Thermal scopes are specialized optics that work as a standard optic during the day, but they will illuminate people and animals at night. Thermal scopes differ from what is referred to as “night vision devices” or NVDs in several key ways. Both devices look roughly the same, but they operate on entirely different principles.
Night vision devices work by collecting and amplifying available light, making everything in view more visible. You can recognize a depiction of night vision because everything appears as though it’s being viewed from a green lens. Night vision uniformly enhances one’s ability to see at night, but it doesn’t highlight anything specifically. Night vision is an excellent choice for surveillance in low-light situations, but it isn’t the optimal choice for hunting.
Unlike night vision devices, thermal optics detect and highlight temperature differences. This results in warm-blooded living creatures distinctly standing out from their background. Some thermal imaging devices will show this highlight using a gradient, which will show parts of an object or animal that are warmer and colder (think FLIR, or better yet, “Predator” vision). Although displaying this gradient makes for interesting and colorful depictions, it is not the best display for spotting animals at night.
Thermal depictions best suited for rifle scopes will display an animal as either white on a darkened background or black on a lightened background. Any animal, and certainly feral hogs, stick out like a sore thumb. Not only does this make initial target selection faster and easier, but it makes follow-up shots, and shots on other animals in a pack much faster. One series of thermal optics that do this very well and at an affordable price are the ATN thermal rifle scopes, which Fun Guns proudly carries.
If you have a feral hog problem, you are in trouble without some help. Feral hogs are most active at night when we can’t see them and certainly can’t aim at them. Some people try to use spotlights to try and sight and shoot them, but quickly discover the light startles them, sending them running. A thermal rifle produces no detectable signature so the pigs won’t see you coming. There is simply no substitute for a quality thermal rifle scope when hunting at night.
Fun Guns is your premier Waco destination for thermal scopes.