Looks like too much good KY bourbon being run thru that hossI’ve been pissing away a good chunk of change on NV and Thermal this past year.
The sad thing is I still want to spend more.
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Thermal and preparedness.
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For my B-Day last week the wife bought me a Bushnell Day/Night digital monocular. It has Wi-Fi, video both day and night, x6 zoom. settings all change from the top buttons. I was in the woods and spotted lots of critters. Along, with the Owl who wakes us up every morning. Have not played with the video capability yet. I just was really surprised as I had never mentioned any night vision stuff.
I cut out the top of my helmet, so my hair can be free…
The tonsure variant of the ops core?
steves1911
Ultimate Member
Zeiss has some new thermals out that look interesting. Given the companies quality level on the rest of their optics lineup I'd bet the company's thermal line up is held to the same standard. They also give a nice discount to military/Leo. One of these days I'm going to take a ride up to europtic to take a look at some of the latest offerings from a couple manufacturers.
Archeryrob
Undecided on a great many things
Pale Ryder
Ultimate Member
Not into NV/thermal thing mainly from a cost benefit angle, but this showed up in my YT feed. Pretty cool how good they have become.
ToBeFree
Ultimate Member
In my household If I surf something it shows up a bit later on my wife's stuff!
Chauchat
Active Member
Helmet mounted thermal? Sign me up! The clarity of the thermals in the video is way beyond the PAS-13C/D/E which are now a twenty year old platform.
E.Shell
Ultimate Member
I've been saving up for low light capability since last August and made finally the leap. I bought an AGM "Rattler TS35 640" (640x512) thermal rifle scope and it arrived a week ago.
I got it through East Coast Thermal & Night Vision, located here in MD.
https://eastcoastthermals.com/collections/frontpage/products/agm-rattler-ts35-640
I used their 'contact us' email link to ask a "quick question" and got a phone call from the owner, Brad. Brad spent about 30 minutes on the phone with me, answering ALL of my questions and went on to explain even more about device applications, abilities and limitations, giving me a very good education on the various devices.
East Coast was the same price as Amazon and several other vendors ($2,995 + tax & shipping). Being local and especially with the level of service they provided (Brad couldn't have been more helpful), I decided to buy through East Coast.
There was a two week delivery time both with East Coast, Amazon and several other vendors. A new version of the TS35 640, the "V2", recently became available and the price on the original model dropped from $4k to $3k, creating a rush and back-order situation. The V2 is about $500 more, and I was already stretching my highly refined ability to rationalize this purchase, so I stuck with the first version. Brad kept me posted through the delivery process with both calls and texts and I really could not have asked for better commo and CS.
I've used some high-end military issue night vision devices in the recent past and I almost bought regular night vision, but after watching hours and hours of device comparison and set up/zeroing videos (and about 20,000 coyotes and hogs whacked) and looking at different devices, I opted to start with thermal. This is my first experience with thermal devices and it is amazing. The resolution is very good, pretty much the same as the Rix Stride ST6 640x512 shown in the video above.
I did have a little difficulty picking out targets in bright sunshine, when everything surrounding the target (squirrel) was very warm, but early in the day and after dark, it is awesome. I am thinking about getting a 45 degree rail mount and putting an EOTech on the rifle too so I can still be effective on warm sunny days.
The menu is very easy to navigate and it provides quite a few setup options. It came with 5 choices of reticles, but when I installed the latest firmware update (very easy to do), it increased reticle choices to 10.
The only issue thus far is that I cannot get it to BlueTooth link over to my phone, but I suspect that's an operator error and I need to spend a little more time fooling with it before any whining takes place. The phone sees and "paired" with the device, but cannot 'connect' when I activate the app. I think I need to delete and reload the app, since I loaded and started the app before receiving the device, so it didn't start up the way it wanted to. On initial start-up, the app asked for SN info and has not asked again since trying to connect, so I think I must have skipped a critical step. If I cannot solve this on my own, I feel confident that the vendor will help me.
ETA: I used AGM's customer service email, described the problem and requested help at 4:14pm today. At 6:44pm, I received a reply with instructions that worked. I'm all connected and everything is now functional.
It does connect to my computer just fine and downloading images and videos from the device to my computer was easy. To take a still picture of what you see through the scope only requires one quick touch of a button, and video is almost as easy, only requiring holding the same button for 3 seconds to start recording.
It comes with a USB to USB-C cable to connect to either a computer or to a rechargeable battery pack, but I am concerned about bumping the connection in the field and damaging the device connector. I am going to order a magnetic 'quick disconnect' USB-C connector so I can run the device on the battery pack that I'll place in the stock pack on my rifle in place of the Twinkie. Should be a pretty smooth setup.
