IR Hunter 320, 2x, 19mm Review

[Brian Shaffer]

TLM asked that I remove the Text from Hunt TXHog's thread where he has his own review on the 3x version of the scope. That thread has excellent information and beautiful pictures to which you may wish to refer...
http://www.lonestarboars.com/threads/another-thermal-weapon-sight-ir-defense-ir-hunter.1472/

My review...not as fancy, but hopefully informative...

I had an IR Hunter 2x, 19mm lens for the weekend. Here is my review. I have edited some of the comments per feedback with Ben (Hunt TXHogs) on his unit.

These are my notes. I realize some of the issues won't be perfectly clear if you haven't seen or held the scope. Sorry. In some cases, you can refer to Ben's pics for issues related to locations of the power switch and battery compartment/cap.

1. Don't need an adapter to use with an ACOG to be functional, though a hood of some sort of hood to join the two would be good. An adapter is supposed to be available, but I did not have one to try.

2. Rubber eye cup is quirky, a bit to unstable in that it can be knocked off the unit fairly easily with a forceful brush by the body. The aperture depression (to open it) assures that the shooter's eye will be fairly far forward which I would anticipate really being an issue with more significantly recoiling rifles. That is a stiff-sleeved eye cup and the cup is pushed into the sleeve to open the aperture, meaning that during recoil the stiff sleeve will push into the eye. So basically, it is a short eye-relief scope with a pressure activated eyecup aperture and a stiff eye cup sleeve. I can see this causing problems. By contrast, the Pulsar Digisight has a longer eye relief and a longer sleeve/eye cup that is more flexible. It does not have the aperture for stealth, but won't be pushed rudely into the eye either.

3. The on/off switch is apt to move if carried in a sling against the chest by a right handed person or carried with the left side of the scope/rifle against the shooter's body. It can be inadvertently switched when the unit/rifle rubs against the shooter's body/gear during normal handling.

4. NINETEEN times so far, I have turned on the scope and it has not come on. It only came on after toggling the switch back and forth will it eventually come on. I am working to figure out the circumstances through which this happens. Mostly, this seems to happen after it has been sitting for a while. Seems to mostly be a problem when the unit has sat for several minutes. Am waiting up to 10 seconds for the screen to start to come on before declaring the startup a failure as either the screen flickers and comes to life when powered on or nothing happens regardless of how long I wait (up to 1 minute tried so far). On the last sequence, it took up 5 attempts before the scope came to life on attempt 5. Changed batteries with the fail-to-boot counter at 19. First few turn-ons with new batteries have not been a problem.

5. Batteries (original set) appear to be draining AWFULLY fast. Went from approximately 3/4 battery power according to the meter to the red "BATTERY CRITICALLY LOW" warning in less than 30 minutes. Am now on Set 2 (first new set for me). Maybe set 2 will work better? It did initially. However, after using the scope at the range and running the battery for a while, I have now had 7 failures to boot up when the switch was turned on. The power meter shows more then 3/4 full and I estimate that the unit has not been running for more than an hour total time on this set of batteries.

6. Changing batteries is a b____ (problem) even with the unit not on a rifle. The spring tension and little screw cap are not terribly user-friendly. Trying to do it with gloves on is a nightmare. It can be done, but it took me multiple tries to get the cap back on...and I can only imagine what it would be like trying to do with freezing fingers in gloves or freezing fingers out of gloves.

Ben noticed on his scope that it was difficult or impossible to change the batteries with the scope mounted, something about a conflict with the mount. On the LaRue mount, it would appear that the lever may be in conflict with the video-out port. That will depend on the cable.

However, Ben was right. When mounted, the position of the battery compartment cap and the switch above it along with the scope body and barrel/mount rail is such that there are just barely two opposing cap surfaces to grasp in order to twist off the cap. So you can get fingers on opposite sides, but you can't turn the cap because travel is blocked by the switch, scope body, and barrel/rail. Combined with the heavy spring tension and the whole battery change becomes a nightmare in the field in the dark, especially if it is cold.

continued....

