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Hi Guys

Not sure if this is the right place to ask.

 

Looking at buying a night vision scope to go on my Howa 223

I have boiled it down to 2 scopes Yukon photon 6.5 X 50 or the new ATN X 5X20

Although ATN is twice the price there about., apparently a lot better in daytime than Yukon

Appreciate any feedback from you if you have either of these scopes regarding day/night quality or anything else that you have experienced with the scopes.

 

Most of my foxing varies from approx. 50 yds to 250yds both day/night

 

Appreciate your input.

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Photons are good value for money, I'd have one anyday.

 

The Xsight II languishes unused in my safe as it is really just a paperweight with lots of fancy functions, not enough processing power to handle them and optics (eyepiece focus particularly), that is very poor.

 

At a higher price point, the Pulsar N970 is getting a lot of use from me. A lot of fancy functions but at least they all work if you want to use them.

I purchased the Pulsar N970a but it made my package Howa 1500 243 a real heavy lump.A good scope but a hassle to zero @ 1inch high @ 100mtrs.Had to put a tea light in a box cause as it was impossible to see zero target after 50mtrs.I went back to home builds as it ticks all the boxes.I think wat a lot of people new to NV dont realise is that you no longer shoot anything rarely over 80mtrs if your field crafts ok.
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ATN X sight is blooming awful as an NV scope no one I have read who has used it has anything good to say on it you would be lucky to get 80 yards out of it never mind 200, also it eats batteries. The Yukons are good for the money but in daylight wont do what you want as the image suffers horribly they really are a dedicated night vision scope.

As Mick says if you want something good to do both as a dedicated get a Drone Pro or if you want to do day and night really well keep your day scope and buy a Ward D 800 as an add on unit to use as night.

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ATN X sight is blooming awful as an NV scope no one I have read who has used it has anything good to say on it you would be lucky to get 80 yards out of it never mind 200, also it eats batteries. The Yukons are good for the money but in daylight wont do what you want as the image suffers horribly they really are a dedicated night vision scope.

As Mick says if you want something good to do both as a dedicated get a Drone Pro or if you want to do day and night really well keep your day scope and buy a Ward D 800 as an add on unit to use as night.

my mate got a ATN kit unbelievable how bad it is,it takes ages to focus and like zetter said 80 yards on a good night waste of money felt a little sorry for my mate he was beaming about it on the night which was the first night with the ATN i could see he was a disappointed bunny :unhappy: , taffy it all depends on if you are JUST night shooting with that 223 for my howa 223 i use nitesite wolf does me great because i use my 223 day and night, i find night scopes are poor in the day

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Appreciate all the feed back guys

 

Pulsa is coming out at just under 1500 squids

 

Is it that good?????????

 

Currently using home made NV bagged over 30 fox this year, but problem is if you do wing one and you have to chase down to finish it , it is awkward with the add on at the back of the scope, and end up ripping it of and clamping on a torch on if I have to chase them down to Finnish.

 

Don't like winging a fox would rather it be clean kill

Cheers

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My X-Sight II 5-20, Treeline approx 300 yards

 

Works fantastically during both day and night.

 

https://flic.kr/p/N99wxg

 

Cant understand some of the comments about it above, the eyepiece focus literally couldn't be any easier / simpler and once set stays where it is, processing power (on mine) is perfectly fine to run all functions smoothly, even with the free IR unit I could easily get 200 yards on a zero moon night (with upgraded F900IR I can see approx 300 yards on about 3/4 power and full flood beam, will easily do twice that, focusing is again as simple as it can be and is as easy and takes the same time to operate as my normal side wheel day scope.

 

It does however eat batteries, but then I use the external battery pack with stock pouch, I leave it turned on all night during a shoot (approx 4-5 hours) and loose maybe 1/4 battery charge

 

Its heavy - this doesn't bother me as I shoot from either bipod or shooting sticks.

