So a little back story. I almost purchased a Halo LR a year and a half ago but got a little squeamish over feedback I had gotten on the zero click values......a lot of which came from a thermal salesman who in hindsight probably did not have one in stock.....but had plenty of Trijicon! So I went with a Trijicon 60mm which was great.....but just too much base mag and a little bulky for me. Sold it after a year and have been using my Reap 35 since. It still sits on my POF Revolution.
Started looking a couple months back for a new thermal to go on my Q Fix .308. I looked at all options that are bolt gun capable and decided my best choice would be the Halo LR (thanks Plinkit and others here who through previous posts confirmed it works on the Fix!)
Been shopping for a used one for a while and finally found one that met my budget and age limit. The zero click thing was still in the back of my mind and on the way to the range yesterday I had a wee bit of anxiety on whether this was going to be an issue on my rifle. As mentioned by OP, not the elevation so much but the windage would have been bothersome.
The way I zero thermal is to layer white cardboard on top of a styrofoam sheet on top of a sheet of plywood. I then take a 1.5” hole saw and drill all the way thru to create my target area. Then staple a handwarmer to the backside of the plywood. This gives a well defined aiming point for me without a lot of thermal bleed.
Three shots at the 25 yard range to get it close. Then 2 more shots at the 100 yard range to walk it on in. Then after adjusting the next was bullseye. Put a final shot in just to be certain and it too was on center of the handwarmer. Given my ammo choice of Nosler Accubond 165 grain .308 costs about $2.50 a round these days I decided 2 in the center was confirmation enough.
For my “minute of hog” purposes I call anything with thermal within the 1.5” target hole a good zero, and even better these shots were on center of the handwarmer as well. So I was relieved that my concerns over the zero click values were overblown and a total non-issue with this setup. Hope this helps anyone else who researches and comes across this post. Look forward to posting some pics of the Halo LR doing it’s thing in the NV and thermal kills section soon!