 

[Brian Shaffer]

7. The bottom static/fuzzy b/w line at the bottom edge of the screen is not a large visual bother, but it does show that either the firmware isn't right or that the fit of the unit isn't wholly as precise as one might expect on a multi-thousand dollar precision instrument, one for which the visual display is the tantamount key feature. It looks like somebody didn't take the time to get it right. It isn't the ATN green vertical bar problem, but it isn't invisible either.

8. I wish there was some sort of contrast control. There isn't per se, but you can work around it some with the settings, but the work around is no substitute for proper contrast. Turns out, there isn't much contrast because the unit does not appear to be very temperature sensitive. It does not do more subtle heat differences as well as my FLIR PS32 and my FLIR PS32 pales in capability compared to the Armasight Zeus 3 I have for testing.

9. Digital Focus Control (DFC) setting does not get remembered when unit is turned off and must be adjusted to new setting each time. DFC doesn't really focus the image itself so much as it just sharpens the pixels. So the never-exactly focused image of the IR Hunter can be seen with slightly blurry pixels or you can have a never-exactly focused image with sharp pixels.

10. The vertical bar on the right side of the screen that appears during various color settings is bothersome as well. It may be black in the white mode, white in the black mode, and various colors in the various color modes (haven't kept track of which color in which color mode). They may actually have it programmed that way or it is a quick. Don't know, but I don't see a reason for it to be there intentionally.

11. I think the scope was made for shooters by shooters, but the shooters were not hunters and have not put a lot of consideration into use of the scope in the field, such as when the rifle is carried on a sling.

12. In my first night of testing and learning features, I placed a Thermacell (as a heat target) on the ground at 20 yards with the butt (small) end toward my position. That presented me with a target of about 3" by 1.5" in size. With the IR Hunter set on a stable surface with the magnification at 1x, put the crosshairs in the middle of the target and aligned with the bottom edge. I then rotated the zoom knob to 2x and the whole image jumped high and left and the crosshair jumped high and left. Of course, everything was now doubled. The only problem is that the distance that the image moved was not matched by the distance the crosshairs moved and the result was that the crosshairs were now several inches off target. I would guess the distance was about 5-6". At 50 yards, the distance was greater than a foot.

To verify that this was not the result of something I was doing, I repeated the test with running the zoom both up and down and down and up. I would be on target at 1x, and off at 2x and would appear to be in the same place as 2x when going to 4x (though there may have been a slight image shift, but I am not certain). Then I would return to 1x to see if the crosshairs were still on target, which they were.

So 1x places the image and the crosshairs in a different place than 2x and 4x which appear to place the image and crosshairs in slightly different locations in the display.

I checked this with colored reticles and different reticles after I came in from the field. I was dealing with interior distances, but found that a shift was apparent when using differ colors of the reticle or using different reticles. I did not attempt to verify that the differences between 1x and 2x-4x were the exact same for the different colors or different reticles, but based on just eyeballing it, I would say that they were, meaning that the error is the same regardless of the color or reticle used.

13. Attempted to spot wildlife using the Armasight, IR Hunter, and FLIR PS32. I am not as yet very familiar with the Armasights adjustments, but in the current mode that it was running, I was able to see in better detail with more contrast and hot spots showed up better than with either the FLIR or the IR Hunter. Of course, these units are not exactly comparable except for comparable resolution. The Armasight had more magnification (3x), the IR Hunter was 2x, and the FLIR was 1x. I was definitely able to spot things better with the Armasight than either of the other two units, but a particular target caught my interest. It was apparently a rabbit at somewhere between 160 and 180 yards in the grass (based on Google Earth image assessment). I spotted it with the Armasight and did not notice it with the FLIR or IR Hunter until I knew where to look. However, the FLIR and IR Hunter both were able to detect the rabbit just about equally well to each other despite the difference in magnification. Part of this I attribute to the better contrast of the display of the FLIR (and Armasight) than of the IR Hunter which has a sort of gray, washed-out look to it.

continued...

 

[Brian Shaffer]

14. Digital focus is okay, but does not equate at all with actual objective focus. It is a shame the IR Hunter does not have this. Most of the FLIR RS units do not have objective or digital focus and are 'fixed focus' which works well as it does on the IR Hunter, but it is a definite compromise in image quality. The Armasight, by contrast, did have objective focus and the image could be rendered much sharper. The same goes for other scopes like the Insight LWTS.

