Atn

I use night vision for hogs. I don't have Atn night vision but I was reading a post where people thought Atn was no good. I have looked at some atn before and was thinking on buying. I want everyone's input on Atn.

Save more money and go thermal, you'll be glad you did. Much lighter and more compact, and you won't miss spotting any animals. The ATN is the opposit of this description. And the company uses its customers to do their R&D in the field, instead of doing their own before their customer buys the product.

What do you use now?

I have the ATN and Sightmark Photon. Photon beats the ATN for night hunting hands down.

I had an ATN wasn't a fan of it

I'm having a little buyers remorse. Probably save a little and get one of these. Looks pretty effective for the budget minded person.

JTprocaddie is the reason I would never own an ATN even if they tried to give me their product for free. He represents that company and that’s not a good thing.

I have the original ATN X-sight 5x, my son has the original X-Sight 3X, and my nephew has the X-Sight II 3x. My other son has the Photon XT and a Sig Echo 1 Thermal.

I joined this forum after getting my X-Sights when they first came out because there was a lot of threads in the Optics section about them.

Now a lot of people around here seemed to have had problems with their ATN X-Sights, and reports of poor customer service are frequent.

However our three X-Sights are running fine and killing hogs every time we come down to TX. I will say my sons Photon XT seems to have a little better night vision performance, it has far fewer "Features", the biggest being that it can't record without an external DVR, but that makes it much easier to operate, it also is black and white only and does not work as well as a daylight scope compared to the X-Sights. When my 84 year old dad comes out hunting with us at night we give him the Photon to use.

Now if someone jumps in here and says that ATN is the greatest thing since sliced bread. Take a look at their user profile, it will probably be a new account. ATN seems famous for creating shill accounts instead of customer service.

Guess I need to look him up. No idea who JT is. Anyhow the night vision AI use is not worth the time to mention really. But it works. It is what we call do it yourself night vision. And I have a Bushnell equinoxes z that I mount with an Infrared laser

spotting them is not an issue. I use seek thermal to spot them. Works fine and don't cost 2 arms and a leg. Kind of like my night vision works too. But none of it compares to some of these scopes. Really just curious why people don't like Atn. Still pricey for me lol

You should take a good look at the Photon. Video posted above. It's what I would buy if I had a tighter budget than thermal would allow.

thanks

My buddy I hunt with sometimes on Ft Hood has a Photon and he can never see the hogs or coyotes I see with thermal. IMO night vision is really only useful if hunting a feeder or bait sight.

I understand thermal is better. The photon seems good for price. I have killed many hogs with green light. And killed hogs with cheap version of night vision most have never seen or heard of. I like my seek thermal to find them and then use my ir to kill. Thermal weapon sights are insane expensive though. Just looking for a decent option.

The big problem with the digital night vision like the Photon or ATN X-Sight is that you need an IR light source. That IR Light source is like walking around with a bright spotlight on all the time to the digital night vision device. So if you have any brush, grass, trees, ect between you and the hogs all you see is light reflected back off the brushy stuff and not the hog. Thermal is much better if you are walking around in the thick stuff.

So digital night vision works best where you have a wide open field of view, like at a feeder or over looking a freshly cut farm field. Actually you have to pick your stand location pretty carefully. I set up one night at my cousins in one of their deer blinds. I thought it was a good location when I looked during the day. But at night with the digital night vision what I thought was open under some trees I was getting so much light back from the tree trunks I could only see about 15 yards in front of me. Had only one shooting lane I could see any distance.

Buddy brought his new ATN this past weekend and there was no way to scan with it at our place. Grass and brush too thick so that is all you see. Thermal is only way to go unless you are sitting in a blind or elevated point or open field.

My budget doesn't allow thermal weapon systems.
So, I use what I can afford and still manage to average 70+ pigs a year over last 10 years.

I have or have used Pulsar N750, Photon 5X, 3 different early X-Sights and a Pulsar N750A.
I still have Photon 5X and Pulsar N750A.
The Pulsar N750 died and was replaced with the N750A by factory.
The 3 X-Sights were the original I bought, a replacement from vendor, and a replacement from ATN factory.
All the X-Sights went back which was a fiasco from start to end and took months to get final refund.

I have a Gen2 and 2 Pulsar Recon digital hand scanners with IR illuminators if needed.
The Gen2 "sees" in much darker conditions without IR but I sometimes use the IR aimed tree high to pick up eye reflection.
If there is a little ambient light, you can usually see decent without the IR illuminator.
If the moon is out, you can see quite well without the IR illuminator.
You can use the IR to see in the shadows under trees, down shooting lanes and such in moonlight.

I generally hunt by myself, use the Gen2 to scan and N750A to shoot.
I primarily hunt from tall, insulated stands with a comfortable office chair now.
I don't stalk much anymore but do use Mule sometimes to "road hunt" on my property.

I have the 3-14 X-Sight II and plan on upgrading to thermal. I got a good deal on it and don't have high expectations. It has been buggy but gets the job done as long as I don't mess with it too much. Most shots are 50-75 yards, longest was 150 yards and the picture was rough. No way I trust it past 200 yards, even with a solid IR. I have been fortunate to not have any show-stopping issues but definitely believe the horror stories and know I have been lucky. You get what you pay for and I am looking forward to paying more.

My .02

I have 3 thermals and 1 Photon. This may sound crazy but 75% of the time i just grab the Photon if im going to go hunt from a blind. To be fair, one of my thermals is a monocular and i bring that everytine to scan around the area...but choose the photon to do the killing from a blind. Walk and stalk i only use thermal.
The photon is just so damn easy to use. Power it on and bang! For about $500 you cant go wrong with it ease of use and reliability. They are for sale here now and then so be ready to pounce if u see one as it wont last.

Good luck!

I have a 5X18, gen 1
It does what I need since I hunt mostly from a blind with a nice wide shooting lane to my feeder
It's not the best thing since sliced bread, but it's far from junk either, AND does not have the price tag of thermal
I am happy with it, only thing I wish is I had the 3X12 instead, 5X18 is just too much scope for the area I hunt

I was one of the original owners of an ATN X Sight when they first came out, and I suffered along with everyone else as we did Beta testing for the company. Their product support and customer relations were just horrible, and I'm not sure I'd ever buy another newly introduced ATN product again. Having said all that, and meant it, I wound up with a pretty nifty daytime scope that allows me to take pictures and videos of the stuff I see while wandering around or sitting in a blind. Plus, within limitations mentioned by many others, it makes for an acceptable night-time scope when backed up by a good IR. With the latest firmware installed and running on it, it has served me well.