After more than a two years of unsuccessful hunting hogs at dusk and dawn with conventional rifle scopes and green flash lights, I convinced my lovely wife to let me acquire some new thermal equipment for my tenth wedding anniversary. I went on my first night time hog hunt excursion on our family ranch near Madisonville, TX last night using a IR Defense Hunter MKII mounted on a 16 inch barrel AR in 6.8mm SPC with a Thunderbeast Ultra9 Silencer. My buddy carried an IR Defense Patrol 300 Monocular we utilized for spotting that we occasionally clipped in front of a AIMPOINT T1 red dot atop a 16 inch 5.56 AR with a Silencerco Specwar 5.56 silencer. This was my first hunt ever using thermal AND silencers.
The sky was clear and the moon was at 60 percent so we could easily navigate the fields by starlight from 6:30-11 PM. Using the IR Defense, we could spot animals at 4-500 yards easily (limit of our fields). However, usually we needed the magnification of the 2.5 power lens of the IR Hunter MKII to distinguish pigs from deer at 150-200 yards.
I don't have much experience using nightvision equipment (other than a peek through some 10K+ nightvision googles utilized by Lifeflight helicopter pilots) but using the thermal felt almost like cheating. Under these conditions, the deer could see us well when we were walking around and kept about 200-300 yards away. Normally during the daytime, these same deer are very skittish and would not tolerate being within 400 yards in the presence of humans so I am guessing that was the limit of their visability under those conditions.
We saw our first boar from a distance of over 200 yards and stalked to within 50 yards before dispatching it with two simultaneous shots from our AR rifles. It probably weighed over 200 lbs and was the biggest boar I have taken to date (I have shot several dozen pigs previously during the daytime). The second 200+ lb boar was traversing a field while we were resting in a blind. I dispatched him with one shot at 90 yards as he was trotting and he dropped dead on the spot.
Just to give you a sense of the capability of this IR Hunter MKII, I shot and wounded a coyote at over 200 yards. I only had time to zero my rifle for 50 yards at the range a few days before this hunt so I'm not sure exactly where my bullets were hitting at that distance. I also dispatched two noisy armidillos. This was the most fun I have had with my pants on in quite some time.
I would like to thank all for posting in the forums. Despite living in a huge city (Houston), its hard to find folks with the capital to own this expensive, specialized equipment and dealers who have anything in stock. I would like to thank Chris Byrd at US Nightvision for his help in helping me select and acquire these two products. According to Chris Byrd, these two units from IR Defense far surpass the capability of any similar product sold to the military (FLIR) or civilians and are made in the US unlike other optics that utilize inferior Russian made components.
The sky was clear and the moon was at 60 percent so we could easily navigate the fields by starlight from 6:30-11 PM. Using the IR Defense, we could spot animals at 4-500 yards easily (limit of our fields). However, usually we needed the magnification of the 2.5 power lens of the IR Hunter MKII to distinguish pigs from deer at 150-200 yards.
I don't have much experience using nightvision equipment (other than a peek through some 10K+ nightvision googles utilized by Lifeflight helicopter pilots) but using the thermal felt almost like cheating. Under these conditions, the deer could see us well when we were walking around and kept about 200-300 yards away. Normally during the daytime, these same deer are very skittish and would not tolerate being within 400 yards in the presence of humans so I am guessing that was the limit of their visability under those conditions.
We saw our first boar from a distance of over 200 yards and stalked to within 50 yards before dispatching it with two simultaneous shots from our AR rifles. It probably weighed over 200 lbs and was the biggest boar I have taken to date (I have shot several dozen pigs previously during the daytime). The second 200+ lb boar was traversing a field while we were resting in a blind. I dispatched him with one shot at 90 yards as he was trotting and he dropped dead on the spot.
Just to give you a sense of the capability of this IR Hunter MKII, I shot and wounded a coyote at over 200 yards. I only had time to zero my rifle for 50 yards at the range a few days before this hunt so I'm not sure exactly where my bullets were hitting at that distance. I also dispatched two noisy armidillos. This was the most fun I have had with my pants on in quite some time.
I would like to thank all for posting in the forums. Despite living in a huge city (Houston), its hard to find folks with the capital to own this expensive, specialized equipment and dealers who have anything in stock. I would like to thank Chris Byrd at US Nightvision for his help in helping me select and acquire these two products. According to Chris Byrd, these two units from IR Defense far surpass the capability of any similar product sold to the military (FLIR) or civilians and are made in the US unlike other optics that utilize inferior Russian made components.
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