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.