15. On one sequence of trying to make adjustments to the scope, I tried to adjust the Zero and found the settings were fixed, unmoving, in the default central positions. I had to turn off the unit and turn it back on to get the 'remembered' settings.

16. Going back to the issue of contrast, I cannot get the scope to deliver the profound imagery as seen on IRD's website. I know some was supposed to be accomplished with the ETR, but changing the ETR does not produce such contrasted images in the unit I am testing. Also, Ben noted a failure of the ETR to produce any noticeable change in his scope (320, 3x), but maybe I misunderstood.

17. Position 4 on the ETR is useless, causing the scope to go BLACK. Why even have the setting and have it blank out the scope if it doesn't do anything. I have tried it in several different situations and looking at hot and cold images, day and night, skyline, tree line, ground, etc. and I see nothing but a BLACK screen.

18. Cannot replicate the amazing image improvement using the ETR as claimed by IRD.

19. Video out cap is not a cheapo rubber plug, but a metal plug that apparently is held in place by friction. The plug is kept from being lost by what appears to be a rubberized wire lanyard.

The construction is solid, no doubt. The down side is that if you have it out because you have a video cable plugged in, the metal plug had to be secured for stealthiness, otherwise it bangs around against the scope or LaRue mount lever and makes a typical metal on metal sound.

WENT TO THE RANGE

20. Got zeroed at 1x on a 50 yard target shooting an AR15 using factory Ranger 64 gr. softpoint ammo. Tested for the reticle jump issue. I originally could place a shot in the head (full size IPSC humanoid silhouette) on 1x and change to 2x and fire a second shot that would hit low and left by about 1 foot. I repeated this test three times. Later, I could not go back and make head shots, they would no longer hit the head. Turns out, instead of the image and reticle shifting up and left, it was now shifting to the right and the reticle was not making the same amount of shift to the right as was the rest of the image.


This is a pic of a full-sized IPSC silhouette shot at 50 yards. Both shots were aimed at the center of the head. The first shot was on 1x and the second shot was on 2x. That is a 20+ MOA difference.

So basically, the scope cannot maintain a parcentral POA between zoom levels (Ben just verified this on his scope as well) and does not appear to be holding zero in general.

21. Video out plug kept falling out of the side of the unit during firing. With 60 rounds fired, it came out at least 4 times. Based on how it feels when the plug is inserted to, or extracted from the unit, it is held in place by friction alone. It does not snap into place or have any sort of detent to hold it once it is inserted. Good thing it was on a lanyard or it would have been lost. However, it should not be falling out in the first place.

I know all this sounds scathing, but I was operating from the view that the scope was supposed to be beautiful and amazing, as per the hype of IRD. Certain things just should not be wrong or were not expected to be as they were. I do have some definite likes, though with some caveats.

High Points...

1. Solid Construction. Even if you don't like the switch location or the quirky rubber eye cup, the rest of the scope is solid.

2. Sacrificial lens to protect the actual germanium lens is a great touch

3. The menu system and rotary selection process is lightyears ahead of the push-button systems and CAN be operated readily with gloves on. Mittens are a bit more difficult for the left side selector, but not impossible. I even doubled up my gloves like I do when it is really cold and could cycle through options. This functions brilliantly!

4. The 'clicky' feel of the power switch and of the selector knobs is good. Makes the user experience that much better.

Bottom Line Final Thoughts...

The purpose of a scope, a rifle scope, it to be able to see one's target and shoot it in a replicable manner. The better the image quality, the easier this is to accomplish. Given that the human eye works best based on contrast, you want to have good contrast in the things you see in the FOV. The scope needs to be well made (if you want it to last), and you should not have to be planning on replacing parts when you buy it brand new.

The IR Hunter unit I tested should be an absolutely rugged unit for the field and survive a long period of time. However, the image quality suffers not because of resolution issues, but because of contrast issues and lack of ability to fine focus the images (no manual objective focus). Too much of the FOV is just grey and discerning objects not very hot is difficult. Yes, there are other colors to use, BUT most of the time most hunters will not be hunting in a purple or red FOV or any other colors. They will be hunting white hot or black hot and this unit just doesn't provide substantial contrast as is shown in the advertisements.

