2019-06-27
2200-2330
70F
15 MPH S
Goal: Test PRG TC50 thermal clipon
Environment: Hot, humid, breeze from the South, clear, stars totally visible.
Equipment: 7.62(20) Bravo, NF 2.5-10x MIL-R, RRS, 18 rds Hornady 155gr, RRS, PRG TC50, low lumen red head light for admin.
Activity: Mounted TC50 on gun and torqued single screw to 20 i/p. Checked for wobble, did not detect any. The clipon looked a bit high. I measured it as 1.5 center and my spuhr mount is known to be 1.3385 (34mm), so offset is 0.1615 which is enough that I was expecting to have to make adjustments. So I read thru the relevant manual section called "Electronic Accuracy Correction".
I had gone thru the menus for rudimentary familiarization while in the house. The menus are "pulsar like" in that each of the two menus (called "Quick" and "Main") are a set of icons which provide access to various setup sub-menus. All user interface with the menus is via a joystick style interface, similar to the Trijicon IR-Patrol and REAP 1&2 units.
There is a manual focus ring, which looks similar to the pulsar APEX manual focus ring.
The unit is smaller than I expected. Here it is shown beside an IR-Patrol.
The only changes I made before going out, were to set the "pallet" on black hot, turn down the brightness a couple of clicks and turn off the auto-nuc and turned up the contrast 1 click. And in the event I did not change any of those while out.
Fired six 2 rd groups at the hand warmers.
The first group was barely on paper (the 4 handwarmers were on a 14 x 14 inch piece of paper, roughly in the center of each of the 4 corners. I had read the manual enough to know that I needed to click "up" on the X coordinate to move POI right. So I guessed each click was about 1/2 moa and tried +4 clicks.
That got the second group roughly centered but way low and off the handwarmer.
From reading the manual I knew I needed to click up on the Y coordinate to move POI up, so I tried 6 clicks.
Third group was high and right but looked more like a group. I had forgotten to crank up the magnification so first 2 groups were on 2.5x. Third group was on 10x.
The manual says day scope minimum magnification should be 3x or below in order to be able to see the menus. So, I would crank down to 2.5x to make adjustments via the menus and up to 10x to shoot.
Somehow the X coordinate had gotten changed to +6 as well as the Y coordinate. I dialed X and Y both back to 5.
Fourth group still high and right. Tried 4 and 4
Fifth group finally had all rounds on the handwarmer (shown) looked centered, but a little low.
Dialed up to x=4 and y=5 for 6th and final group. I forgot to dial to 10x on the first shot, but did dial 10x for the second and third shot.
I was winchester, so then spent the rest of the time doing 360s and looking at objects from 50 to 500yds.
Unfortunately, this phone keeps washing out the center of the image when I'm doing thru lens pics. I don't recall other phones doing that. But I was unable to get any usable thru lens pics of the image at distance. So my descriptions will have to suffice. The TC50 has a video interface and I will try to get my MDVR working with it today.
So, the main "event" was when I tried switching image "sharpness" from "normal" to "sharp". Oh boy, that was a HUGE improvement!!! I think the designers got the idea that people don't like "pixellation", so they wrote some software to try to "smooth" out the pixels instead of letting the user see the pixellation. Unfortunately that has the effect (at least in this implementation) of making the image overly fuzzy on 10x at 500yds. But "sharp" fixed it. Yes, now I could see the pixels but the image was looking way better, not a Trijicon Mk3 60mm or a BAE UTC-x like image, but more than halfway towards those guys from where it was on "normal". I could now see the bags of minerals hanging down from under the roof of the mineral feeder at 415yds. I could aim at the end of one of those bags (about a 6 inch wide target of no specific thickness since it is the top of a bag). This is the sort of aiming I could not do on "normal" since all I could see was a fuzzy mineral feeder.
I was able to see strands of barbed wire at 200yds ... branches at 300yds, etc. And the overall effect of the image was in the ball park of Apex like, on 10x ... and a bit better on 2.5x.
Summary/Results:
So, far, the device seems usable. The key capabilities I am trying to validate are "does the unit shoot straight?" and "can I detect and PID out several hundred yards?" Say at least 500yds, to make it 100% hunting usable.
These two come together in the tests I will do to try to hit IPSC(2/3) heated steel at 500yds and 640yds off the tripod. I can do this with the UTCx. The sub-tests include the ability to hit the torso period (6x6 on top, 12x18 on bottom) as well as the 6x6 inch "face" separately. There may not be enough resolution to hit the 6x6 face at 640, but I am still hopeful I can hit face and whole target at 500yds and at least whole target at 640yds. I should get to that test in a day or so.
Nucing was fine. I hope to be able to do this without having to dial magnification down and back, but not there yet. I nuced at least every 5m.
I checked the device after each group to see if it was loose and it was not. It remained tight in the mount and on the rail.
Issues:
01 - Flicker/Heat Map changes:
While I was shooting, I noticed what my brain called a "flicker" of the thermal image. I tapped on the unit, but could not induce the flicker. It looked sort of like a short. Once I started panning, I realized this was not a "flicker" but some sort of heat map change. The effect was, when looking in one direction, I would see grey objects on a white background. When panning to the left or right, the "coloration" would change more to black objects on a grey background. Continuing to pan would result in a continuous shifting of the background and foreground colors within the black grey range for hot and within the white grey range for cool. This was very unusual in my experience and also very distracting. The only thing remotely similar to this I've seen is the PAS-29 COTI "auto-brightness" which was very distracting at first, but then I learned to expect it when looking into "darker" areas. Also, on the COTI, you can turn off the auto-brightness or change its sensitivity.
I don't see a way to turn off this "heat map change" I am seeing. Maybe the designers thought this capability was a plus, but I'm not seeing this as a plus at this point.
02 - Focus knob.
The focus knob is functional and moves smoothly. However, the effect of turning the focus knob on the image is not smooth. You turn it a bit and nothing happens, you turn it a bit more and boom the image focus changes. It feels sort of like there is some "slack" in the knob. I might describe it as "mushy". Hopefully, this can be improved.
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I will continue to shoot each night either groups at 100yds or heated steel at 500/640yds to ensure the unit can maintain zero and hit targets at distance.
I will also continue to pan around and see how the unit does in various conditions. I will take the unit up onto signal hill where I should be able to observe deer and cattle from 500-5000yds and see how it does with that sort of challenge. The UTCx and Mk3 60mm have no issues seeing cattle at those distances on most nights. Yes, at 5,000yds a cow is a dot, or a clump of cows is a blob, but you can detect them and based on location and distribution know what they are.
The "sharp" setting was a game changer in terms of improving unit clarity. I now believe we have a chance to hit steel at 500yds and detect cattle out to maybe a mile. That's what some of my other 320 units have been able to do.
More to come.