 

I wanted a scope that I could use in both day and night which alot of others either wont do or do badly, added bonus are the features like SD card recording of video and photos that I can stick on youtube and I particularly like the built in range finder & ballistic compensator, on my first test of it I scored a headshot on a rabbit at 154 yards with subsonic .22LR

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBlAnXYUEaw

 

Taff if your anywhere near Hereford and want to see one in action your welcome to come out one night with me and try it, alternatively scottcountry do a 1 week trial on most of their units.

Edited by Katash
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Thanks guys

Keep the reviews coming in. It will help me make my mind up and also help other shooters on the forum ,to not waste money.

 

I'll have a look at the drone pro

Much appreciated

You do right to ask people first i wasted £1250 on the Pulsar struggled to sell it after 6 weeks.Ended up taking £600 for it.The Photon after 2 weeks bought for £439 sold for £250.What makes me laugh is you see people trying to pass on Photons for £400 when you can pick them up new now for £350/£360.
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Thanks guys the info is great for all of us

 

With the ATN x2 5X20 THIS IS A TOTAL REVAMP OF THE PREVIOUS MODELS

 

Appreciate any feed back off anybody that has recently purchased one of these models.

 

The intention of this thread is to allow all us guys to not waste our hard earned bucks

 

Keep the reviews coming in.

 

Many thank to all

 

Taff

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300 yards with a dedicated X sight? Must be ****. I get 500 out of my add-on.

 

The pulsar 870s are dodgy, avoid. Not sure whether they've attended to the lack of reticle adjustment or 'turn my screen white and stripey under recoil' feature with the 970, hopefully so.

 

However, if it were my money, I'd simply buy the drone and be done if dedicated is what you're after.

Edited by mick miller
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300 yards with a dedicated X sight? Must be ****. I get 500 out of my add-on.

 

In my post I said that the treeline in my pic was 300 yards and torch was on 3/4 power and not beam focused (oh and on the lowest amplification setting too) NOT that that was the limit of range, I also said I can easily get twice that, I also had a home-made kit that was just as powerful as my X-Sight when paired with the same illuminator, I hated the shooting position of that style of kit tho and much prefer the classic method.

 

Well you bought it so it would be rather awkward to say it was dissapointing

 

So did you and your saying you are dissapointed so where is the difference? if I was unhappy with it I'd be telling people, moreover if I was as unhappy with it as you are (going unused) I'd be asking for a refund or at the very least selling it rather than leaving it "languishing unused in my safe" as your is.

 

Its not my intention to swing anyone towards buying one, I'm not on commission or employed by ATN, I couldn't give a toss what people get I'm simply giving MY opinion on it and countering some odd claims about functionality that I read.

 

Taff - regarding feedback, my only advice would be get an external powerpack as the batteries dont last long, doesnt need to be the official ATN one although thats what I got as it will run off any standard USB powerpack - if you absolutely must go with internal batteries apparently Kentli ones are the best as they are rechargeable and very high capacity.

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I have a Pulsar N750A. I have had it a couple of years and have had it replaced once due to a fault with it. I have a NM 800 IR fitted and it is fine for shooting out to 300 yards though it is rare that I shoot much beyond 150 with the odd 250 yard shot . I have shot a fair few foxes with this and it sits on top of a heavy barrelled Howa 1500 in .243. It is a fair lump to lug around but does the job nicely so I am happy.

 

I prefer to stick to dedicated rifles for night work and day work but thats just my preference rather then mucking about with add on NV or QR mounts and swapping scopes about. If I could justify it I would buy a drone pro, I dont think you will go wrong.

 

Just my opinion of course.

Edited by WelshMike
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I wanted a nv for walked up rabbits @ 40-70 yards I bought the photon. First go with it I decided my head position on scope was awkward still I got a few bunnies in the bag, a few daylight/dusk shots . After fitting a picatiny rail the position was sorted next outing after dark a half dozen bunnies but anything over say 40 yards became unclear so took advice from most who use the photon and added a IR.torch last outing 15 bunnies at night and furthest was 119 paces .

So for me it ticked these boxes price new £384 3yr warranty rail for Sako £45 and torch £60 (rail and torch usable for other devices)no great addition of weight for walking around usable in the day and shooting distance more than I require.

I must stress I have no experience of any other dedicated NV units and that the photon is ok for my needs.

