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I've always wanted a thermal and always thought they'd be the answer but being so expensive I was afraid of the outlay in case I was disappointed. Declan (gloop) off of here was working up my way and was kind enough to take a detour and meet up with me to give me a look at the Guide 518C. At least I think that was the one, I didn't even ask to make sure . The plan was to shoot a few crows or pigeons during daylight and maybe check a few zero's and then go out after dark. We jumped on two quads but didn't really get around to shooting at anything, it was more like an enjoyable joyride just looking and sussing out the ground to make it a little easier during the nocturnal stage. Also the winds were so high on top it was going to make things a little more challenging. We looked through the thermal during the bright sunlight and it was amazing how hot certain things showed up because of the sun belting down on them all day, it certainly was a clever piece of kit.
After dark we set out to look at a few rabbits, I knew for a couple quite local so we parked the quads and went on foot. Through the nv I spotted a pair of eyes roughly where I knew 2 rabbits had been feeding so Declan looked through the thermal. He then passed it to me and said take a look, I didn't really know what to expect as I knew the eyes were right by a patch of fern. As I looked through the thermal I could see about 15 other heat sources I'd missed in the cover with the nv, they were sheep . At this point I was rather impressed with the thermal as you certainly couldn't pick the other's out with the nv. We went on and Declan shot a couple of rabbits further on and it was brilliant to watch through the thermal as they bobbed and moved about in the longish grass, I was really liking it.
The foxes are pretty thin on the ground here so we went to a neighbours where we 'should' be guaranteed some action. I was scanning with the lamp as we had quite a bit of ground to cover and with so many heat sources about it would have taken too long to do it with the thermal or nv. With the lamp we spotted a fox a fair way in the distance but it was surrounded by sheep so wasn't 100% on ID. I zapped it with the range finder at 262M and gave a little squeak but this fox was one that seemed content to stay exactly where it was over the bank out of the wind so Declan got on the nv mono. The fox was behind a tump (bank,rise,lump) where the breast was covered in fern, luckily the fern's late this year so it's not up to your neck yet but it made it really difficult for the nv. I was looking through the thermal but struggling to see exactly which heat source was the fox as sheep hidden in the fern and rocks from the day's sun were also showing up along with the fox somewhere in the middle. Declan decided he just couldn't see enough with the nv so I said I'd just shoot on the lamp. I got into position but could hardly make out jack through the scope. At this range the Z6 is usually perfect so being so knowledgeable and obviously knowing more than a range finder I thought this fox must be further out and I must have zapped the bank in front of the fox with the range finder. As I was faffing with the mag and parallax the picture started to become lighter and clearer, it then dawned on me I'd been 'blinded' from using the thermal and lost my night vision in my shooting eye from using it. Once I got a bit of vision back I could see it was fox plainly but only it's head and neck as it's body was in a hollow. There was no way this fox was going to come into us and if it moved elsewhere it would have made the shot more difficult so I elevated the crosshair slightly to allow for the extra distance as I didn't want the round to drop into the bank in front expecting to hit mid head or maybe neck and fired.. No slap and didn't see it run, hmmm..
Declan was obviously holding the lamp and spotted the fox further down the bank but disappeared through the fern, I'd missed like a tw@t and the round had gone over the top of the fox . By now I was scanning with the thermal again and could see the fox plainly moving through the fern. At this point I forgot to tell Declan that the miss was intentional as what I wanted to see with the thermal was how easy it was to spot a fox moving through cover. The thermal didn't disappoint and I think this was the most impressive part for me. I could easily see it moving slowly through the fern until it went behind a bank out of site. We walked down the gentle slope ( which turned out to be Everest on the way back up) but as we got into position Declan caught site of the fox on the thermal going into a set of trees. We didn't bother trying to call it and just left it to make things easier for me another night. I was extremely pissed off about the miss as I shouldn't have and came out with every excuse like I hadn't used the rifle for a while, I'd been using a lesser velocity rifle's lately and got confused, I had grit in my eye, the zero was out, I'd hit a fern, or a blade of grass...
Anyway, back to the thermal..
I think in the right place you could manage with a thermal instead of a spotter, like where it's all grass, crops etc. What we found up here though was as there are so many sheep and other heat sources from rock's ect it makes spotting stationary foxes extremely difficult. I definitely want one but Declan kindly said he'd call back later in the year when it was cooler so I could see the difference so I'm going to hold off the purchase for a while. We both came to the conclusion that for spotting it was so much easier with a lamp if you wanted to cover a large area but if I was stationary waiting you'd obviously get to know which heat source was staying put although you'd definitely also need an nv mono. It also showed me what the thermal actually picks up that you can't see with the nv which was extremely impressive. So to sum up I wouldn't say thermal is THE answer here but as part of an arsenal it definitely has benefits and a place. You need to use your non shooting eye to view through it as you loose your night vision more than from nv. Even looking through nighvision after the thermal seemed dark so I can see a big benefit in using an additional screen with a thermal if it would help keep your nightvision better.
I've babbled and gone on and could have kept on but I'll leave it there and add to it if I think of anything later.
So a big thank you Declan, it was great to meet you, see the thermal in action and to also see you pass your grade 1 quading. Don't forget grade 2 in the winter mud,muck,rut's and ice

With more use, you'll have no problem at all distinguishing between the different heat sources, stationary or not, warm rocks or warm rabbits. You'll always have the "is it or isn't it" scenario, no matter what you use, but the thermal allows you to find stuff that you couldn't possibly see with nv.

