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Edumacate me on Thermal

WinstonSmith

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Garthok Narfler
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I'm down a rabbit hole here.

Trying to decide between a thermal monocular and a coti. My uses will be hunting in day and night conditions but it would be sweet if it also worked for firearm related patrol/live fire shooting events. It would be nice if I could use it to spot game out to distances like 1k yards+ but most of my hunting is actually in woods with a couple fields at a max of 350 yards. Not really interested in a dedicated thermal scope as I want something more versatile but am open to opinions on something like that. I have been known to be wrong once or twice in my life.

From what I have read the e coti's performance as a monocular for day time use is lackluster at best but the tech is cool. And I can pair with my pvs14 which is nice.

For hunting purposes I think a monocular that could be clipped on in front of my rifle optic would be great. It would also be great if it could mount to my helmet for scanning. High resolution and a good refresh rate is important to me.

I have looked at all available options and come away with the conclusion that if I want to do it right I really need both but that isn't budget friendly. I know, wanting budget friendly when talking thermals is an instant fail but thems the breaks. Just seems like a jack of all trades thermal under several grand is a fools errand from my looking.

Seems I might just be better getting a good dedicated monocular that can clip on my weapon in front of my optic might be the best for now and continue to look at other options in the future. Unless the monocular use of the coti for daytime is better than I have read.

Even looked at the high dollar trijicon ones but don't want to drop that much coin. Especially on kit that eats through its battery in 1-3.5 hours.

What say the brain trust?
 
I have an IR Patrol thermal; it's bad ass, but looking back, I should have sprung for the REAP-IR or Hunter model. I thought I would helmet mount it like my PVS-14, but quickly found out that was not really practical IMHO. I use it now for detection and use my NV for shooting.

 
OP, sorry, I missed your last point. Yes, the IR models eat batteries, but I've never really had an issue with that. I have the battery extender which doubles that time and I have a remote battery pack that works well too if I need to run it for longer periods.
 
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