I am looking for something to kill feral hogs at night. No Walter Mitty or Mall Ninja secret missions planned.

I have used a FLIR Tau based thermal with the 35mm objective and have mixed feelings both pro and con. My 'long-range' shots are ~175 yards at my place and 400 at my friends. I have strong ambient light from big city retirees 'flood lights' so, I wonder about the risks to a NV tube.

The Marauder D750 seems like a good package but, I wonder about it having too much magnification on closer shots (~50 yards) with "pets" chasing cattle and killing chickens at night. Would a used PVS-30 be better or possibly a PVS-14 that my astronomy friend could use? I don't see myself ever using a PVS-14 with a head mount FWI but, I guess that is some unneeded flexibility today that might be beneficial in the future.  So given a budget of ~$4k~5k, what are my better options?

The thing I have against the thermal is lack of 'positive target identification' in a pasture with cattle and deer, plus hogs, coyotes, dogs, etc. Weight is an enemy with that FLIR unit too. While I hunt hogs mainly with a 6.8SPC, I want to retain AR-10 capabilities too.

Good post on Marauder here: https://www.ar15.com/forums/armory/D750_Marauder_questions_/18-476447/

That being said, if you're ready to spend $5,000 you owe it to yourself to look through 640-rez thermal before you make a decision.  I don't know where you are in TX but send me a PM if you'd like to look through several Pulsar units, plus a TNVC PVS-14.

Look at a PVS 17. Lots of  versatility. Don't see much about them.

I have a D750 and I find it no trouble to shoot it at 50 yards or greater.  I can't say how much I've actually shot it at 50 yards or less but I know 50 yard zeroing in shots were no trouble for me.

I prefer thermal for what I'm doing at night hunting, but on a clear bright moon night you can identify a deer versus a hog a long long long way away with the D750.

Hogs in particular stand out really prominently through night vision due to their typical black fur.    Something like a coyote or a deer can be much tougher to spot especially if they are standing near cover because they're coloring blends in so well with their surroundings just like it would in the day time. But an illuminator can help with that causing their eyes to reflect back at you.

Edit: the D750 is not light weight that's for sure. But at least it's not as bad as the raptor. Haha.

Just use a tripod for your 308.

I borrowed a D740 last season to scout which fields to hunt using a McCree ModSpot with a SPIR on the bottom for illumination. This was primarily in cut corn and soybean fields. Even with the illum, it was very difficult to count tines past 100yds and identifying the smaller critters whose eyes were shining was also difficult beyond 150 under average conditions. Determining deer vs pig, likely wouldn't be an issue. I have had some very light colored pigs in SC, TX and CA hide/cause a bit of confusion, but those darker ones, or even with a few dark spots, are easier to detect with NV(*confusion with thermal has been caused by camouflage produced by mud in various stages of drying on their hides). During the summer and early season, I found(and I've seen this in TX as well) that ground fog develops which severely limited the usefulness of the device.

I'd suggest some hard searching for a Trijicon unit here, and on the FB pages. I've seen several MK2s south of the $5k mark and I know the Reap that TNVC gave away last year sold recently for close to the $5k mark. You'd be quite surprised at how much identification is possible with a high end thermal.

There was a 75 mm 640 (30hz) Armasight/FLIR on EE here for $4500. I wish I coulda grabbed it.

Thank you everyone!  Lots of good info here.

Thank you everyone! Lots of good info here.