Got super curious about thermal after a brief peek through Scorpio’s thermal scope at the shotty shoot.
After a bunch of research I settled on what I think is a sweet spot in the price/capablities continuum - $999 delivered to my door (if anyone is interested send me a DM and I’ll share the retailer).
DNT (a spin-off of Arken) Thermnight TNC225R - ThermNight Thermal & Night Vision Multispectral Scope with Laser Rangefinder and Ballistic Calculator
One button press to switch between thermal and IR night vision, and it can even do a Picture-In-Picture overlay of thermal on IR.
Just arrived today, my first ever digital optic, looking forward to getting range time with it on an AR and a .308 bolt gun:
It seems to have all the bells and whistles. The only negative I can think of is the relatively low res (256 lines) on the thermal side. It’s not terrible for thermal, 10 years ago it was a common resolution, but 320 replaced that and now we have 640 lines.
Now, this is where I believe it will do great, the Sony ultra sensitive white light pickup is absolutely fantastic. If u can overlay that with the thermal, it may actually work out better than thermal alone.
Gosh darn it, we have to have another shoot so I can see it, lol.
Sure, or if you want set up a range meet to try it out let me know, still owe you a big favor for letting us shoot your garand.
I think the battery life from the reviews was around 5 hours, but not certain yet. It takes 18650 batteries (same as used on in a lot of “high power” flashlights) inside the IR emitter tube. You can recharge that battery via a usb-c port on the side, or just screw off the battery cap and plop in another battery (it comes with 2).
btw, you have to rethink range targets when using a thermal scope. If u put up a typical paper target the whole thing shows up as a featureless monolith.
I have found aluminum tape, like they use in hvac, works great. It is very reflective and lights up like a chris… hanuka bush. Water bottles and jugs are easy to see too. You need something that creates a good temperature contrast.
