I’m looking to put a low to mid price thermal scope on a 204. Mainly for night hunting coyotes. What should I look for?

I purchased a low end $1200 AGM rattler (25-320) to try to dip my toes in the thermals. Sent it back. It was good for about 100yds. Depending on conditions I could hit out to 200 but it was so pixelated. I concluded I would need to spend more to be happy for what I need in a thermal.

just spend as much as you can and then borrow another 200 bucks. Every penny spent will get you higher quality. I have the Bering Super Hogster, a good thermal, but after looking through higher dollar scopes, mine is entry-level.

I’ve been using a trijicon reap ir for my WS control work. Wasn’t sure where it fell price wise. It was a good scope for what I was using it for. Didn’t have a chance to try it at long range. When I priced it, I about crapped: $8500!! A little out of my price range for a personally owned scope.

384 minimum resolution, get atleast 3x base magnification. Iray, nocpix or Rix.

Stay far away from ATN.

I saw some videos of IRay stuff. Those runt me. I dont have thermal because I now know how good it can be and won't be happy with less. Im not willing to spend what it takes to get the good stuff that cost a few times more than the truck im driving down the road.

You can get a good thermal for $2000

Last I half hearted looked 4 to 15k was the range of stuff in the video I thought was great. For prospective my truck im driving is a 2wd 97 ranger.

Problem is needing an optic and a scanner. Scanner should be good since will spend more time on it than on the rifle. If only one on a rifle will get tired of holding the gun up all the time and there is something about not using a standard scope for binoculars so same should go for thermals.

I see a billboard on the interstate on my way to work for a place advertising thermal and night vision. I keep putting off going and checking them out in person. Still need to put $4,200 in my wife's roth for 2025 year before tax time so dont want the temptation.

Such as?

I use a QD mount and take it off the gun for scanning unless we're pig hunting in the rice fields.

Rix Leap 3 is a great thermal for $2k.

A friend gave me a nv scanner and I tried it out once befor the battery died. It worked well enough 50 yards looking out the back door. But when I quit looking through it I couldn't see anything but bright white spot out of my right eye. It lasted long enough I was pretty concerned. Have not picked the thing up since. Now it didn't come with any instructions so may have been some setting issue or maybe its how its it using them? If so I will just hunting during the day.

Thermals are expensive, for top end. I had the chance to try several Thermals through dealer, local in my area. I bought the Pulsar, with range finder, yes very expensive, but It's a 1 time buy. Have watched yotes, from 700 yds, cats at 200 plus. What I was impressed with on white hot, yotes, cats, dogs, deer, live stock humans, even mice & rats, easily indifivable, at long ranges. Watched coons, at 125 yds hunting crawfish digging night crawlers along creek when I first got it. It can be confusing learning how it works. I played with it for several nights, and finally figured it out. There are several places that have some real good sales on Pulsar, last years model. Scheels, in Omaha, had several reduced for sale in store. Use it for ADC, alot and it help me pay for the price I paid for it

Thanks for all of the replies.
How important is it to have a range finder on a thermal scope?

1cav, when you say "one time buy" how sure are you about that? That's been my biggest holdup,.these things are essentially a computer in a scope, I'm worried about long term durability

Thermals are like politics, there are good and bad, then there are great ones

I started out hunting dogs with night vison with an old Russian Spy scope, did the job to 100 yds, always wanted another seconds hot and more distance, this was late 70's, always watched night vision get better in clarity but not in distance unless you wanted top dog military seconds which, then was way out of my cost, Kept the old Russian busy, learned to wait til in close .

But I started to invest knowledge in thermals and the low end was 3 times better than the night vison, still priced high mid to late 80's

Watched the brands increase, went to gun shows to see them and what was the best, decide Pulsar was my choice, still out of range money wise, saved up for 8 years in my own little stash, while the scopes increased and decreased in value due to cost and people being to tight to buy them,

Pulled the trigger so to speak on a Pulsar Model 60 Duo, when it came down in price two years ago still was over 8G, but before that I bought a Monocular scope with ranger finder from Pulsar on sale at 3 grand, just to learn how to use the thermal features, more than night and day change from any night vison I had tried, almost un-believable, this pushed my savings up to get Duo a year later. I never have regretted it, the cost was as much as a good used car, but it's been worth the time and investment.

Could I have bought a different brand certainly, however I learned with that monocular the difference between just building a sight and building a sight that makes a difference in your hunting.

You get a range finder on most high end scopes and it's worth the investment for night hunting, our eyes cannot do estimating at night on distance, darkness impedes this, range finders don't have this problem, paying for something I will never buy again is also a reason to buy higher class, just like binoculars you want what you can afford, saving was my grace and being patient to do so granted me that buy.

Sheels and Palmetto State Armory have been running some good deals on pulsar thermion i oicked up a DUO 50 for $3800 couple months ago at scheels. PSA had a recondtioned one for $2800 last week if I hadn't put new tires on my daughters car I would of picked one up

I have an iRay Bolt TH50C in 640 that ran about $5500. It’s like a traditional rifle scope with a lot of bells and whistles. It’s currently on my .243 as a dedicated coyote rifle that doubles as my 3 or less hog rifle.

I have an AGM Rattler TS35 640 (less than $3K) that I bought as a scanner. To be honest, I didn’t care for it at first. I never took the time to “learn and tweak” it so it wasn’t performing like the IRay. I bought a Ruger SFAR and decided I would put the AGM on it for a dedicated hog gun. Once I sat down and tweaked it, it’s comparable to the iRay.

I hunted for a year or better just scanning with the rifles. I finally decided a scanner was seriously needed. I went with the AGM Taipan V2 19x384 (less than $1500). I really don’t have any complaints with it other than my next scanner will be a 640 resolution. I spend more time on the scanner than I do the rifles.

With all that said…if starting out again I’d go with an AGM 640 scanner and an AGM 384 scope. None of my shots are over 200yds and that’s only if I’m on a field or right after burn season so an LRF is useless to me. A 200yd zero lets me shoot 0-300 and make a kill. The AGM’s come with a QD mount so they fit on anything.

Now I have heard good things about RIX and Pulsars. But whatever you do, don’t buy an ATN.

Someone mentioned “night blindness” that’s common. It’s the same in your house if you leave your bedroom and the light is on and shut it off and walk out the door in a dark hallway.
I typically scan with my left eye and shoot with my right. Gonna sound crazy but once I’m done with a stand I’ll get my phone out and look at it on the lowest light setting for about 20-30 seconds and once it turn it off, my vision is somewhat restored. Or you can just stand for a few minutes and your pupils will go back to normal and you can see in the dark again. I don’t use any light walking to my stands or back out. I do carry a headlamp with a red lens to retrieve coyotes or hogs.

They have thermal “extensions” now. You can buy one, good ones are spendy, and attach it to the end of your everyday scope. I’d look hard at that.
I’m sitting here with a WiFi capable thermal on a custom made rifle ar platform, Wi-Fi monocular, tripod, suppressor and a few other accessories and I believe the total is in the 12k range.
Point is it gets crazy in a hurry.
The scope and monocular are actually computers, I’ll never learn all they can do.

Osky