services
- Start date
Agreed - ideal for the first hour at dawn but certainly have to be mindful of that at the other end of the day.
Sheamus
Well-Known Member
Big numbers of deer on any ground is a certain display of incorrect management. Or no management what so ever.
I have access to two particular pieces of ground. Which has neighbouring land owners who will not allow any Deer control what so ever.
Both pieces of ground hold a significant amount of deer.
The amount of Deer activity around the last 10/15 minutes of legal shooting time. Peaks when it's too dark to see through my swarovski z6i. It was simply a no brainer to go with an Alpex4.
I shot these Wednesday afternoon all within the last 25 minutes of legal shooting. I purposely selected only the mature hinds out of the group. Largest weighed in at the game dealers was 71.6 and the smallest 69.8kg.
I have access to two particular pieces of ground. Which has neighbouring land owners who will not allow any Deer control what so ever.
Both pieces of ground hold a significant amount of deer.
The amount of Deer activity around the last 10/15 minutes of legal shooting time. Peaks when it's too dark to see through my swarovski z6i. It was simply a no brainer to go with an Alpex4.
I shot these Wednesday afternoon all within the last 25 minutes of legal shooting. I purposely selected only the mature hinds out of the group. Largest weighed in at the game dealers was 71.6 and the smallest 69.8kg.
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Put the 4k on the new 7mm RM yesterday at 15.00, zeroed within 4 shots-I started at 50 then moved back to 100-then took a staggie and hind within ten minutes of last light. I think for £800 they’re tremendous, I have a lot of confidence in them, and most people who know me know I’m a slight technophobe!
hendrix's rifle
Well-Known Member
I'd have had the opportunity to shoot probably well over 6 roe this last few days had I used an alpex or similar. Deer coming out bang on last light, literally a couple of minutes before total darkness. Nothing in the 2 hour lead up but numerous as soon as darkness came. It would have still been legal to shoot however the s+b just isn't as good during low light as digital.
More pressure on the deer - more likely to become nocturnal - requirements for digital sights to be able to shoot them still and meet cull figures
hendrix's rifle
Well-Known Member
I don't envy you dragging those out
I think it is a little ironic that we can stalk and shoot Roebucks from 4am to 10pm at certain times of the year - a huge 18 hour window at best and all is fair and sporting and yet move a minute outside of the 8 hour window that mid-winter doe stalking sometimes presents us and we are seen as Satan's spawn.
Personally I don't like the idea of shooting deer 'in the middle of the night' but I do sometimes challenge those with a selective moral compass.
The Alpex 4K and the like have certainly reduced the value of secondhand quality glass scopes - yes, of course, there is still a place for quality glass but for certain applications digital has the edge.
With in the time frame on small deer helps, the key is not to guess when you are struggling for light when a small brown target is against the edge of a wood.
Doe first
Buck second with him walking past his mate.
Scipio
Well-Known Member
Yep, when it turns into pest control of a certain population of game, boar for example, and night shooting is therfor allowed, digitals must make it quite a bit easier vs mounting (red or green) lamps.
I am talking digital without ir......not night shooting. My Alpex without ir only just stretches to legal shooting, not beyond.
Scipio
Well-Known Member
Hello Keith
First of all, what a great avatar pic that you have As for the quoted post, aha, i get ya'
- well personally, being based in Denmark,so bordering countries where night shooting of wild boar can occur and be allowed, i do think digital platforms could especially be useful there. So i guess that just adds even further ground for potential opportune use of the digital hunting platform. I also think a digital-analog combo approach could well be seen as even more ethical than a purely classic and analog approach. Here i am mainly thinking about using thermals to quickly find shot game. For example game that has gone down in the brush/forrest/field with tallish produce and is turning out tricky to find. This way less meat should spoil and potentially needed humane dispatch can be executed more quickly. - So sometimes both, is a good option to either or, i guess
.billy_boyle_2010
Well-Known Member
Interesting write up.
One element of digital shooting which I don't see mentioned much is how, IMO, it detaches one from the experience somewhat
We are taking a life- and digital shooting it becomes a bit more computerised, less real. You're not looking at a living creature. You're looking at pixels.
Thermal is worse than IR for this of course.
One element of digital shooting which I don't see mentioned much is how, IMO, it detaches one from the experience somewhat
We are taking a life- and digital shooting it becomes a bit more computerised, less real. You're not looking at a living creature. You're looking at pixels.
Thermal is worse than IR for this of course.
