Night Vision New owner Hogster-c thermal clip on review

[Old Man with Gun]

As stated, I got my Hogster clip on and am happy with it. I dont have the experience with other units to compare much, but for me I think it was a good choice.

My criteria was to maximize field of view, be able to use it as a scanner or with a rifle and take shots out to 200 yards if I wanted to hunt with it.

First explaining the scope pairing- I tried it with a bunch of my rifles and found that too much magnification was no good, 1-4x, 1-6x and 1-8x all worked well although understand that because it takes about 2x to fill the scope with the display screen, what you really get is a 1-2x, 1-3x or 1-4x scope respectively.

A 1-8x is grainy at 8x(getting about 4x in reality) so 1-6x is my sweet spot. Higher magnification hurts on FFP scopes because the reticle is so hard to see (I tried a 2.5-10x32). I like 1-6x( getting about 3x in reality) best on SFP so max magnification BDC is applicable.

I am definitely of the less magnification but clearer is best. I also much per an illuminated reticle, and like the entire BDC to light up, not just a dot.

Mounting is easy and POI repeatable but I had to choose to either put the rail mount backward to accommodate short SBR hand rails, or forward for my bolt guns with night bridges as you need the thermal as close to the scope as possible. I went for SBRs.

I went to the range twice this weekend and played with just my 6.5 grendel 12.5". Great gun, I shoot just under MOA with Hornady American Gunner using it's 1-8x Vortex Strike Eagle.When I added the thermal, groups opened to about 1.5 MOA.

My main concern for getting this is home security, after hurricanes in Florida we have people running around in the night stealing generators and such. I have total believe that I can take a quick scan of my area and know if people are around. I also want to keep an eye on a large warehouse that has been looted.

Field of view as both a scanner and weapon sight is narrow at about 9 degrees. Looking across an open area of my house about 40 feet away, I can see about a 5-6 foot wide area. If going slow and quiet it is nice, but not comfortable in a dark house.
Outside where I'm looking at 25 yards to 200 yards it is great.

The unit seems well made, I like that it uses CR123 as I always have boxes of them handy. It can use rechargeable 3.7v as well or a battery pack using USC-C cable which was great at the range. Havent killed the first set of CR123 yet, but probably over 4 hours of use by now.

Menu is easy to learn, but there is some knowing that you need to hold these two buttons for 3 seconds to do this kind of stuff, so a 10 minute learning curve.

Overall very happy, I wouldn't recommend it over a dedicated scope unless field of view is a top priority for you.

 

[Victor-TNVC]

Thank you for the review. How was the boresight correction between your day scope and when you introduced the clip-on?

 

[Old Man with Gun]

Thank you for the review. How was the boresight correction between your day scope and when you introduced the clip-on?

Not hard, you can have different values for 4 different rifles. In the menu you can click up/down or right/left. Each click changes by about 1.2cm at 50 meters, so about 3/4 MOA click. I like that it tells you an X and Y value so I could put them on my targets. Here are my last 3 at 100 yards. I decided I liked X -2.4cm and Y -8.4 cm best.
Hardest part is a good target, I actually found I could see these black and white targets with nothing but the sun shining on them better than the hand warmers that are too hot and too big of white spot to center on. The hand warmers are too hot creating too big of a target.

 

[jwramp]

Do you expect it to return back to zero on those guns and rails, or need to go through the zeroing process every time you mount the thermal? I imagine using a visible laser and a vise at the range may help for quick confirmations to see whether the digital POA is matching up.

Any other info on going rail-mounted versus the objective clamps that they seem to be promoted with?

 

[Old Man with Gun]

Do you expect it to return back to zero on those guns and rails, or need to go through the zeroing process every time you mount the thermal? I imagine using a visible laser and a vise at the range may help for quick confirmations to see whether the digital POA is matching up.

Any other info on going rail-mounted versus the objective clamps that they seem to be promoted with?

The rail mount puts the screen about 1.6" high, so might not work with much other than AR style platforms. My return to zero is very repeatable, I regularly removed the thermal showing it to people at the range and put it back with no noticeable shift. I cleaned the rifle between range days, and was still dead on the next day as well.

