I am interested in purchasing a good scope for identifying hogs or dogs at 500yds at night. I can attach IR, if needed for passive scopes. I have researched ATN, Armasight and Pulsar's latest, but none seem to offer clarity past 250 yards using their thermal sights. A 200lb hog at 500 yds is just too pixilated. ATN just came out with Thor 4 and has communicated to me that it will clearly identify hogs at 500 yds.  But I'd like to see video to determine if it will. I am willing to spend 6k for a good one to do my jobs, but I suspect I will end up purchasing a cheap thermal to identify heat objects and expensive passive gen 3+ scope with powerful IR for the shots. Any recommendations would be appreciated.

In short, stay away from ATN.

In long form, you’ll use a thermal to spot animals, and eventually learn to decipher how they move and if they are likely to be hogs. You could do a less expensive spotter/scanner thermal and a nice I2 Scope, but the price will likely even out.

D760 (6x I2 Scope) is about $5K new. 4x version is $4K-4.5K.

Breach is about $1900 new

DBAL D2 is $900-$1K used.

That’s more than a mid level Trijicon Thermal. Don’t forget you’ll need a PVS14 to navigate for the stalk. A helmet... an Ir nav light... a tripod.

ATN lied to you.

That's all they do.

I have a 60mm IRHunter. Pretty sure the Trijicon version is not much different.  Per their site, that is 4.5x native.  Maybe by watching mannerisms you can ID at 500 yards, but you can not from a static picture.  Will see if a WP D790 can do any better, but it is pretty sweet testing so far,

i assume something is made that will will do what you want, but not necessarily at a price range yet u want to deal with.

Look at the Pulsar Trail XP50 LRF.

The whole point of having wizard vision is being able to get closer than 500 yards without your quarry knowing you're there.  To this end, and good tripod will help take the shakes away.  No one should be taking shots from 500 out, but if you understand animal behavior well enough and can watch your quarry for a bit, you will oftentimes be able to tell exactly what it is.

You have a WP D790?

You also have my envies!

I haven’t used any of the high end & higher native mag thermals like the trijicon 60 mm. I have an xp50 which suits me well for my hunting distances (50-100yds 99% of the time). I can detect animals to about 200 yds and identify them with the xp50. What I mean by that is I can tell it’s a deer, or it’s a dog/coyote. However at that distance you are making that determination based off of movements of the animal. Deer vs dog/coyote at 200 is pretty easy to tell. Dog vs coyote at 200; not quite as easy.

Where I hunt for coyotes we lock the dogs up before we go out, but I’ve still been nervous enough from time to time to hold off on a shot on the off chance someone let the dogs out. The mannerisms just didn’t scream coyote to me on those occasions.

I have recently invested in some night vision goggles and a pvs 14 for the buddy. We will also be putting IR markers on the dogs. This should relieve any doubt for us at those times.

I LOVE my xp50. It doesn’t miss anything. For detection it rocks like a concert. But I have quickly moved into the camp that nothing is better than i2 for ID. I’m sure the higher native mag thermals push out a little further but they still don’t show “features.”

I personally don’t think there are many if any night hunting situations where there is a “need” to shoot 500 yds. But I think if you really have the space to safely do it and want to take 500 yd shots. You need a couple things. A high end thermal to detect your target and anything that may be lurking behind it you don’t want to shoot. And, a high end clip on or dedicated i2 scope such as a pvs 30 or a D760 that has a proper reticle more suited to long range shots and will ID that long off target.

Or you could just move closer.

I fortunately have had the opportunity to look through a BAE UTC clip on. It is simply amazing. I could easily identify deer and large hogs out to 500 hundred yards. Smaller game is another story.
So far all else pales in comparison.

I have no experience with one but the Flir T75 may be a good comparison to this.

My deer stand is on a 900 yard right of way, probably about 200 yards down.  Had thermal to hog hunt after hours and saw animals on top of the hill when I exited - I am guessing 500-600 yards.  I had to at least half the distance to really tell they were doe with the 640 core 60mm IRHunter.  That said, think I realized they were not hogs pretty quickly, just was not sure cow vs deer.

That Thor 4 looks like the a 2 foot long turd...you could not pay me to use that...and that's coming from someone who had a Thor HD and was ok with it.

Go with pulsar over ATN.