I personally disagree. With the new 4k screens, and improved sensors, and the distances I (personally) am shooting at, the image is perfectly clear.
However, with my C50 which does pixilate if you go to max mag, then yes I would agree. My C50 is pretty old now and the world has moved on quality wise.
The sporting questions aside (giving the stalker too much of an advantage over the quarry, as well as greater ability to push into the twilight, then fail to find the deer after it has been shot.), there are some technical issues that need to be sorted out before digital stalking can become mainstream:
1. Loss of zero when it runs out of power, or in the case of one scope I have, when hard powered off after it has hung (which it does once in a while). It also resets the date to 2014, so one knows when it has done this.
2. Resolution, as mentioned by others, being insufficient to distinguish the species, sex and age of the deer.
1. Loss of zero when it runs out of power, or in the case of one scope I have, when hard powered off after it has hung (which it does once in a while). It also resets the date to 2014, so one knows when it has done this.
2. Resolution, as mentioned by others, being insufficient to distinguish the species, sex and age of the deer.
Define “Sporting”. I hear it a lot. I know what the land owners would say to that, and I am not a pro.
This was 280yd at 24.5x mag. 07.35hrs last week so fairly close to sunrise, not full light.
I can tell it’s a red hind.
It is now in a chiller.
Optics world
Well-Known Member
Pard Nightstalker 4K EX is currently the best digital scope on the market but the Alpex is a close 2ndSo before everyone gets the pitch forks, tar and feathers out this is a discussion piece. I am not advocating for any particular method and I am fully aware that digital technology is very distasteful to some and a necessity to others. I appreciate for traditional highland stalking digital may never be a suitable option and anyone who rocks up to a traditional pony extract type highland hunt with a digital scoped rifle will certainly get an odd look or two.
I think it’s fair to say that the greatest advancements in hunting equipment in the last 10 years have all been digital based. Certain board rooms in Germany and Austria are already taking note and releasing their own digital products. Digital technology has moved on at a pace that firstly reflects society in general and has had a far greater impact on the way we hunt than any other device/system/gadget. With the widespread use of handheld thermal and digital day/night devices I feel that hunting is making a turn away from the traditional glass based hunting of the previous 50-150 years. 10 years ago I started using a handheld thermal and at that time I was certainly in the minority with even other guides not having made the leap then. Fast forward 10 years and I would imagine that the majority of recreational stalkers now have a hand held thermal and that percentage is growing every year.
Up until about 2-3 years ago though very few people were using digital scopes or digital binoculars for stalking. This was because up until devices like the Pulsar C50 or first generation Alpex there wasn’t really a stalker friendly device available to the mainstream. Having owned and used these devices extensively (wild boar and foxes mainly), although they did allow excellent light gathering etc they were certainly lacking in detail particularly during daylight use making them a compromise at best. There wasn’t much chance of being able to spot 308 holes in paper at 100m for instance. Also because at the time of their release there wasn’t a comparable NV spotting device people who stalked with them must have been spotting with a thermal spotter before switching to the NV rifle scope to do the final ID, safety check and shot? I can’t see any other way that this was happening in the first and last 10-15 mins of shooting light when Binos will have been largely useless for most. Now call me traditional but I have always had an issue with using a loaded or even unloaded rifle as a spotting device. Finally these devices like the C50 and first gen Alpex in my mind lacked the detail that a deer stalker really needs. For example both devices along with the Pard DS for that matter lack the definition to really asses the quality of the Roe bucks head gear or in December they don’t allow you to tell if it’s a roe doe or shed buck, which is something I have never struggled with using normal glass. I appreciate that there are other tells but sometimes all you can see of said deer is its head due to the way it’s standing or cover. Something that I take quite seriously in the summer months is roe buck management and making the final assessment of a bucks head gear through the scope on high mag (having already used the Binos to do the leg work) is how I keep the good.
More recently though devices like the HIK Habroks have come into the market. When the first gen 640x480 sensor model come out I was lucky enough to be lent a pair to test. The idea being that they were the next big thing. A spotter, range finder and binoculars all in one item. At the time I tested them a gave an honest review stating that the concept and layout was excellent, but the low res 3.5 mag optical channel was limiting at best. Yes you could tell it was a deer but it was a struggle in any light to determine if the deer was a fallow doe, follower or very poor pricket. As soon as the mag was cranked up a bit the situation to a certain extent didn’t improve as the resolution just wasn’t there. This meant you still needed the Binos and anyone who had tried to carry a pair of thermal binos and normal glass ones at the same time will tell you that it’s a nightmare.
