well when starting the buying process the 1st thing on my list is price, my pockets are only so deep and how much am I actually going to hunt with this? There are so many boxes to check when you start buying one of these, are you shooting hogs or coyotes? how far are you shooting 100yds or 300 yds? how important is battery life? How far can you ID a target and the list goes on. Image quality can drastically change on any given night because of moisture and dew point. Not long ago we had 21 days without sunshine, rain, snow, and water standing in the fields, image quality went down the tubes. The problem around here is there are no shops to walk into and do a hands on inspection of these scopes, one's left with reviews and alot of research. There are trade offs, am I willing to trade base mag for battery life, etc?I bought a TS35 640 as a backup and it’s decent. My issue is battery consumption. I just use it as a scanner and if I get 1.5hrs out of a set I’m lucky. I won’t ever buy another thermal without an internal battery with externals as a backup.
The clarity is ok, but nothing compared to my main 640 thermal. It’s literally like night and day difference. But then again, the AGM was half the price so you get what you pay for. If I’d started off with the AGM I’d probably have thought it was the bomb.
I think most of these scopes have 1 shot zero's or some such name however, I just change the numbers on my X Y coordinates. It may take 4-5 shots but it's no big deal for me. On my Adder "X"= Horizontal. To move point of impact to the right, "increase the number value. "Y"= Vertical to move point of impact down, increase the number value. Yours may be different but, you can get the idea.I am having trouble sighting mine in I have watched a few utube videos on it but my thermal does not seem to work the same as the ones in the videos I cant move the cross hairs to the impact point. any help is greatly welcomed.
battery life and base mag were huge in my selection as well. Up here I hunt big fields easily see 600-1000+ yards, my shots are 150+, I think I've had 2 shots less than 100 yds. The 4x base mag on my Adder has been great however, the new scope has a 3x base mag and I think it will work fine coupled with the PIP. I never use the zoom features just point and shoot. I'm looking forward to the new GH 50 x 640, should be here tomorrow I want to see the "highlight" color palette appears to be the cats pajamas.Yeah I looked for almost 3-4 months before I pulled the trigger.
The hog/coyote thing really had me thinking. I hunt both so went with what they’d consider a “coyote” thermal. I’ll be honest. I’ve shot both coyotes and hogs at 25-200yds and still glad I picked the scope I did.
Battery life was real important to me. I didn’t do the research on my backup. I’ll get a battery pack for it when it goes on a gun, so hopefully that’ll take care of it.
There’s a setting on my iRay for high humidity and surprisingly it makes a huge difference.
Speaking of the distance again, I’d say the majority of my shots are less than 100yds probably less than 75yds. Down here I have a few fields, but they aren’t huge fields and it’s rare I catch anything on them. Most of my shots are in brush or burns…so I ain’t shooting far even though my base is 3.5.
When I save for another I’ll go back with what I have…unless I can “upgrade”, lol. Depends on how much money I save up.
Anyone have options for extended batteries or another power option for the V1. Right now it takes 2 CR123 batteries I think. 2hrs on a set of batteries is really really pushing it, lol.