 

[143lrsd]

Nice write up sir. With regards to targets, have you ever tried cold mason jar lids? I keep them in a small cooler, which puts them in the high 30 degree F, and then hang them on the target board with a predrilled hole. It gives you solid temperature differential for at least 30/45 mins dependent on ambient. Works significantly better, IMHO, than had warmers.

 

[Old Man with Gun]

Do you expect it to return back to zero on those guns and rails, or need to go through the zeroing process every time you mount the thermal? I imagine using a visible laser and a vise at the range may help for quick confirmations to see whether the digital POA is matching up.

Any other info on going rail-mounted versus the objective clamps that they seem to be promoted with?

Moving between guns, I just need to change the G1, G2, G3, G4 in the menu that corresponds to the X and Y value set for each Individual rifle.

 

[Old Man with Gun]

Nice write up sir. With regards to targets, have you ever tried cold mason jar lids? I keep them in a small cooler, which puts them in the high 30 degree F, and then hang them on the target board with a predrilled hole. It gives you solid temperature differential for at least 30/45 mins dependent on ambient. Works significantly better, IMHO, than had warmers.

Maybe it's the warm Florida sun, but plain old paper targets work fine. Here is a very crappy picture of a target through the thermal that is unfocused using my cell phone.

I went with hand warmers, but found they didn't work as well as my regular targets.

 

[143lrsd]

Maybe it's the warm Florida sun, but plain old paper targets work fine. Here is a very crappy picture of a target through the thermal that is unfocused using my cell phone.

I went with hand warmers, but found they didn't work as well as my regular targets.

Very nice sir.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

OMWG, I hope you don't mind me tacking on some vids to help just a bit. But first, let me say that I am excited to see the rail mount. When I tested the Hogster-C a few months ago, the rail mount was not an option, ONLY scope mount, which has all sorts of inconvenient issues and concern. I really liked the Hogster-C in terms of how good the image was for a 384 resolution optic. I looking through your other observations, I can't say that I would disagree with any of them.

The vids are just an example of the imagery. The last video has me shooting a hog at 220 yards, the farthest I shot with the Hogster-C

 

[Old Man with Gun]

Thanks for sharing, it was vids like these that helped me decide on this to buy. I really like the rail mount, I don't think I would have gone this route if I had to do the scope mounts.

I think the excellent display is part of the reason it does not get overly pixilated when you zoom in, but still as others have posted elsewhere; not better than magnification in front of the sensor.

What I would love to see would be a 2x attachment for the front of the unit that would change the native magnification to 2x and turn my LPVO into a 2-8x instead of 1-4x! I'm not sure the extra weight would work with the scope mount version, but the rail should have no issues.

 

[stefan73]

I wonder how that unit would work helmet mounted? If it would?

 

[Old Man with Gun]

I wonder how that unit would work helmet mounted? If it would?

It has 9 degrees FOV, I believe the FLIR Breach is about 20 degrees. It's also bigger, heavier and with the eye piece may stick out far and be very awkward. I'm thinking no.

 

[stefan73]

It has 9 degrees FOV, I believe the FLIR Breach is about 20 degrees. It's also bigger, heavier and with the eye piece may stick out far and be very awkward. I'm thinking no.

Yeah, having not payed attention to the specs I completely agree after you said this.

 

[Old Man with Gun]

I got something very wrong in my review and need to correct it.

When I wrote the following, I was WRONG:

"First explaining the scope pairing- I tried it with a bunch of my rifles and found that too much magnification was no good, 1-4x, 1-6x and 1-8x all worked well although understand that because it takes about 2x to fill the scope with the display screen, what you really get is a 1-2x, 1-3x or 1-4x scope respectively.

A 1-8x is grainy at 8x(getting about 4x in reality) so 1-6x is my sweet spot. Higher magnification hurts on FFP scopes because the reticle is so hard to see (I tried a 2.5-10x32). I like 1-6x( getting about 3x in reality) best on SFP so max magnification BDC is applicable."

