Do thermal scopes work for hunting?

switchpod · December 21, 2019, 2:47am

The short answer is Yes! Now the long answer is just what the name implies. Having the ability to detect a heat signature is an amazing leg up on the competition. With only one drawback, always verifying your target. It that a hog?, or the neighbors dog? Having said that the same rules apply with any equipment advanced or conventional.
This brings us the the company ATN.
ATN has been a major player for as long as I can remember in the night optics game for the commercial market and to show that I’m not blowing smoke here is some early night vision from ATN that I purchased 10 plus years ago.

To the best of my knowledge ATNs competition in this field is FLIR, but looking at the prices I really don’t feel like it’s a competition at all. ATN is keeping the prices with in the realm of reality of what the average hunter could conceivably spend on a high end optic. FLIR just blows you out of the water with their prices.
This brings us to the main course of our decision.
Q: If I am the average North American hunter looking to purchase a thermal scope what would I buy?
A: The ATN THoR LT 4-8 thermal rifle scope.

This has the features I would need with the price tag I can afford with none of the “glitter” that I don’t need or for that matter would use.

This optic can withstand the freezing cold temperatures of the great white north with the battery life that far surpasses the other optics that I have run in the past.

With ATNs one shot zeroing feature you can be off and running in an extremely short window and you don’t have to burn through a box of expensive hunting ammunition to sight in. The optic stays zeroed and it had zero tracking issues.
Unfortunately taking pictures of the screen does the optic no justice. Try taking a picture of a screen and you will note horizontal lines across the viewing plane. Take my word for it the optic impressed me and I am a bit of a scope snob. I’m not rude mind you, but I do gravitate towards cleaned glass whenever possible.

So for the person the person that might be interested in something like this here is a short video of the settings, features and test of the ATN THoR thermal optic.

If you are interested in something like this I recommend using this link. I noticed that there is even a discount at the time of release.

So what do you think?
Would this help with a hog or coyote hunt?
What are your opinions?

srdiver · December 21, 2019, 8:06am

both types of ATN Night Vision scopes (IR and Thermal) provide the non-government supported shooter a decent alternative to being able to accurately shoot in low light conditions. Truth of the matter the scopes now are high resolution digital cameras (the older Sony Handycam with Nightshot as an example), scaled down, mounted to a rifle and still allows recording and proxy viewing that was very difficult a few years back.
A even cheaper alternative is the low light camera that you slave to your scope and view the image on a larger screen - but why, for a few dollars more the ATN is a simple compact system