Night vision

[The Heron]

I am thinking of setting up my .223 as a dedicated night time foxing rifle does any one have any recommendations on night vision equipment to buy for my rifle or more importantly not to buy?

[Dougy]

And your budget is ?

I use an ARCHER and dragonfly, combined with a Pulsar XD50S it's almost cheating.

[racing snake]

Drone pro.

The end.

[mick miller]

What the snake said. 

[Whitester]

I was thinking of putting my photon on a 223. It will easily stretch to 200 yards with the right illumination and they are only £400.

[bumpy22]

20 hours ago, racing snake said:

Drone pro.

The end.

pretty much as the man above said. although after having wasted a year with photon carp. me and a mate are now using ward d vision add on units with great success. still very tempted at a drone but the this unit is brilliant. swaps between all the rifles easily. compact light  and picture is fantastic

[rangey]

all depends on what you want to spend.some good add ons out there good prices if you want to swp rifles.if you wat to go dedicated and don't want to spend a lot the photon will get you out there to do the job,used one for years and they do the job.now using the pulsar lrf 870 which is better and the the laser rangefinder is a big help when you want to push the distance a bit..drone pro..archer...longbow..all depends how much you want to spend.

[JRDS]

Another vote for the Drone been using one for a few years brilliant.  Just  bought a Helion XQ38F Spotter, amazing bit of kit.

[racing snake]

4 hours ago, Whitester said:

I was thinking of putting my photon on a 223. It will easily stretch to 200 yards with the right illumination and they are only £400.

At x6.5 a fox is pretty small at 200 yards. I've got a Photon on my air rifle and that's about the limit of what I'll use it on. Compared to the drone the picture is significantly degraded, to the point where it's hard on the eyes. The exposure rate is lethargic, and the contrast binary and harsh. If you're trying to pick something out with a Photon on a busy background it's extremely difficult at times. I use mine for ratting, but to give you an example, I've spotted rats with the thermal and not been able to find them (very quickly) in the scope because of the contrast problems on a busy background. By comparison, the AMOLED display on the Drone is silky smooth with a much higher tonal range. OK for ratting on an air rifle, if you're contemplating putting one on a centre fire you're limiting yourself. The newer Photon RT might give you a bit more magnification (digital, not optical, so it will pixalate as you 'zoom') but from what I've seen it's similarly harsh as the XT. It's also £600.  I accept that there's a considerable price difference between a Drone and a Photon, but there's a similar performance difference also.

Edited November 20, 2017 by racing snake

[Whitester]

I was out on Friday night with the photon on the hmr and was knocking rabbits over at 80 yards no problem. I was also looking at roe from about 200 yards away and don't think I'd have a problem shooting something that size at 200 yards.

 

you really need extra illumination to stretch the photon out and there's also an option of the doubler to increase the magnification .

 

i haven't used the drone pro so can't comment on the performance difference but for a 1/4 of the price I'd rather put a new gun in the cabinet and a photon on top but that's just me.

[The Heron]

Thanks everyone for some sound advice.

[cheekychappy]

On 11/18/2017 at 23:09, Dougy said:

And your budget is ?

I use an ARCHER and dragonfly, combined with a Pulsar XD50S it's almost cheating.

same as me nearly its a sin to be out at night lol

[oldypigeonpopper]

i would go for the 6.5 XT photon and a TR 38 I/R torch with a doubler fitted 250 yards

 

[reddog]

Has anyone used the new pulsar n355?

Looks promising -- lightweight, compact, picture in picture, good (smooth) magnification range, 940 n.m I.r --  but I've not seen any reviews yet.

Has anybody tried one?

[colin lad]

i have home builds that cost me £125 to build add a evo50 AS-X £60 and i can see and shoot fox's as far as my 204 will hit them

colin

[steve_b_wales]

On 02/12/2017 at 08:04, reddog said:

Has anyone used the new pulsar n355?

Looks promising -- lightweight, compact, picture in picture, good (smooth) magnification range, 940 n.m I.r --  but I've not seen any reviews yet.

Has anybody tried one?

My mate has one. I will say that the footage shown on the video is nothing like it is when looking through the viewfinder.

 

[reddog]

1 hour ago, steve_b_wales said:

My mate has one. I will say that the footage shown on the video is nothing like it is when looking through the viewfinder.

 

Thanks for that, I appreciate your reply.

Looks good to me, clear vision and the ability to positively id the foxes seems more appealing than shooting at a white (thermal) blob.

I'm just a bit wary of a fox being aware of the ir, but in both these cases that doesn't seem to be a problem.

Did he use the ir supplied with the scope or was it a different torch?

 

[steve_b_wales]

9 minutes ago, reddog said:

Thanks for that, I appreciate your reply.

Looks good to me, clear vision and the ability to positively id the foxes seems more appealing than shooting at a white (thermal) blob.

I'm just a bit wary of a fox being aware of the ir, but in both these cases that doesn't seem to be a problem.

Did he use the ir supplied with the scope or was it a different torch?

 

He used a XSearcher IR torch I believe. Pulsar are working on an upload to improve the quality of the video footage. I'm impressed with the scope, and if I didn't already have a NV one, would be buying it.

[reddog]

Thanks again, i think i will probably try and get one but at the moment they're in short supply.

Must be good the way that they've been snapped up.