CORRECTION:

When you look through a 1x scope you are seeing 1x, the eyepiece has a small screen in the middle with a lot of wasted space around it. The screen is less than half the diameter of the eyepiece, but it is 1x.

When I zoom up to 2.4x the screen fills the eyepiece, and it is 2.4 x with no degradation to the image quality, because I still see full resolution. I'm looking at the entire display.

As I zoom up the image quality drops.

So to correct, the Hogster-C with a 1x to whatever magnification scope is a 1x with 9x6.7 degree FOV, a 2.4x scope with 9x6.7 degree FOV and after that it is like having a digital zoom that degrades image and FOV.

At 4x it is like a 1.6x digital zoom
At 6x it is like a 2.5x digital zoom
At 8x it is like a 3.3x digital zoom

FOV on Hogsters
R 25mm is 14.9x11.2
R 35mm is 10.7x8
C 42mm is 9x6.7
Super 35mm is 7.5x5.7

So in terms of FOV the clip on falls between the R35 and the super hogster.

I am still extremely happy with my purchase, but since a wide FOV was a priority, it is not best for close in scanning. I thought a 1x native meant best FOV, but my logic was off, because I didn't understand.

I wanted to end up with:
1 Close in thermal scope / scanner
2 PVS-14
3 Mid to long range thermal scope

It just seems I made my last purchase first. I got a PVS-14 so it's been a spendy Christmas!
I do really like the Hogster and am thinking of getting the Hogster-R 25mm when my credit card recovers.

 

[kirsch]

It just seems I made my last purchase first. I got a PVS-14 so it's been a spendy Christmas!
I do really like the Hogster and am thinking of getting the Hogster-R 19mm when my credit card recovers.

There is no Hogster-R 19mm, they have the 25, 35 and Super Hogster. The specs you quoted for the 19mm is the correct specs of the Hogster 25.

 

[TheGerman]

OP's Avatar is hilarious.

 

[Old Man with Gun]

Thanks, edited to correct.

 

[Old Man with Gun]

One more thing I would add, and it is about Clip On scopes in general, is that mounting one in front of a day scope makes for a heavy package and a front heavy one at that.

This is my favorite rifle day or night. It is a 6.5 Grendel 12.5" SBR. It has a IR/red laser on the side, a IR/White light on the bottom (that pops off easy if I want a bipod), suppressor and the 1-8x illuminated day scope with Hogster Clip on Thermal.

As it sits pictured in night mode it is 12lbs plus mag and ammo.

I am going to get a Hogster 25mm with a BOBRO mount for a different rifle to swap out with the aimpoint on it and that will be a much better package for walking around and shooting from the shoulder.

 

[Rerun7]

I’ve been thinking hard about selling my Trail and getting the Hogster C for the flexibility of swapping it on rifles and more flexibility between day/night hunts.

OP, what’s your rationale on wanting to get a dedicated scope as well? What do you feel like you are missing out on with the clip on?

 

[Old Man with Gun]

I’ve been thinking hard about selling my Trail and getting the Hogster C for the flexibility of swapping it on rifles and more flexibility between day/night hunts.

OP, what’s your rationale on wanting to get a dedicated scope as well? What do you feel like you are missing out on with the clip on?

No 1 reason >I like having lots of toys.

But my rationale is that with two I can have both a scope and scanner or bring a friend.

The Grendel SBR is heavy for walking through the brush with a clip on. Now, I'm most likely to rely on the IR laser and pvs-14 for shooting and use the Hogster-C as a 1x scanner.

When I get the R25 I'd go to a much lighter 8" 300BO SBR with IR laser for walking brush and still have a 1x scanner.

For fixed position and longer ranges I'd use the Clip on as shown, but can have a wide FOV scanner with the R25.

 

[Rerun7]

Makes sense. I’ve got a scanner too so for me it’s just the weapon mounted flexibility aspect that’s attractive.

 

[Old Man with Gun]

Makes sense. I’ve got a scanner too so for me it’s just the weapon mounted flexibility aspect that’s attractive.

Mine holds zero well, I have it sighted in on 3 different rifles. You just change the G1, G2, G3, G4 to match the rifle in the menu.