I'm lookin at the smaller on the 3-12 I believe. I haven't found any real first hand reviews on it and don't want to spend the cash if it's not worth it. It has a lot of cool features that make it worth the money if it works as good as they say. It's going on a 300 blkout ar platform.i already use a elusive wildlife green LED light that works good out to 100yrds with a good clear scope. So my question is take the $500-600 and buy a nice clear scope and continue using my light or get away from carrying around a big LED light. Thanks in advance for the input

Unless hunting on a full moon type night, you will need to upgrade the IR light in order to see past 100 with it. Still waiting to see vide from the new ATN line of x-sight and thor HD. Not much out there yet.

I like the price point of the atn but still too much just to see if it's worth the money. On the IR upgrade would I have to worry bout animals getting spooked if it was too much? I'm new to the NV so I'm trying to figure out what route I need to take

no, animals will not get spooked by the IR until they get used to you hunting with it, if you ever run across the same animals twice to three times. Never been an issue for me. There is a very low red glow, similar to game cameras, they don't really react much at all to IR illuminators.

Check the threads here about some of the other options in NV as well. I think the photon can be had for cheap, doesn't give you the day scope function the x-sight does, but people seem to like the NV function quite well.

There will be some IR glow whether you use the onboard illuminator or a better external version. I find that coyotes seem to respond to the IR glow much more frequently and are more apt to run away at seeing it than are hogs, be it from ground level or from the air (elevated stand). Hogs don't like to see a glowing light at ground level, PARTICULARLY if they have been hunted with IR light before. From elevated positions, I think they see it as a light in the sky and it does not bother them so much.

"Spooking" is an interesting thing. They won't spook at all if they don't actually look and see the light source, unlike using visible light where they will spook by seeing their surroundings lit up.

If you are out at 100 yards, chances are the IR light isn't going to bother the hogs at all. Still, coyotes don't seem to like it at any distance.

Haven't seen anything that I recall of the X-sight II in night mode while hunting. In daylight and zoomed, the image becomes quite jittery. It is still a huntable image, but jittery none-the-less.

That's some very good insight.
My 2 options are go with the vortex strike eagle 1-6x24 and my elusive wildlife green light for another year or so then buy a $1000-1500 NV clip on. Or option 2 is to go out on a limb and buy the atn x sight II and hopefully be happy with it day and night. Both are going to cost me close to the same maybe $100 more for the atn sight. It'll be a truck gun when I go check cameras and fill feeders and my go to hog gun at night. No shots will be taken over 150 yards due to the thick brush we have.

FYI: I have a gen 1 xsight and it works fine.
1) on a AR15 it adds a lot of weight->2.25 pounds
2) use a external power pak- if you plan to use the wifi/camera/video function it will add more weight approx. 1 pound

as said before you may update the IR illuminator(longer shots) mount it as far forward on the gun as possible. there is a mount on the side of the scope for the ir - but seems to cause less interference when mounted forward of the scope

I have a pig area in a swamp that I set up a set of ir floods that auto turn on at dusk and don't have to use the IR illuminator. the lights I installed cover a area about 100 square yards

I do like that idea of flooding the area with light every night. I've got a handful of spots that would work great. With that said we have bout 60 acres of wheat where we see a lot of pigs. I'm just nervous bout spending all my scope money on this atn and it not working out. I know it's not $1000s but it's all I got for this build. That's why I'm torn.

I've got a 5-20 on order. I'll post video asap. There are plenty of videos of the II on facebook.

A forum member builds these scopes. Resolute precision Night Vision The workmanship is top notch and it is all inclusive with one of the best IR's I have ever used. His website says $520 for a complete setup.

I have an original X-Sight 5-18 and as Hetman said, it is heavy, my 308-AR with a 10 round clip weighs 14pds. That includes (2) illuminators, and (2) small rail mounted nicads.

The onboard video recording is probably the key selling point and it being day and night. It's alot to learn to manage as I missed my best buck of the season when my batteries died literally while starting to pull the trigger (before I had ni-cad #2) after leaving the wi-fi on by accident.

Read this thread on the issue of gun mounted illuminators vs field illumination. thread link

I guess I'd buy it again is the short story.

Charlie

I started night hunting with lights a long time ago and moved to NV about 3 years ago.

Either way you go, get a Gen1 or similar hand held NV unit to scan the area.
Waving the rifle around to look gets old real fast and you tend to bump into stuff and make noise.
I have an old PVS unit with external illuminator that does a good job spotting.

Using night vision will show you lots of things you miss or scare off with a scope/light setup.
You can actually observe wildlife with NV whereas you have to get on target and take the shot with a scope/light or risk spooking them.
And with pigs, it usually only takes one bad experience with lights to send them running!

I gave up on the XSight 1 after quite a few months.

As for a Photon, I've had one as a backup for a while on my loaner 6.8 and it's killed lots and lots of pigs in mine, my friends and family members hands.
It sees quite well during the day and records in color although the image in scope is greyscale.
I even sight it in during the day and have killed pigs with it 4 in the afternoon.

To make it easy to sight in at 100 yards, print some 4" black dots on white paper.
Black shows up better than any other color in most NV and the white paper makes a nice contrast.

Here are some good videos I made for the X-Sight II. I Love my 5x20!

That is some amazingly jittery video, especially the last one.

why didn't you use the range finder for the distance?

Thanks for all the input guys I decided to go with a strike eagle and save up after this deer season and buy a clip on thermal or night vision clip on. I will keep up with the x series in the next year and see what they come up with cause the price point has me very interested

Good decision.
I was banned from the ATN owners forum for letting the newest Gen2 X sight beta testers know about the issues they've been having with the Gen 2 scopes firmware and operation.
While all the Gen 2 scopes don't have issues, a lot do.
You figure ATN would've learned from their Gen 1 X sight experience, but I guess if the money is rolling in from uninformed consumers, they'll keep putting out half assed products.
The strike eagle is a good choice for an interim scope.

FYI, I would stay away from clip-ons.

X2

Any digital or intensifier tube IR night vision system will improve with added external IR. They are not expensive and the key is the Oslon sfh4715as 850nm emitter, ask what's in it. These are the most powerful IRs emitters I know of and with IRs it is all about the LED emitter. We like the UniqueFire illuminators host body with these emitters. If you are sensitive to the glow go for the Oslon 940nm IR emitters if your system can see 940 wave length, hardly any glow at all, just a little less range. We like the Unique fire UF-T20s host because they are good quality and focusable. UniqueFire also have a 1508 focusable model that comes in 38mm to 75mm. Being able to focus your IR is important because all shots in the dark are not 100+ yards, some are hogs 30 yards away and you don't want to wash them out with too much light. We tested the 1508s and like the 38mm and 50mm but do not care for the larger ones, they do not seem to focus tight enough for long ranges but really light it up out to 80-100 yards. As for clip-ons, we make Digital Crosshairs 1000 and it is just $600, small company but lots of hog and coyote hunters like us, check the reviews on our website. PM me if you want more info.