It also comes with a throw-lever mount and hardware in the package but not installed on the device. This is good, because as I use it as a hand-held monocular, the mount isn't in the way. It is supposed to return within about 1 moa of zero when removed and reinstalled, which is probably close enough for most applications.
I haven't decided exactly which rifle to mount it on. I've been using it as a monocular and it's very cool. I haven't been in a hurry to get it mounted because once I do that, it will sharply limit the places I can use it and what I can look at safely with it.
I got it through East Coast Thermal & Night Vision, located here in MD.
https://eastcoastthermals.com/collections/frontpage/products/agm-rattler-ts35-640
I used their 'contact us' email link to ask a "quick question" and got a phone call from the owner, Brad. Brad spent about 30 minutes on the phone with me, answering ALL of my questions and went on to explain even more about device applications, abilities and limitations, giving me a very good education on the various devices.
East Coast was the same price as Amazon and several other vendors ($2,995 + tax & shipping). Being local and especially with the level of service they provided (Brad couldn't have been more helpful), I decided to buy through East Coast.
There was a two week delivery time both with East Coast, Amazon and several other vendors. A new version of the TS35 640, the "V2", recently became available and the price on the original model dropped from $4k to $3k, creating a rush and back-order situation. The V2 is about $500 more, and I was already stretching my highly refined ability to rationalize this purchase, so I stuck with the first version. Brad kept me posted through the delivery process with both calls and texts and I really could not have asked for better commo and CS.
I've used some high-end military issue night vision devices in the recent past and I almost bought regular night vision, but after watching hours and hours of device comparison and set up/zeroing videos (and about 20,000 coyotes and hogs whacked) and looking at different devices, I opted to start with thermal. This is my first experience with thermal devices and it is amazing. The resolution is very good, pretty much the same as the Rix Stride ST6 640x512 shown in the video above.
I did have a little difficulty picking out targets in bright sunshine, when everything surrounding the target (squirrel) was very warm, but early in the day and after dark, it is awesome. I am thinking about getting a 45 degree rail mount and putting an EOTech on the rifle too so I can still be effective on warm sunny days.
The menu is very easy to navigate and it provides quite a few setup options. It came with 5 choices of reticles, but when I installed the latest firmware update (very easy to do), it increased reticle choices to 10.
ETA: I used AGM's customer service email, described the problem and requested help at 4:14pm today. At 6:44pm, I received a reply with instructions that worked. I'm all connected and everything is now functional.
It does connect to my computer just fine and downloading images and videos from the device to my computer was easy. To take a still picture of what you see through the scope only requires one quick touch of a button, and video is almost as easy, only requiring holding the same button for 3 seconds to start recording.
It comes with a USB to USB-C cable to connect to either a computer or to a rechargeable battery pack, but I am concerned about bumping the connection in the field and damaging the device connector. I am going to order a magnetic 'quick disconnect' USB-C connector so I can run the device on the battery pack that I'll place in the stock pack on my rifle in place of the Twinkie. Should be a pretty smooth setup.
It also comes with a throw-lever mount and hardware in the package but not installed on the device. This is good, because as I use it as a hand-held monocular, the mount isn't in the way. It is supposed to return within about 1 moa of zero when removed and reinstalled, which is probably close enough for most applications.
I haven't decided exactly which rifle to mount it on. I've been using it as a monocular and it's very cool. I haven't been in a hurry to get it mounted because once I do that, it will sharply limit the places I can use it and what I can look at safely with it.
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Congrats!
I have the TS35 384. I've fooled around with it in my house and once tried to bore sight it, but failed. Kind of confusing for an old knuckle dragger like me. I'm gonna have to break down and spend a day on YT and see if they can help me figure things out.
E.Shell
Ultimate Member
Thank you! Congrats yourself!
Not very much difference between our devices. I almost bought the TS35-384 and decided to seriously punish the budget and get the 640. Anything more than that is a BIG jump...
Yeah, getting zeroed is a weird process because we're moving the reticle to the impact vs the traditional way of moving the impact to the reticle.
True 'bore sighting' is exactly like a conventional scope, where one looks through the bore (or uses a bore-mounted laser) and centers the bore on an aiming point, then moves the crosshair to the same spot (<menu><reticle><coordinates>).
I haven't mounted and zeroed mine yet, but I've already burned up one set of batteries playing with it and I'm pretty sure I know how to do a dynamic zero. LOL, we'll see...
