It's that time of year again

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Originally Posted by sharpshooter

Snakes and ticks won't be a problem in November in the U.P.. Neither will it being too hot. Staying warm and not getting frost bite will be more of a concern. At least layering up is a option vs. a t-shirt and shorts while still being hot and sweaty down south.

Today it was nice and cool in the morning and stayed around 70 all day.Son just got in from the blind and saw nothing.Other son bought a grinder and tubed up 10 pounds of ground deer meat.Its time for Chili and Chili dogs!

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My youngest son got a young doe the other day.Landowner got a back leg,oldest son got everything but the backstraps and tenderloin since he has a grinder and dehydrator to process the meat for burger and jerky.
Son did the backstraps chickenfried and wrapped some in bacon and broiled them and drizzled a little honey on the wraps.Wife wont eat deer meat but tried because the kid cooked it.She is a believer now!
Made two pounds of ground venison into chili last night since the weather got nice and cool.
Land owner is complaining about coyotes so my kid is setting up on another property so I can go in at night and warm em up.

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Anybody shooting varmints with Thermal at night?Going to sell a few toys to get a thermal unit and another can for 30 cal.Looking at AGM Rattler.Trying to stay under 3k on the thermal.Everything is pretty much under 200 yds here.

[mepps1]

Originally Posted by OBLIGATED

Anybody shooting varmints with Thermal at night?Going to sell a few toys to get a thermal unit and another can for 30 cal.Looking at AGM Rattler.Trying to stay under 3k on the thermal.Everything is pretty much under 200 yds here.

Over your desired price point. But I have the Rico 25 and it's amazing. Best I know of for the money, but the money is about 5k. Does handheld, weapon sight, clip-on, and helmet mounted. It's good. Your wallet will get over it.

[mepps1]

https://irayusa.com/RH25

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JRH Enterprises has them.They sell the night fighter package I bought.
I loved the videos of them when I saw I could mount to my helmet but the price right now is out of my budget and probably overkill for the terrain here.
Im going to sell a couple toys I never use to get the Thermal,Tripod and another can.
Still have a little renovation for the inside of the house and Im trying to put away funds for my sailboat and upgrades so money is an issue right now.

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Originally Posted by mepps1

Over your desired price point. But I have the Rico 25 and it's amazing. Best I know of for the money, but the money is about 5k. Does handheld, weapon sight, clip-on, and helmet mounted. It's good. Your wallet will get over it.

Any complaints or issues with the unit?How well does it perform in cold or wet weather?

[mepps1]

Originally Posted by OBLIGATED

Any complaints or issues with the unit?How well does it perform in cold or wet weather?

Cold is no problem. In fact it's beneficial. Haven't tried wet, but it's well built and sealed. Shouldn't be an issue.

All the thermals eat batteries, so it takes a few 18650's to stay out all night.

Only gripe I have is that the menu is something of a PITA. There are about a thousand functions on three keys, so it's a little unavoidable. Mine freezes up for a fraction of second fairly regularly. The digital zoom is not especially useful, since it just blows up the pixels you have. Likewise, you won't want to zoom higher than about 5x, 6x tops looking through a variable power scope. 4x-5x is the clearest picture you will get.

It takes a minute or so to go from handheld to clip-on and vise versa, because you'll have to refocus the diopter on the thermal unit.

Clipped on in front of good glass, I can easily pick out vehicles at over 2,000 yards. I can pick out sparrows hiding in thick juniper trees with no magnification.

For hunting, resolution is extremely important for PID. You can't possibly have too much. Best I can tell, this unit has about the best picture you are going to get short of dropping about 15k.

I haven't been able to put it up against other units side by side. Maybe something comparable is out there. I think you can get pretty good dedicated scopes for about the same money, maybe a bit less. And you can get handheld thermal with the same resolution for less. Best info I could find is that this is the best unit all around unless you drop double or triple the money.

Thermal exists to make PVS14's look cheap.

Oh, and the "optional" Pictail is necessary for clip-on use. The mount sent with the unit is too high to line up on most scopes. So there's another couple hundred bucks.

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Thank you Mepps.Probably end up with a Rattler or Hogster depending on the deals I find.Both are decent entry level scopes that can be backup if I end up too far down the thermal rabbit hole and end up with the 25.Both sons like the idea of thermal but Im not seeing any offers to chip in some funds.