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Last Weekend's Hunts, FLIR PTS736 Thermal! #7158231 05/03/18 12:23 AM
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I got together with some buddies to do some hog and predator hunting. We had a good time and after parting ways, I even managed a couple of hogs on my own...





Hogdalorian - Si vis pacem cum sus, para bellum.
My Videos https://www.youtube.com/user/HornHillRange
Re: Last Weekend's Hunts, FLIR PTS736 Thermal! [Re: Double Naught Spy] #7158295 05/03/18 01:27 AM
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Great vidieos that pig in the first one had a ton of fat.

Re: Last Weekend's Hunts, FLIR PTS736 Thermal! [Re: Double Naught Spy] #7158303 05/03/18 01:36 AM
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Good stuff... Thoughts on the FLIR?

Re: Last Weekend's Hunts, FLIR PTS736 Thermal! [Re: Double Naught Spy] #7158321 05/03/18 01:45 AM
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You gotta love it when they choose wrong and run towards you (at a safe distance).

Like you need any help rifle


This space is For Sale - inquire within ...
Re: Last Weekend's Hunts, FLIR PTS736 Thermal! [Re: dfwroadkill] #7158402 05/03/18 02:42 AM
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Originally Posted By: dfwroadkill
Good stuff... Thoughts on the FLIR?


I am going to answer your question, but what I am going to explain is in more detail that you would need, but not everybody else will follow, so I am going to over explain some things. Bare with me.

It is a significantly updated Armasight Zeus, which is the base of the unit in terms of physical structure, operation, and firmware. If you are familiar with running a Zeus, then the few changes to the firmware are no problem to incorporate.

The significant change is the move to the Boson 320 resolution 12 micron core (versus the older Tau2 cores that were 17 micron in 640 and 320 resolution). Now 320 resolution isn't all that spectacular, even at 12 microns. To offest this aspect, FLIR has gone with a high native magnification, 6x. As you may recall, the old Armasight Zeus 70mm 3x 640 resolution scopes would jump to 6x magnification while shrinking to 320 resolution when you made the first zoom. So the new FLIR PTS736 is like starting off at that first level of zoom, only with a larger 75mm lens and 12 micron core. What the PTS736 is losing compared to the Zeus 3x 640 is the much wider FOV and higher resolution but less magnification native magnification level of 3x. In short, it is much harder to scan inside of 100 yards with a narrow FOV 6x scope than a wide FOV 3x scope.

Now, for folks like me that like to hunt from 80 yards and out, when I had my Zeus, I spent a lot of time running it at 6x, particularly when shooting and even when shooting shorter distances so as to try to place shots as precisely as was reasonably possible.

Reticles are pretty much the same pattern, but are much more vibrant and have some checkered variation for each as well. In the old Zeus, the reticles often looked washed out or hard to see and it made them more difficult to use well. That isn't the case with the PTS line. The problem with the reticles that I noticed is that the colors do not transfer to the recording. So I used a dot cross pattern in red and while it all looked red in the scope, the dot was red in the video, but the cross was black and disappeared from view when passing over black imagery in the video.

I like the choices of reticles much better than the oddball variety offered by Trijicon, but FLIR's still pale in comparison to what Pulsar has to offer.

FLIR has upgraded the image controls and I think maybe made things more complicated than they need to be. At least this time (as opposed to Armasight), they have provided some suggested settings and actual explanations for what the image controls do.

FLIR has continued with the overly bizarre color palettes that were offered by Amazon. I know people often like to show the wild colors in the videos, but people virtually never use them for hunting purposes and I think most are just a waste of firmware space. The colors are cool, but most really are not functional.

The one feature I do NOT like about this scope is the massive beagle ear-like lens cap. The lens is the single most high dollar aspect of the scope and should be appropriately protected. To start, the lens cap does not fit tightly on the scope. If you put the cap on your scope while in the field, it is easily knocked off the scope. It is attached to the scope by a long band such that when not on the scope, flops flops way over to the side. I have no doubt that these will get torn off in the field. You can't really take it off and pocket the cap because repeated stretching of the retaining ring will break it. The real problem here is that I do not think there is a commercial cap that will fit on the large bell of the objective lens. Pulsar makes their own caps that are durable and robustly attached to their scopes and Trijicon's scopes can be retrofitted with commercial caps...and in fact they were/are using Bulter Creek brand caps on their scopes, so replacement wasn't a problem. It will be hard to find a non-proprietary cap replacement for the PTS736, I believe.

What I really DO like about the scope is that it has a good image for the level of magnification and this scope will probably make a lot of longer range shooters happy. You can focus the image fairly precisely, which is nice. The downside to this is that the focus is for a very narrow range. It is a fine line between being in focus and out of focus for an object at any given distance and if the object changes distance by a few yards, it will be out of focus.

My scope has crashed on me twice when the scope NUC'd (recalibrated the core sensor pixels, AKA non-uniformity correction) while I was recording. I had to turn off the scope and turn it back on again to be function. In the process, I lost the video that I had been recording. I could be wrong, but as near as I can tell from the manual and playing with the scope, there is no way to turn off the auto-NUC feature. It is going to NUC when it determines it needs to NUC. You do have the option of stopping a given NUC during the warning countdown. This is unlike the old Zeus scopes that gave you the option of running the scope with auto-nuc, semi-auto (where the using initiates it) or full manual NUC (where the using covers the lens and initiates the NUC). I liked running my scope in semi-auto so that I was not interrupted during critical persons by a warning that the scope was about to NUC and then have the scope NUC. With that said, the PTS736's NUC time is very fast and isn't much more than a flicker, but if you are trying to shoot a moving target at the time, a flicker can ruin your shot. With the old Zeus scope, the NUC was a bit more than a second (IIRC) and could really mess with your ability to shoot during critical times. So the NUC is automatic, but much less offensive. You just can't turn it off. You can only delay it for a bit.

Being able to record onboard is nice. It is a real shame that the scope does not have audio. So if you want audio, you either have to have a separate recording device (which complicates the video making process previously simplified by having easy, onboard recording) and dub in the audio later or dub in made up sounds later. For example, Pig_Popper used to use sci-fi laser gun sounds back in the old days when we were using external Angel Eye recorders that had no audio ability.

Pushing the buttons can be difficult with gloves on in that it can be hard to depress the buttons properly.

For those who like to hunt at longer distances, I think this is a fine scope. It isn't perfect, but the firmware can be upgraded from FLIR, which is nice for when they have updates. To be honest, none of the scopes are perfect. They all have some really nice features and they all have some bone-headed features. That just seems to be the nature of the business. What it really comes down to is whether or not the users find the bone-headed aspects a real detriment to their needs or not.

Last edited by Double Naught Spy; 05/03/18 03:58 AM.

Hogdalorian - Si vis pacem cum sus, para bellum.
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Re: Last Weekend's Hunts, FLIR PTS736 Thermal! [Re: Double Naught Spy] #7158443 05/03/18 03:35 AM
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Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. It sounds like a glorified Armasight. Image looked good in the video. I never have been a fan of the Armasight controls. Like you, I prefer semi-auto NUCing on those scopes. However, I have big fingers and pushing the front and back buttons simultaneously has always been problematic. You're right, the perfect scope has not been produced. They dance around it, but find a way not to get there.

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