Night Vision Thermal Scanner vs Helmet

[Crews]

I'd love to get some advice on expanding my working man's thermal arsenal. I have a 25mm Hogster-R and I'm very happy with the performance. The style of hunting I do is riding around in a UTV and doing a lot of scanning and (with luck) a lot of shooting with the rifle. It's all dynamic, no sitting still and looking at feeders. Sometimes that means getting out and walking out across some fields to get closer, but I have no desire or need to augment current setup with NV.

What I WOULD like is to spend another $3-4k on another thermal that makes my scanning more enjoyable. I have killed a metric ton of hogs with the Hogster-R WMT, and am completely content with the capability the unit offers for the $. IQ, ID distance, etc. But holding the rifle up to scan all night is starting to get tiring. What I'm struggling with is a handheld scanner vs maybe a HMT. I could get a handheld Bering in my price range, I'm comfortable with the company and know exactly what I'm signing up for. On the other hand, it would be nice to go hands free. If I leave $500 for helmet, etc is there a $3-3.5K helmet mountable thermal that wouldn't leave me wishing I'd just bought another Bering and using it handheld?

 

[BamaSE]

I'd love to get some advice on expanding my working man's thermal arsenal. I have a 25mm Hogster-R and I'm very happy with the performance. The style of hunting I do is riding around in a UTV and doing a lot of scanning and (with luck) a lot of shooting with the rifle. It's all dynamic, no sitting still and looking at feeders. Sometimes that means getting out and walking out across some fields to get closer, but I have no desire or need to augment current setup with NV.

What I WOULD like is to spend another $3-4k on another thermal that makes my scanning more enjoyable. I have killed a metric ton of hogs with the Hogster-R WMT, and am completely content with the capability the unit offers for the $. IQ, ID distance, etc. But holding the rifle up to scan all night is starting to get tiring. What I'm struggling with is a handheld scanner vs maybe a HMT. I could get a handheld Bering in my price range, I'm comfortable with the company and know exactly what I'm signing up for. On the other hand, it would be nice to go hands free. If I leave $500 for helmet, etc is there a $3-3.5K helmet mountable thermal that wouldn't leave me wishing I'd just bought another Bering and using it handheld?

I have a couple Iray MH25s. It really works well for hands free driving. Very light on the helmet and easy to use. Detail is really excellent. Just got mine back in December and wished I’d gone this route much earlier. Helmet mounting a thermal just makes driving so much more enjoyable than trying to use a handheld at the same time and I feel less fatigued when the hunt is done.

The rechargeable 16650 battery adaptor no longer comes standard with the kit but UNV sells them separate. I have also been using a lanyard to hang the unit from my neck as a scanner with the 16650 battery. It gets 3+ hours a battery. Prefer an Anker on the helmet as it also serves as a counterweight.

Still use the Pulsar Helion 2 when I know all I am going to be doing is static feeder watching as I like the higher base mag for that. Keep an eye on the EE every now and then a used MH25 pops up in the +/- $4k range. Just be sure it has the K clips for the helmet mount. I have the KVC bridge and RQE offset mount. Bridge has a lot of adjustment, but the offset mount barely works with eyeglasses on a Wilcox. Rhino II with the dovetail conversion gives a little more flexibility.

 

[Crews]

Good feedback on practicality of helmet mounting in general. The MH25 looks awesome and I’d love to step up to 640 core, but $4k maxes out my budget and leaves no $ for a helmet/mount.

what about the ML19? I haven’t seen anyone on here talking about them

 

[stefan73]

I think people have looked solely at the MH25 because of the sensor resolution. Put on a PVS-14 eye piece on the MH25 about $200 (if I remember correctly) and it seems to be a good piece.

I saw the Pulsar Q38 LRF that looked interesting and provides range finding but is handheld.

 

[Crews]

I have learned that there are things that definitely make up for not having a 640 core.

 

[shoots100]

Here's what I came up with, the whole shebang for under $1,800 new.
You could do it for less if you scrounge around, or more if you buy a new rhino NVG dovetail mount.
Tm15, 384 res, 12 um core, nice FOV and pixel display, Records video, hot spot ,WIFI, Netflix and has a 6+ hour battery life per charge without wifi and hot spot use.
You can also pwr it up with an Aux battery.
Nightcap with battery holder for counterweight, Shroud, Rhino 2 mount with Dovetail adapter, Custom AGM mount from a good dude that lives in the northwest and is hopefully covid free, as I didn't sanitize it when it arrived and I've been sleeping with this setup on for the last week !