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The other ones I have looked through are equally disappointing. It is very good in daylight but that full colour sensor is compromised in darkness. To be fair when you link it via an iPhone display it is a bit better, but you realise how poor the eyepiece setup is and the unit is quite clearly idealised for the smartphone generation. That's called an impartial opinion, I have NO vested interest.

 

That's before we get to the pathetic eye relief, criticality of the depth of field on the exit pupil and lack of ability to retain sight picture with any kind of recoil at all and a scope virtually glued to your orbital socket.

 

This unit passed quality control!

 

That is of course the quality control which allowed the first version of the unit to appear on our shelves and was at that time found pitifully wanting by many disappointed buyers. Immediate required firmware updates are a pure sign that problems were not found and fixed before product launch.

 

 

You tried multiple units, and you expecting in them to be different? .... I wouldnt have bothered if I felt like you did after looking at first one, "I dont like the eye relief, I'll try another to see if its better" :lol:

 

Full colour HD sensor - has a moveable IR filter in front of the unit that it shifted when in night mode and provides a perfectly fine image (in my opinion, pic on original post for people to make their own minds up) in both day and night mode, I'd actually say the image is BETTER in the eyepiece than when linked to a phone but thats cos the screen is a 720 res and small, when linked to a phone it can get a bit pixelated but again perfectly fine. After comparing video footage on youtube from both an X-Sight and from a Photon XT it looks to me that the X-Sight picture actually better, maybe because it is recording via onboard rather than from a plug in DVR

 

Eyepiece - has a diopter adjuster that operates in the same way 99% of all glass scopes adjust their magnification, it has a rubber shroud almost identical to most NV scopes and it has a 720 res screen that you can adjust the brightness on, what aspect of this do you find wrong?

 

Eye relief - I agree, perhaps optimised for AR rifles at first I couldnt get it far enough back on my CZ's to be perfect, again usable tho - I purchased one of these off ebay for about £10 and now perfect

 

scope-mount-base-flattop-riser-extended-

 

criticality of the depth of field on the exit pupil - Please explain what you mean by this, Obviously the aperture limiter and sunshade they include in the box helps with DOF during daytime but I dont use it at nighttime and my DOF is fine (plenty of videos on YT for people to decide)

 

lack of ability to retain sight picture with any kind of recoil at all and a scope virtually glued to your orbital socket - cant speak for larger rifle recoil as only used it on a .22LR and .17HMR but I dont have to weld my orbital socket to the scope, I just rest the eyepiece cup against my eye with zero compression on the bellows, plenty of videos of people on youtube using them on .308's tho, why do you personally have to do this?

 

I am interested in what features you couldn't get to work because of the slow processor, mine runs with EVERYTHING turned on (except recoil activated video as my .22LR isnt enough recoil to trip the sensor) but everything else is on and it works fine, but then if youve tried multiple units and they were all non-functional then guess I must just be lucky.

 

A Drone-Pro would have been nice if I had the money but I didn't, I paid less than half what one of those costs.

 

I looked at the latest Pulsar and again too expensive

 

I also looked at the Photon XT and was going to buy that but decided to spend more and get better daytime capability and some added features.

 

If money was no option I'd have gone for non-digital NV unit, as it stands I now have a unit that I have NONE of the issues you say you had and can see in total clarity way past any distance I'd want to shoot.

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I've looked the x sight and found it fill of unnecessary gizmos. The photon was OK but lost zero too often.

I have an archer and really can't fault it.

Added a dragonfly and mounted a piccatiny rail so eye relief is about as normal as it gets. If I could range find at night then fox's out to 400 + would be possible.

It all depends on your budget really.

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I've looked the x sight and found it fill of unnecessary gizmos. The photon was OK but lost zero too often.

I have an archer and really can't fault it.

Added a dragonfly and mounted a piccatiny rail so eye relief is about as normal as it gets. If I could range find at night then fox's out to 400 + would be possible.

It all depends on your budget really.

How much are dragonflys? Imagine loosing one, that would be bad. Also can you leave the archer turned At home?

Your input would be greatly appreciated Douglas

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