Well its definitely a step down from the Skeet, Patrol and Nox-18 ... BUT ... its still WAAAAY better than no thermal at all. And with a street price of $2k its competitive to the chinese stuff.
It has azimuth (which I like) and if you can find one of the 5 button Armasight critters (I have one) then many functions can be run from your wrist.
Has USB connection to download images to PC.
And can run off USB battery, though I've switched to 16650s.
Has digital zoom (I rarely use)
Lots of pallets (I rarely use)
Lots of image settings - As to the settings, I tried several different sorts of settings suggested by people who use breaches a lot more than I have, but finally settled on using one of the factory presets "Sea/Sky" which for whatever reason, I find works really well out here, especially in the woods, where I consider thermal to be critical. But the breach has LOTs of adjustments, for those who like to fiddle
Onboard video and images
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I made up a couple of custom focusing tools for the breaches (I have two now) and they actually help. There's not as much effective adjustment range as I was hoping for, but the tool pushes the "sweet spot" out from 50-100yds on out to 100-150yds and that's a good thing. It also improves things farther out, though the blurriness begins around 200-ish ... whereas it used to begin around 100-ish.
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Detection on typical night is 600yds for a cow and about 175yds for a coon. That was for a (newly) dead coon a live moving one, you could probably detect out a little further.
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The 16650 battery cap extension gives you MANY hours of use and it a key improvement over the 1xc123.
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I've successfully used it as a clipon, as the unit has Top/Left margin adjustments left over from its Armasight software heritage. I'd say that is an "emergency use" only sort of feature. You can mount it on a mum mount or on a skeet mount and I've done both. I've shot it with a .22LR and a 5.56(14.5) but I haven't tried it on a 7.62.
You need a 1x capable optic to run the breach as a clipon so you can see the menu while collimating.
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I've switched over to the Mod Armory dove tail mounts. You can mount them on 3 sides. One of those sides is optimal for helmet mounting another for clipon use, so there isn't one dove tail position that's optimal for both head mount and clipon mount. The clipon mount position will work on the head, but its not optimal. The optimal head mount dove tail position is very non-optimal for clipon use.
I also have mod armory dedicated mounts for rhino and ic bridge, but again, I'm usually using the dove tail mounts these days.
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These pics are from 2020 two pairs of images. Comparing the Genesis A55 to the breach, first some cattle at about 50yds
And them cattle at 600-800yds
Note, in the A55 image, you can clearly see the cow at 600yds, the big one in the center of the image, and also see other cows farther away. The close cow is 600yds, the others are out to 800yds the top of the far ridge is 880yds.
The breach can clearly detect the closest cow, the hot orange spot, but not the others farther out, so that's a detection edge at least for this night, but I've found that edge to be "normal" so rate the breach at 600yds detection on cattle.
I don't use the "artic" pallet these days, I use black hot (and switch occasionally to white hot). After focusing the units, the image cleared up and the article seemed too "strange" to me, though YMMV.
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I consider the breaches to be "B" grade units in my inventory, meaning I could give them out to team members who forgot to bring their skeets or Noxes. But, I do practice with them often, so I know the edges of what they can do and not do ... and they are quite useful.
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So I don't think its a patrol, nox or skeet killer
but for $2k its a great unit and I'm glad I have 2 of them, and I plan to keep them !
If you are in big open fields, I'd say get a Nox-18. But if your around woods like I am, with some smaller (40 acre or less) pastures, then they work fine.