Fire one shot.
Go to the Menu.
Select 'Reticle'.
Cursor down to the bottom of the list under 'Reticle' where the x-y values are shown.
Use the up/down & left/right buttons to move the main reticle to the bullet hole while keeping the small (reference) crosshair on the aiming point.
Exit the menu.
Fire a verification shot.
Go back into the Menu and adjust again if needed.
Probably should start really close then move back after the first shot.
There are a bunch of YTs on it, but the big takeaway is that using a handwarmer/heat pack in a box with a small hole as an aiming point is the easy way. The confined heat source in the box provides a view of the aiming hole and the bullet hole.
Had mine out walking around this afternoon. Got within about 20 yards of a Black Vulture sitting on the ground. The pic below is him sitting in a sunny spot, so heat contrast isn't what it would be if the area was cooler. You can tell his head is nekid. I keep forgetting to adjust the objective, so it's blurrier than it could be.
Not very much difference between our devices. I almost bought the TS35-384 and decided to seriously punish the budget and get the 640. Anything more than that is a BIG jump...
Yeah, getting zeroed is a weird process because we're moving the reticle to the impact vs the traditional way of moving the impact to the reticle.
True 'bore sighting' is exactly like a conventional scope, where one looks through the bore (or uses a bore-mounted laser) and centers the bore on an aiming point, then moves the crosshair to the same spot (<menu><reticle><coordinates>).
I haven't mounted and zeroed mine yet, but I've already burned up one set of batteries playing with it and I'm pretty sure I know how to do a dynamic zero. LOL, we'll see...
Fire one shot.
Go to the Menu.
Select 'Reticle'.
Cursor down to the bottom of the list under 'Reticle' where the x-y values are shown.
Use the up/down & left/right buttons to move the main reticle to the bullet hole while keeping the small (reference) crosshair on the aiming point.
Exit the menu.
Fire a verification shot.
Go back into the Menu and adjust again if needed.
Probably should start really close then move back after the first shot.
There are a bunch of YTs on it, but the big takeaway is that using a handwarmer/heat pack in a box with a small hole as an aiming point is the easy way. The confined heat source in the box provides a view of the aiming hole and the bullet hole.
Had mine out walking around this afternoon. Got within about 20 yards of a Black Vulture sitting on the ground. The pic below is him sitting in a sunny spot, so heat contrast isn't what it would be if the area was cooler. You can tell his head is nekid. I keep forgetting to adjust the objective, so it's blurrier than it could be.
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Thanks for the encouragement Ed. I will definitely give it a try.
You should be able to invert the grayscale scheme and use the color gradients. You will probably find some scheme that is better for daytime. Thanks for the great review, Ed!
Vic
Ultimate Member
Nice. I have the junior agm model. I like it.
V
V
E.Shell
Ultimate Member
Thank you sir. Yes, I was using 'white hot' and really, both the 'black hot' or 'fusion' provided better viewing.
I just stepped outside and here is the neighbor's cat across the street at about 60 yards, viewing at 2x:
Same cat, same distance, at 4x:
Recently parked vehicle, maybe two hours ago. Engine compartment warm, wheels/tires/brakes still warm:
I hope that’s a suppresssed .22 and you got that cat…..
Yeah, I’m just scratching the surface on what they can do. I have a Super Hogster R on my rifle, but a 640 Polaris monocular. I play with the monocular a lot, just with basic settings, but I can see the fox torment my dog. I really need to dedicate a nice spring afternoon/evening to sit and really learn the damned things.
Yeah, I’m just scratching the surface on what they can do. I have a Super Hogster R on my rifle, but a 640 Polaris monocular. I play with the monocular a lot, just with basic settings, but I can see the fox torment my dog. I really need to dedicate a nice spring afternoon/evening to sit and really learn the damned things.
E.Shell
Ultimate Member
I don't think you realize how hard this is going to be if I put that thing on my .22.I hope that’s a suppresssed .22 and you got that cat…..
I liked the Hogsters, but ended up going AGM.
Yes, you really DO need to sit with it for a while.
Here are some more pics:
One of the neighbors just got home. Hot car, "white hot" mode:
Same car, "black hot" mode:
Same car, "Fusion" mode:
Same car, "red hot" mode:
Went out back, scanned the yard, found a rabbit. First sight of him, he was obscured behind a bush. I think he would be invisible to UV night vision from this angle.
"White hot" mode:
"Black hot" mode:
"Fusion" mode:
I moved around a little to get him out in the open.
"White hot" mode:
"Black hot" mode:
"Fusion" mode:
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