For those of you using thermal, what is the average range you shoot most of your hogs at?

I see units advising 100yds, some 200 yds, some higher. Most of my daylight kills are less that 150 yds, closer to 100 to be honest.

Also, the comfort level of keeping my shots short at night with spotlight in cattle country leans me toward not needing a longer range thermal. Mistake on my part in thinking???

60 yards

Under 150 yards for shots, but I like to see what I'm stalking before I stalk up on an armadillo or deer. So I like at least a 300 yard recognition range.

Closest has been 15 yards, longest was 350 yards. The better the quality of the unit, the longer distance you can shoot.

10 to about 150yds.

I don’t like more than 2.5x as the native magnification, too much loss of FOV/perspective with more magnification when you’re close.

So a 640 which allows zooming to 5x while maintaining decent resolution works for me.

Thanks. Looking for info to help with the selection of a thermal unit.

Looking at a AGM rattler unit.

Pulsar makes some good stuff and like mentioned above, I like as big of field of view as possible, so low magnification is best

Pulsar trail 3.2x (on 16” 5.56 at 250 yards)



Sunday night hunt, got pretty close to them
Pulsar trail 2 (on 12” PwS 7.62x39 at 40-50 yards)

Not to hijack the thread but... The Pulsar units have a well-established and acknowledged (by Pulsar themselves and SellMark) track record of failure to maintain zero, especially the XP-50. I made a very detailed post some years back about my issues. There are other examples on PredatorMasters Forum as well.

Countless stories of guys having issues, even guys overseas. Their CS is top notch however as they will replace a unit with a problem, but the issues continued for some guys. I've seen guys on their THIRD unit. And the wait times are months.

Both myself and my hunting partner, also an ARFCOM'er, had to ditch the Pulsar and we went with Trijicon. I only know of three incidents where an actual refund was given, seems almost everyone does not get the luxury.

Then you have a guy who says he never had an issue... that's probably true and I'm very glad for them. Apparently the Trail 2 series is doing better, I'm glad to hear it. While my Trijicon has the edge on pic quality, the bells and whistles on the Pulsar were great and I do miss them.

I've been wanting a second unit and if the Trail 2 continues to perform, I just might give Pulsar a second chance.

258 yards for me, 6.5g and DRT but most of my shots are way less than 100. Typically 50 and as we get below 100 I usually use a laser instead

Do you use any thermal or are you solely relying on NV?

I do both depending on the gun. From my back window to the feeder it's usually thermal but when I'm out with friends at different places I switch between laser and thermal depending on the distance or mood. I've shot plenty of pigs with each

My main hog gun is the 6.5g AR which has both but even without thermal on the rifle I use a thermal scanner for detection and PID. Thermal is king for that so I never leave home without it even if I don't use it on the rifle that night

I like to keep it well under 50 if it is a group of pigs and stop shooting at 200 or so.  For a solo 150 or less.   Depends on how lazy I feel. Look up the nox35.  I love mine.

Do you have a budget-ish?? Thermal scopes can vary from less than $2000- to easily above $10,000.  

Also, are you shooting suppressed?

Is it hunting for a pig or two at a time, or eradication efforts?

Caliber, barrel length, bolt action vs semi auto?

Range varies depending on the type of hunting you do mostly. For example, sitting in a stand, spot and stalk, driving and scanning in a truck/side by side.  It also depends on the layout of the land you are hunting. soybean fields, corn fields, rice fields, cattle pastures, or thick brush, woods etc.  

Image quality obviously helps, but you can watch animals in thermal for a few minutes and even if the image isnt clear enough or the grass is too tall to see their whole bodies, you can tell based on their movement and behavior what animal they are.  when they pick their head up above the shoulders, its a pretty quick giveaway that its a deer.  unless you see that deer sit down like a dog.  then it could be a coyote.  when they scurry along or you see them flip dirt up, you usually know its a pig. That said, We've all stalked critters that didnt turn out to be what we thought they might be originally.. sometimes they even turn out to be rocks or rabbits...  

I like to stalk pigs up to 75 yards in the dark.  sometimes 50.  It makes the initial shots easy, and gives you higher chances of hitting runners before they get too far.  That said, Ived dropped coyotes in their tracks at 150-200 yards (and im not a bad shot, but im certainly nothin special).  Ive also missed at within 100 yards.  

It really depends on your budget, whether or not youre going to be stationary, or moving around from place to place on foot, how much open land there is to scan, and basically the type of hunting youre going to be doing.

I wouldnt suggest for my 66 year old dad who  would be shooting a pig under a feeder off his back porch and has no interest in riding around on a side by side scanning fields for pigs and then stalking them 500 yards on foot, the same scope as i would a 25 year old coworker who has access to a few thousand acres of open farm/ranch land with a hog problem that needed solving if that makes sense.

When in a field, we like to get up nice and close. From the stand, 100 yards mainly. Furthest I've shot one was 250 yards.

Bering optics hogster should work very well for the distances you want to shoot

Yeah I once dug a fairly good sized rock out of the field and didn’t quite get it far enough into the woods. I felt like an democrat when I stalked up on it and it dawned on me the damned thing hadn’t moved. Then I realized I put it there. The best one was driving up on about fifteen 30-40 pounders and my daughter jumping out of the buggy dropping two wounding one more. Then proceeding to put four or five solid hits on a rock in the ditch! It was hilarious! She still gets pissed if you bring it up.

Slacker, I stalked a cow feeder for half a mile.

Got back to the truck, put my gun in and turned around to see a boar about 50 yds. from me.