Now in the last 6-12 months HIK in particular have started us down the road that might be the first fully viable deer stalking complete digital solution. With the 4K Alpex and the 4K Habrok Binos there are now products that can give the stalker a complete digital solution should he or she wish. In theory at least. The 4K Alpex has the same light gathering ability that allows shooting from the first and last minutes of shooting light that the old one had but the imagine now is for the first time sufficiently detailed to use instead of glass all the time. Obviously in broad daylight even the cheapest glass stalking scope is going to be better image wise, but the 4K is sufficiently detailed day and night to be in my mind at least an option for a stalking scope. It’s the first digital device that I have been able to see the .308 holes in paper for example when zeroing at 100m. Binocular wise the Habrok 4K with its £1200 price tag is an attractive option and for the first time a viable alternative to binoculars. Optically I have found them during testing more than sufficient for using as a stalking binocular even in daylight out to 300m+ depending on conditions. I have to say though the thermal chanel with its 4.3 base mag drove me insane. Imagine the field of view you would have using kitchen roll tubes to view the world through and this is similar to the thermal spotter Chanel on the Habroks. I have just looked up the figures and the optical FOV is 12m at 100m which when compared to my HIK condor at 22m @100m there is a decent difference. The latest two Habrok 4K devices I haven’t had the opportunity to test as yet, so maybe I will do an update if anyone fancies lending me a set of the nearly £5k 1240 sensor Habrok with the 2.5 base mag thermal?
Apologies for anyone who has endured the last several hundred random words. I have been writing this since early November on and off and every time I pick it up I add another random brain fart or two.
Back in November I decided to give fully digital stalking a go. I put a 4K LRF Alpex on the 308, swapped the glass Binos for a set of the cheaper 4K Habroks. I have to say though after the the first 60 mins running this setup I went back to my truck and retrieved by HIK Condor because of the previously mentioned FOV on the Habroks driving me nuts. So 3 fully digital devices and enough 18650 batteries in my pocket to power Curry’s for 24 hours. It also occurred to me on those first few outings that I was carrying 3 different LRF devices all the time as well!
I carried on with this combination never bothering with any IR devices I might add for the entire of November 2-4 times a week focusing on Fallow does. At first I found the technology did slow things down somewhat, because everything being unfamiliar took a little bit longer to focus or zoom etc. The Alpex for example usually needed changing from 3.5 to 7 mag or 7 mag to 14 mag followed by a focus on the front objective. After decades of just cranking the mag on glass up and down the extra step took some time to get used to. I have found the Habroks with their 25mm objective don’t gather as much light as the Alpex with its 50mm objective, which is understandable. For me because they only really have an additional 5-10mins on standard Binos light wise as opposed to the 10-20 mins the Alpex has and because of their previously mentioned thermal draw backs I found them too clunky. I do feel though that the 60mm £5k version with the 60mm objective, decent thermal and wider 22mm FOV would maybe be a two device solution. For me going from Condor to Habrok to Alpex was just too much digital. Condor to glass to Alpex somehow seemed less clunky. Also 4 less batteries to carry.
Would I go digital all the time? Not yet. I have carried on using my HIK Condor just like before, I have ditched the Habrok and I have left the Alpex 4K on one rifle. I have found that I have on balance taken more fallow with the Alpex than I would normally at this time of year given the increased light gathering etc, but I have also lost a few by taking too long to zoom, focus etc. On balance though there is an increase in productivity. I will most likely switch to glass again in the summer months and I certainly would never guide using a digital scope. Colleagues of mine I know do guide using digital but I prefer for a client to get a more traditional experience when they are paying for a guided stalk.
Unfortunately market confidence in Pard in the UK is pretty much zero.
Years of historic warranty issues and UK distribution agents coming and going seemingly twice a year being the root cause.
Only the other day there was a thread on SD regarding the above new unit that was dead within 10 mins of being out of the box.
Personally Pard needs to spend 3-5 years building back its reputation before I part with any pennies for their equipment.
Optics world
Well-Known Member
You cant really blame a product for that we have had the same issues with Pulsar and other top brands not working out of the box
thats where the warranty gets a good test.
since pard uk set up this year we have had no issues with getting things replaced.
pard certainly have a battle to win back Hik and DNT customers
thats where the warranty gets a good test.
since pard uk set up this year we have had no issues with getting things replaced.
pard certainly have a battle to win back Hik and DNT customers
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