re: Thermal recommendations

quote:

---

s wanting to attempt to tell the difference between a hog and a deer from further out

---

ID comes from 50% experience.and 50% a quality thermal. New guys or budget thermal guys always think a rabbit is a pig.

I hunt 500-2000 acre crop fields where we have piles of deer coon pigs coyotes coming out all night. We have to ID animals 500-1200yds constantly. The higher basemags help but it all comes down to resolution, high quality sensors and experience

I have the merger xp50 lrf binoculars and the axion 2 XG35 (640res 12 micron) monocular. They all have their purposes.

Binos have an amazing image and are the best thing to a scope to ID targets. I have videos of coyotes at 900yds that is clearly a coyote

Monocular is great as a quick reference pocket tool. I have their top of the line monocular and even then it's just not powerful enough to produce a scope quality image (animal and environment). I can still ID out to 500yds depending on the conditions

The pulsar XQ series is in your budget with a higher base mag so less image degradation when zooming for the longer ID and your 50-200yd shots will look great. I would still prefer a 640res scope but I don't think you are getting that for 4k