Thermal rifle scopes

Morgy

Well-Known Member
Having looked through the various thermal scopes on offer, I came across this one.

ATNI MARS-HD 384 1.25-5x SMART Thermal Scope – ATN Corp

Does anyone have first hand knowledge of one of these? what they are like compared to others on the market etc?

I think you would have to do an awful lot of night shooting to get your monies worth from NV, but it looks as though these do it all, including RF at night.

Seems to have a great deal of features for £2k
 
I have only looked through one at a "talking stalking" evening a few months ago.

I was impressed with the visible definition between inanimate objects. Different materials with different emissivity were very clear. The people in the area were very sharply defined, like looking at a Greyscale/Black and White photo negative.

The exhibit was manned by a guy from ATN Europe Ltd. based in Rotherwas, Hereford, you might contact him to see if you can arrange to view them somewhere. Tom Bridgewater, 0203 744 6303

HTH

Alan
 
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Personally I would want to see / try in real world conditions for that kind of money

Scot country do a try before you buy or something like that where I believe u probably pay upfront and they'll post you out a demo for a week etc , I would certainly consider this type of option as you can try it at your leasure on your ground and decide if it's for you
 
Thanks Alan, I get down to Tewkesbury fairly regularly and Hereford isnt that far away from there.

Hi Mark

Scott Country do sell ATN stuff but dont advertise these Thermal Scopes, maybe something to do with being an outlet for Pulsar? , I would like to see how these perform side by side or perhaps someone has already made a comparison video, Scott Country did some I believe on NV a while back
 
Personally I would want to see / try in real world conditions for that kind of money

Scot country do a try before you buy or something like that where I believe u probably pay upfront and they'll post you out a demo for a week etc , I would certainly consider this type of option as you can try it at your leasure on your ground and decide if it's for you

They now charge a restocking fee of a couple of hundred quid.I was interested in thermal so rang them but don't fancy paying £200 just for a try.
Atb
dave
 
there was a thread here not that long back.

the general opinion is that the image quality is rather poor for 100% positive ID.

I have been playing with a lot of gear here at work and with a few lads around me and IMO they can put as many gimmicks' on the thermal hunting scopes as they like but I will never have one for the following reasons.


1, to much money for what they realistically give you.
2, poor image quality that drops like a stone with more magnification you have or use,
3, as said in the other post most people are using thermal spotters and then gen 3 or digital hunting scopes to take the shot.

I think that they have a long way to go yet, and I wish they would sort out the image quality rather than have silly extras like video etc. just selling gimmicks trying to entice you in and one they have your money it all over

just my thoughts

bob.

ps: out last night with a drone NV set up and a t50 3 mod red led torch as my eye locator, and had 4 fox's and 21 rabbits.
 
They now charge a restocking fee of a couple of hundred quid.I was interested in thermal so rang them but don't fancy paying £200 just for a try.
Atb
dave

Thank you Dave
i didn't know that as I've never actually used there offer of try before you buy , that's quite a bit just to try




I have used an pulsar recon 870 spotter with no ir and I really like it , my shooting buddy scans with a red led T something and between us when we see a fox I follow it with the spotter and he gets on it with the rifle with a light
personally this works very well for us


I would quite like to try a thermal spotter for spotting fox and also for the odd deer that has run into cover I think it would be good for this as we all know how camouflaged deer can be dead in a wood with light cover and failing light



as for using a thermal rifle scope hmmm I'm not sure I'm still quite happy to use the best scope / glass with a red led torch
 
Other forms of NV -from visible lamps to digital scopes- work perfectly well in the right hands/conditions, but IME unless you want to shoot your foxes well over 300m away, nothing gives you as much as an advantage as a thermal scope.

I've used the 50 (good) and 75 (excellent) versions of the Pulsar Apex, and an Optix Identifier Snapshot 60/100 (really impressive), but not yet the ATN, which is new to the UK market and looks very promising.

We've really only seen the first wave of this type of product so far, and Pulsar have had the most affordable part of the market all to themselves, but ATN may well be leading the way into the next stage of things.

What it's worth spending your money on is a personal choice. I've not bought a thermal riflescope of my own yet and get by pretty well with a rear-mounted Gen 2+ monocular, but -having now spent quite a lot of time in the thermal part of the spectrum- I'm continually aware of the limitations as well as the capabilities of my current set up, so a thermal scope is right at the top of my wish list.
 
I dont believe most people who buy these items ever use them to their fullest extent, recreational shooters use it a few times and then its put away on the shelf, another great idea at the time, so 100 yards is probably more than adequate, "Fishing flies catch more fishermen than fish" , always interesting to check out new stuff on the market.
 
