Originally Posted By: 1trkyhntrIf at all possible see if you can find someone with a thermal scope who will let you look through it before you buy one. I don't have a thermal scope. I have a FLIR PS32 for scanning and a dedicated gen 3 NV scope for ID/killing.
Some guys will tell you that they can ID an animal with thermal. I will tell you that I ABSOLUTELY cannot positively ID ANY animal with my thermal at 200 yards. Or 100 yards for that matter. I can tell that it is an animal, and even it's approximate size and I can even BS you and say that I know it's a coyote/fox by the way that it moves, but the truth is that you won't know for sure what it is until you pull the trigger and put a light on it after it's dead.
Maybe if your only target was hogs, at close range, you might be ok, I don't know about that.
Personally I would not pull the trigger on ANY target based on the thermal image alone from my experience with a 320 core unit.
Maybe a $10000.00 plus unit might give better results, but I get the impression from your question that your budget won't allow that.
If I were you I would be looking more at NV than thermal.
What He said +1000
Some guys will tell you that they can ID an animal with thermal. I will tell you that I ABSOLUTELY cannot positively ID ANY animal with my thermal at 200 yards. Or 100 yards for that matter. I can tell that it is an animal, and even it's approximate size and I can even BS you and say that I know it's a coyote/fox by the way that it moves, but the truth is that you won't know for sure what it is until you pull the trigger and put a light on it after it's dead.
Maybe if your only target was hogs, at close range, you might be ok, I don't know about that.
Personally I would not pull the trigger on ANY target based on the thermal image alone from my experience with a 320 core unit.
Maybe a $10000.00 plus unit might give better results, but I get the impression from your question that your budget won't allow that.
If I were you I would be looking more at NV than thermal.
What He said +1000