The rubber eye cup wasn't designed by shooters for shooters or they would have gone with a different option. So far it has been dislodged 3 times from the scope during my handling with it and I can see it being readily lost in the field by a person who is hunting. Considering the rest of the quality of the scope, the rubber eye cup is a joke that doesn't belong on the scope. If this is supposed to be the rugged field scope for guys going out in the brush at night after hogs and such, this part needs to be changed!!! No telling what will be charged for a new replacement if the original is lost.

The switch is truly bothersome. I predict people will be complaining about dead batteries because of the units getting turned on inadvertently. I suspect that this will also happen if the unit is on a rifle carried in a case. The only option then is to carry without the batteries in the unit. As noted above, changing batteries is a pain. You have to take the scope off the rifle, for crying out loud!

I suspect that changing the batteries is such a pain because for the scope to be able to maintain power during recoil, heavy duty springs are needed to assure electrical contact is maintained. This is a design flaw, IMHO. As this unit uses 2 CR123 batteries serially and the batteries are aligned lengthwise with the scope, they are subject to front-back recoil connection problems. Surefire had this issue on their lights when placed on shotguns, which also resulted in battery failures because of the rearward battery damaging the battery forward of it during recoil. They addressed this problem by placing a spacer between the batteries. Some of the other optics companies apparently took noted of this issue and opted to install the batteries crosswise to the scope and recoil (See ATN, Armasight, FLIR, and others). This is SMART. Less spring tension is required for batteries to maintain contact in order to power the unit and recoil force is not concentrated over the narrow axis but is spread out over a much wider area of the entire length of the batteries.

That the unit will intermittently fail to boot up when the batteries are not full power is unacceptable.

When buying a themral rifle scope, the one thing I absolutely expect is that it holds zero regardless of zoom level. This scope FAILED. Even if it did hold zero, the plethora of other problematic features are such that I would not buy this scope. The battery change issue, on/off switch, and quirky eye cup make the unit not suited for the field.

I spelled 'thermal' incorrectly intentionally. That is the way that IR Defense spelled it on their instruction cards, LOL. Check out the headings on the cards...

 

[Brian Shaffer]

 

[BigRedDog]

wow

 

[Brian Shaffer]

Yes, and "Otherwise, what did you think of the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"

 

[TEXASLAWMAN]

Yes, and "Otherwise, what did you think of the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"

I only wish I could write and explain myself half as well Brian.

Really hope to get some side by side video from these very soon. So far we will have the 3x IR hunter, w1000, mtm, x320, and hopefully a LWTS to compare. Would be nice to get a thor and some flir options also I have a couple of weeks to work on that.

 

[DaveABQ]

Wow, great writeup, I appreciate the time and testing and feedback you and Ben did. I was considering this thermal scope, but after reading the feedback, I have to say, I'll be looking at something else.

I guarantee that IR Defense knows of these issues and still put these on the market, of course this seems to be happening with many companies, but with all the issues with this scope, is it even possible to meet their claims, I think their goals when they designed the scope and their claims, would be difficult to achieve.

Just my opinion, but I can say I won't buy one in their current operating condition. Would be interesting to contact IR Defense with your findings and see what their response is. When people start reporting on these issues, they are in big trouble.

 

[DaveABQ]

I only wish I could write and explain myself half as well Brian.

Really hope to get some side by side video from these very soon. So far we will have the 3x IR hunter, w1000, mtm, x320, and hopefully a LWTS to compare. Would be nice to get a thor and some flir options also I have a couple of weeks to work on that.

I agree Todd, I would also like to see the Zeus in this lineup. There are much better thermal than any of these, but nothing that I could afford. I've seen some of the stuff the military had, holy cow, amazing stuff, but way out of our price range and most not available to civilians.

 

[TEXASLAWMAN]

I agree Todd, I would also like to see the Zeus in this lineup. There are much better thermal than any of these, but nothing that I could afford. I've seen some of the stuff the military had, holy cow, amazing stuff, but way out of our price range and most not available to civilians.

I do not know anyone that has a Zeus. Will test anything we can get there side by side. It seems to be hard enough for the people that sell these things to get them all side by side at the same time.