I don't believe most people who buy these items ever use them to their fullest extent.

That may be true, but if I had a thermal scope in the cabinet my other NV gear would be heading straight for the sales section!

ISTM that, regardless of whether you go out 4 times a week or once a month, or whether your ground is 5 minutes or 100 miles away, you always want to give yourself the best chance of a result.
 
[FONT=&amp]Indeed, I found this, a thermal monocular for £500.00 at Uttings, not a night sight for a weapon, but could be useful for the money

[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]The FLIR Scout TK is a pocket-sized thermal vision monocular for exploring the outdoors—at night and in lowlight conditions. Scout TK reveals your surroundings and helps you see people, objects and animals over 100 yards (90 m) away. Simple to use, with still image and video recording, Scout TK is the perfect companion, whether in the back country or your own backyard.

[/FONT]
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CyQ353qXuE
[FONT=&amp]

FLIR
Scout TK Compact Thermal Imaging Monocular - Green


[/FONT]

[FONT=&amp]NEW[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]£499.00IN STOCK[/FONT]
 
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The Scout TK is nicely made, but the lens and sensor are really too small to make it a useful hunting tool. I've got one here and it's a neat piece of kit, but to be fair to FLIR, as far as I can see at least, nowhere in their marketing do they recommend it for hunting.
 
I saw a video of it and it doesnt look great, but then at a 1/3rd the price of anything else I dont suppose it would be
 
[FONT=&amp]Indeed, I found this, a thermal monocular for £500.00 at Uttings, not a night sight for a weapon, but could be useful for the money

[/FONT]
[FONT=&amp]The FLIR Scout TK is a pocket-sized thermal vision monocular for exploring the outdoors—at night and in lowlight conditions. Scout TK reveals your surroundings and helps you see people, objects and animals over 100 yards (90 m) away. Simple to use, with still image and video recording, Scout TK is the perfect companion, whether in the back country or your own backyard.
[/FONT]

I have been debating getting one of these. We have a bit of ground on my pheasant shoot where a chestnut coppice has been badly harvested behind where pegs (on our best drive). Last season, 2 dogs broke their legs in there, the pickers up are understandably nervous about working the ground. I was wondering whether a thermal monocular would help identify birds in heavy cover to minimise the amount of work that dogs have to do in there - would rather go for the cheapest workable option. If it can be used to aid fox control, so much the better.

Any thoughts?
 
I'd say not. While £500 sent is much more appealing than even one dog with a broken leg, it sounds like the person holding the thermal would be the next casualty.

Can't you spend the £500 on sorting the coppice out?

I think it will cost a great deal more than that I am afraid. It is a real mess with piles of fallen timber in bramble stretching hundreds of yards. It is beginning to rot down but will be a few years yet. Not sure that shoot coffers will run to that cost. May be that we have to abandon one of our best drives for a couple of years :(
 
The FLIR that I looked through had such a slow refresh rate compared to the Pulsar, it was no contest.
 
The FLIR that I looked through had such a slow refresh rate compared to the Pulsar, it was no contest.

The problem FLIR have is that the US will only allow the export of 9Hz units, whereas Pulsar's kit is made in Eastern Europe -Belarus, I think- and not subject to the same restrictions.

It will be interesting to see whether the ATN Mars HD scopes sold in the UK will offer the full 60 Hz - I can't see any information on refresh rates on their site.
 
The problem FLIR have is that the US will only allow the export of 9Hz units, whereas Pulsar's kit is made in Eastern Europe -Belarus, I think- and not subject to the same restrictions.
That's FLIR's problem, not ours.
I don't think we are allowed to export the faster refresh rates either, but we can import them.
 
I have only looked through one at a "talking stalking" evening a few months ago.

I was impressed with the visible definition between inanimate objects. Different materials with different emissivity were very clear. The people in the area were very sharply defined, like looking at a Greyscale/Black and White photo negative.

The exhibit was manned by a guy from ATN Europe Ltd. based in Rotherwas, Hereford, you might contact him to see if you can arrange to view them somewhere. Tom Bridgewater, 0203 744 6303

HTH

Alan

Hi Alan,

I spoke to Tom and to the sales manager for the UK, they are interested in advertising on this website and also organizing demo events to show off their products here in the UK, (details sent to Sikamalc)

Chris Melling confirmed what BobJS was saying above regarding the zoom taking away clarity, he reckoned you could identify species at 250 yards and clearly shoot them at 100 yards no problem.

When you consider the cost £2,000.00 against say an Archer D grade £1700, (without taking anything away from the Archer) these thermal scopes have to be worth a look
 
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