Wife reluctantly gave me permission to spend up to 4K. Xp38 or xq38?
Why not the XQ50? You lose the lower magnification and wider FOV of the base magnification of the XP38, but you get more resolution and magnification otherwise and with a bigger lens. The extra magnification will help with your larger fields.
Remember that every time you double your magnification, you reduce your resolution by 3/4. So if you have a 640x480 XP38 that has 1.2x base magnification, then at 2 times that or 2.4x, you now have a 320x240 resolution view. The XQ50's base is 2.7x @384x 288. With me? So you actually get better resolution and more magnification out of the XQ50 than out of the XP38, but you lose the lower magnification and higher resolution level of viewing in which you probably won't be shooting, but it would be useful for nearer distance scanning. AT 200-300 yards, you are probably going to be scanning with some magnification anyway.
And the XQ50 should be in your budget and is less than the XP38
Detection range on the XQ50 is 1800 meters
Detection range on the XP38 is 1350 meters