2 Song Dogs & 2 Hogs: Pulsar Trail XP38 LRF

[Double Naught Spy]

This was my fourth hunt with this new scope and sadly, my last for a while as I have to pass it on to another member of the team. With thermal (particularly) and night vision (to a lesser extent), seeing images in flat 2D causes a loss of depth of field and it can be hard to assess the distance of an object. For example, is that a 200+lb boar at 200 yards or a 100 lb boar at 100 yards? For me, with trying different thermal optics with different levels of native magnification, it can be particularly hard to know if the small target in the screen is really that far away or actually within normal range. Enter the integrated laser range finder. One press to activate and another press to range and targets can be quickly and efficiently ranged. This is pretty slick!

Here, the ranging was particularly useful on the coyotes that I shot as I was hunting in a field that I usually do not hunt and when I do hunt it, it is from a different area. So the few landmarks that I knew were all a different distance than what I was used to be considering. Ranging the coyotes helped to assure me that they were in fact within distances I was comfortable of shooting. To a lesser extent, it helped with the hogs as well, but I am much more familiar with their field.

This is the way I like for my hunts to go down, batting a 1000.

[Bigs28]

That's awesome

[Texas]

Once again, thank you for the great videos.

[Arkhangel5]

Great vid again DNS.

Sure you wanna give that one back?

SY

[Double Naught Spy]

LOL, SY, no, but supposedly it will come back. I might get a short hunt in with it before the handoff, LOL. We shall see.

[HuntTXhogs]

ALL were excellent shots , NONE survived

I had no place to fit the OR

[Sticks]

I am constantly amazed at your skill in shooting off sticks and leading moving targets.

[Double Naught Spy]

Thanks, Sticks. It helps that these were big hogs.

[A5BLASTER]

DNS. Got a question for you.

Are you still useing the trigger sticks? If so is it the gen 3 sticks or still the older gen 2 sticks?

I have the newer gen 3 sticks and I don't really care for them seems the handle section is very flimsy compared too how the older gen 2 sticks were made.

What's your thoughts on that.

[Sticks]

Thanks, Sticks. It helps that these were big hogs.

Yeah....Ive seen you lead piglets off your sticks....WOW

[Glockpride]

[Double Naught Spy]

Pulsar a very good company and their importer, Sellmark, provides outstanding customer service for them. Pulsar scopes have a lot of nice firmware features/options. The only downside to their scopes in general is that they tend to embrace their European market's preferences for lower native magnification. For the typical night hunter, that isn't really a problem because the typical hunter generally isn't shooting over 100 yards and almost never shoots over 200. I am not a typical night hunter. I like more native magnification.

As far as identification goes, the lack of magnification plays into that. However, you never pull the trigger on something you can't identify. With a little time and practice, you can learn to identify most intended prey quickly, particularly if they are in shooting range. That even goes for the higher end thermal. You are still dealing with silhouettes of animal of all sizes and shapes, that may or may not be partially hidden by foliage.

The change from Zeus (Armasight) to Pulsar by a lot of folks is multifold. Armasight no longer exists now, having been bought out by FLIR. FLIR isn't fielding new model 640 resolution scopes right now other than leftover stock. Pulsar is a bit less expensive with more features, better customer service, and generally is easier to use. I would have to look, but the new FLIRs have something like 6 different ways to adjust image quality beyond the focus control. All have need to be tweaked to get the optimal image (or you can just ignore most of them like me and work with it less optimally). Changing most of them means pulling up the main menu system and scrolling through the options to make the adjustments, realizing a change in one may necessitate a change in another. That is just too much for my little brain to handle. Pulsar has brightness and contrast, just 2, and they are easy to adjust. Trijicon has just brightness and contrast as well.

So do I like Pulsar? Overall, sure. I think Pulsar makes the best budget thermal scope going, the Apex XQ50 (HuntTXhogs uses one) is VERY functional that lists for $2800, which is about the price I paid for my tiny handheld FLIR spotter 5 years ago with its tiny lens and blurry picture. HTh hunts very well with his Apex, coyotes at 180 yards, for example. I think it is the best bang for the buck of all the thermal scopes right now if you just want to hunt with it. In general, all of their scopes have been good except the RXQ30v which was some attempt at a super low budget scope for hunters that turned out to be a less than ideal product because the image was just not that good. I called it a 'barnyard thermal' meaning that it would be well suited for the farmer/rancher dealing with problems in his barnyard more so than hunting fields and such.

[Les]

Nice DNS, always informative and entertaining.