DOH! to both of you for not using the thermal with your non-shooting eye

George

PESCA wrote:With more use, you'll have no problem at all distinguishing between the different heat sources, stationary or not, warm rocks or warm rabbits. You'll always have the "is it or isn't it" scenario, no matter what you use, but the thermal allows you to find stuff that you couldn't possibly see with nv.

DOH! to both of you for not using the thermal with your non-shooting eye

George

To be quite honest George, Declan uses his non shooting eye for the thermal so unfortunately I was the only tw@t that night . I like to use the same eye for scanning with nv and shooting so I can half see where I'm walking with the other so it was sort of instinct to do that especially as the idea was for Declan to do the shooting and I'd just take my rifle to make foxes move so we could watch them moving through the cover
I have no doubt I'd get better at spotting things with the thermal but they are so good at detecting heat, on occasion there'd be a pile of possible targets and you just wouldn't know what 'some' were. What I felt was I could possibly miss a fox just lying there in amongst the other heat sources just like I regularly do with nv. The difference would be I would have seen the heat source with the thermal and disregarded it but wouldn't have even seen it in the first place with nv. It would have been good to have taken some photo's to see exactly the view's through it as it's hard to describe. I'm useless with words so I hope this hasn't come across as a bad impression of thermal as it's far from it but my impression of it was I'd need to take a lot more time in certain circumstances to spot. I really felt in the winter when it's cooler it will be a totally different scenario but it was great to actually get first hand experience of it.

Quote: the miss was intentional as what I wanted to see with the thermal was how easy it was to spot a fox moving through cover. The thermal didn't disappoint Quote

That's a cracker me old beauty. Nice bit of feedback there thanks.

I was out on Thursday night. No sightings on my land but spotted charlie in a an adjacent field. Anyhow, I watched him crossing the field, with the thermal. That night, I was using a GEN2+ add-on, so switched to the rifle and no matter what I did I could not see the fox.

Now, without the thermal, I would have not known that the fox was even there. On that night, it didn't give me an advantage, as the fox didn't end up coming on to my permission, but it's let me be aware of foxes so many times now, that I really wouldn't be without it.

I'm so impressed with mine, that the natural thing to do (for me, 'cos that's what I'm like) would be to upgrade, but I'll have to pay £8000-£10,000 to do so. As I can only see YouTube videos about the products I have in mind, I'm reluctant to part with my Guide, 'cos it works so well.

George

PESCA wrote:I was out on Thursday night. No sightings on my land but spotted charlie in a an adjacent field. Anyhow, I watched him crossing the field, with the thermal. That night, I was using a GEN2+ add-on, so switched to the rifle and no matter what I did I could not see the fox.

Now, without the thermal, I would have not known that the fox was even there. On that night, it didn't give me an advantage, as the fox didn't end up coming on to my permission, but it's let me be aware of foxes so many times now, that I really wouldn't be without it.

I'm so impressed with mine, that the natural thing to do (for me, 'cos that's what I'm like) would be to upgrade, but I'll have to pay £8000-£10,000 to do so. As I can only see YouTube videos about the products I have in mind, I'm reluctant to part with my Guide, 'cos it works so well.

George

Got to agree with you there George about the Guide working so well and can totally understand why you wouldn't want to be without one. Not being able to see more than 1 sheep in the fern with the nv compared to the flock when I turned the thermal on them showed me the benefits instantly. I think when Declan reads this and gets a chance to reply at some point he'll be able to put it more eloquently and explain the vast difference in the land around here and what we were seeing. On the cleaner ground what was amazing was how the thermal shows the sheeps head and legs giving off so much heat and were easily distinguishable. The simplicity of use with the guide was also a great point, the ability to change to black hot also made ID'ing after spotting simpler. I kept thinking a flock of black faced sheep had been dropped here, considering our breed here is all white it was quite entertaining switching from white hot to black:lol:
What are the youtube video's? I've only ever seen the pulsar with the swan's.

I think that the one's with the kangaroos and also the other, with the swans, were the Guide.

My favourites are the FLIR M18 Recon and the FLIR H-Series BHS-XR Command. They're both on the tube.

George

PESCA wrote:I think that the one's with the kangaroos and also the other, with the swans, were the Guide.

My favourites are the FLIR M18 Recon and the FLIR H-Series BHS-XR Command. They're both on the tube.

George

My memory is atrocious! I knew I'd watched a number of thermal videos but thought they were by the pulsar

I looked at the M18 before but isn't that not available in the UK?
The BHS looks good but I could only find it being 9hz, would that be good enough for scanning?
In all honesty I don't really think I could better the guide for picking up heat. One thing I noticed was how easy it was to pick up heat sources a ridiculous distance away. A couple of times Declan was pointing out horses that we would have needed a car to go and saddle them up

You're quite right about the Guide. I was out one night and was watching five horses, but couldn't work out where they were as I knew they weren't on our land.

At the end of the night, I went in search of the horses. Found them at over a mile away, as the crow flies.

If I do change my thermal, it will only be for the resolution. I personally say think that 30 hz is the kiddie, as opposed to 9hz. I scan quickly (the thermal's forte), so wouldn't put up with any lag.

George

PESCA wrote:You're quite right about the Guide. I was out one night and was watching five horses, but couldn't work out where they were as I knew they weren't on our land.

At the end of the night, I went in search of the horses. Found them at over a mile away, as the crow flies.

If I do change my thermal, it will only be for the resolution. I personally say think that 30 hz is the kiddie, as opposed to 9hz. I scan quickly (the thermal's forte), so wouldn't put up with any lag.

George

That's the beauty of actually testing them out first hand, there certainly wasn't any lag with the guide..