 

[BigRedDog]

is any of this salvageable from software/firmware upgrades?

could a spacer elevate the entire unit enough to at least change the battery?

does the unit take two or three or four 123's? Could a single unit battery 18xxx whatever help?

I like the looks of the glass, but if it cannot be adjusted to focus for MY EYES then it will not get to stay at my place.

Do the engineers never get into the field? How can this project get this far and be this bad? This is worse than the RS series from Flir.

 

[BigRedDog]

Themral, really?

How in the unholy hell could that happen?

I had to walk away after reading the report, this kind of crap just infuriates me. (excellent report btw) The whole project is just........ I don't have the words.

The sales marketing on the website is fabulous, too fabulous. I expected what they showed us.

GRRRRRRRR

 

[TEXASLAWMAN]

Again thank you Brian for sharing this and taking the time to write it! I always enjoy your stories and reviews you make me feel like I was right there with you. It is a pretty disappointing report, I know quite a few people including myself were very interested in this scope.

 

[Brian Shaffer]

is any of this salvageable from software/firmware upgrades?

I would hope the zero and drifting image and reticle issues are firmware-related as opposed to being unstable electronics.

could a spacer elevate the entire unit enough to at least change the battery?

Maybe, but it is still a design flaw. If you needed a higher position to change the batteries, then it should have come with a higher mount.

does the unit take two or three or four 123's? Could a single unit battery 18xxx whatever help?

It takes 2 CR123s and does not take an 18650.

I like the looks of the glass, but if it cannot be adjusted to focus for MY EYES then it will not get to stay at my place.

Focusing for your eyes won't be a problem. It does have a diopter focus which allows you to focus the internal viewing screen where the imagery is displayed. Other electronic scopes (most) have both an objective focus to put a clear image on that screen, and then the diopter focus for the viewing screen. As you don't see all the way through the actual scope like you do with typical optics, the presence or absence of an objective focus should not be an issue relative to your eyes.

Do the engineers never get into the field? How can this project get this far and be this bad? This is worse than the RS series from Flir.

The FLIR I reviewed previously was apparently QC defective, not that such a remark builds confidence. As for the engineers, remember that IRD says their scopes are by shooters for shooters, but like I said, I don't think they are hunters. If you wanted to shoot this scope off the bench, then a lot of the issues (eye cup, on/off switch, changing batteries) just isn't a crucial issue. No, I don't think they really took this scope into the field or really checked it. If they did as DaveABQ suggests and released the scope knowing of problems, then that would be tragic.

As for the Zeus 3 I had, I can put together a small review and post it. I was asked to review the IRH and given the Zeus to take along for comparison as well as my own FLIR PS-32 spotter. So the review of the Zeus isn't as indepth. I just made some minor notes, but maybe they will be insightful. I will get those together and post in another thread.

 

[BigRedDog]

thank you

 

[FrankT]

Thank Brian, really good write up and answers!

 

[DaveABQ]

As for the Zeus 3 I had, I can put together a small review and post it. I was asked to review the IRH and given the Zeus to take along for comparison as well as my own FLIR PS-32 spotter. So the review of the Zeus isn't as indepth. I just made some minor notes, but maybe they will be insightful. I will get those together and post in another thread.

forgot you had a Zeus along, will wait for your feedback

 

[DaveABQ]

would love to see a review of the Flir Thermosight RS32 and RS64

 

[Hunt TXHogs]

Hey Brian -

I am back from the lease and all I have to say is I think you broke my scope

Clearly I jest ! Thank you for reaching out to me with your observations, even though I didn't get to run the IR Hunter through any shooting drills (I used it as a spotter for the weekend) I did test my 3x model tonight and it exhibits the issue that you reference in # 12. I've updated my review with a video that illustrates what we are experiencing.

I, and I am sure an untold number of others, truly appreciate your time and efforts to work over the equipment and provide your feedback. It allows fellow hunters and consumers to get additional information to factor in their purchase decisions.

Ben

 

[Brian Shaffer]

And I certainly appreciate you putting on video that which I didn't have the gear to do. Here is your demo of the reticle shift issue I noted. The rest of y'all are going to be blown away by this....