I am looking to buy a night vision scope for my 300BLK AR15. I was looking at either the ATN Thor LT thermal or the ATN X-Sight 4K infrared. I plan on using this for hog and coyote hunting mostly around 100 yards, but no more than 200. I am trying to decide if I should go with the higher end infrared (X-Sight 4K) or the lower end thermal (ATN Thor LT). I think I would prefer to have a thermal, but I do not want to buy the cheaper Thor LT and be disappointed with its performance. Is the price increase worth it for the thermal? I know there are a lot of different factors that go in to it, but what are the typical ranges you can get from these scopes to make an accurate shot? Does anyone have any advice or recommendations on this?

Also, if I were to go with the Thor LT I cannot decide if I should get the 120 sensor or the 320. The 320 is a little over my budget, but would probably be willing to spend it if it makes that big of a difference. I think since I will be using it at a relatively low range I may not need the 320. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Recently we had a thread on here where a guys buddy bought the lower end ATN and returned it because everything looked out of focus

https://texashuntingforum.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/8435306/atn#Post8435306

I say pass

I have the x sight 4k pro 3x14 night/day and it took some time to get used to the menu
And to get it set up. Update the firmware.
Some folks don't like ATN thermal because of a bad experience. I prefer IR.

The IR works great but I would purchase a more powerful IR (for 200+yds) than the one that comes
with the scope new. It will work fine in the 100 yard range but bring spare batteries for the illuminator.

Many folks here don't like ATN because ATN did them wrong with the original X-Sights, LOL. Many others have just had plain old bad customer service as reported over and over again on this forum.

I get it...I have had bad experiences with a product or service.

BUT...my experience with the ATN x sight 4k started off like this. Purchased optic 2019. Optic locked up useless.

Vendor shipped new optic due to being inside warranty window. Called ATN...was given instructions on how to update firmware if this happens again. Every time I call them with a question they are very helpful. This included instructions on how to recalibrate my compass. My scope worked flawlessly on a recent hunt. Especially in low light daytime situations where temps were in the 20's.

If you go with the ATN, go with the 320 sensor. I'm the guy who's buddy bought the LT at a gun show and he has been unhappy with it since the git-go. Not so much the customer service, that he says has been helpful, but because the scope just doesn't function correctly, even with the all the help. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. I'd save up my shekels and buy another brand recommended by some of the serious night hunters on this Forum.

It is nice that you have had a good experience. That isn't the case for a lot of people.

Like many budget products sourced from China, quality is hit or miss. If you get a good one, it a great deal. If not, then that can be remedied by good customer service. ATN was/is not known for great customer service. I have dealt with them a few times on warranty replacements and the attitude can be hit or miss depending on who you talk to.

But I do like the features of my 3-14 XSight 4K. Definitely need a bigger and better illuminator for reaching out there beyond 100 yards. But the small one included with unit is great for back yard pest control mounted on my pellet rifle which was my original application for it.

Buddy bot the 5-20X after seeing mine and his has been flawless. Ballistic calculator has been spot on for him. Have seen him drop hogs at 375 plus yards by feeding the yardage to the BC with a rifle zeroed at 100.

But when it came time to do thermal, I went with a higher end unit than ATN offers.

YMMV.

Dragging up another couple month old thread, but I have the original X-Sight, My son has the Sig Echo 1 thermal which is a 1x 160 ish resolution, my nephew has the X-Sight II, A buddy of mine bought the X-Sight 4K, my other son has the Wraith and this year for our annual hog hunt my older son and I each bought a ATN Thor LT 320 3x thermal scope.

So in my experience I have to say it really depends on where you are going to hunt with it, how you hunt, how much you are going to use it, and what your budget is.

The ATN 4K or the Wraith are great ways to get started in night hunting. But the one big problem with digital night vision and an IR light source is that anything between you and the target will reflect back the IR light and overwhelm the sight. Get a few branches or some tall grass between you and your target and you just get a glaring image of the branches or grass and can't see the hogs. With a thermal sight the grass or branches will block your view, but you will still see the hogs through the open parts just like your eyes can see them in the daylight, actually better, there is no hiding from the thermal.

IF you just hunt from a stand with clear shooting lanes or in cut fields the digital night vision works just fine. If you hunt in anything thicker it doesn't work very well.

The Sig Echo 1 works just fine on hogs our to 150 yards or so. Detects them easily to 300 or 400 yards. We had problems with the gun it was mounted on so we took it off and one of the guys using the X-Sights would use it as a hand held thermal scanner.

The ATN LT 320 has so much nicer resolution than the Sig Echo 1. Extra resolution is just so much nicer to have, spend the money for higher resolution if you can afford it. You may not need it now, but at some point you will be very glad

One other thing about the thermal scopes, their zoom is digital, when you zoom in you lose resolution. So if you take a 320 scope that is 1X and zoom it to 2X you now have 160 resolution. Or in other words, if you buy a $3,999 ATN 640 1.5x-15x scope and hit the zoom button once to 3X you now have the same view and resolution as the 320 3x-6x LT model that only costs $1,699. Now that 1.5x wider field of view is really nice when you got a mess of pigs running around close. And the Thor 4 has a lot more features than the LT line. But when I was spending my money I thought the 320 3X-6X was a good compromise of field of view, resolution and price.

And I know a lot of people like to complain about ATN, and I'm not saying they are lying, All I can say is that I started hunting hogs 7 years ago when the first ATN X-sight came out, I bought the 5X and my son bought the 3x, they are both still working just fine. A year or two later my Nephew bought the X-Sight II, A couple years after that a buddy of mine bought the X-Sight 4K. This year my older son and I each bought the Thor LT 320 thermals. That is six ATN scopes over the last 7 years and all of them were out killing hogs a couple weeks ago when I was back down in TX. I can't comment on ATN's customer service because none of us have ever needed it.

I have an Thor LT that I purchased a couple of years ago. I put it on my 300 blackout. So far no issues. No problem within 150 yards.

Grapevine academy put this on clearance the other day if someone was interested

I'm going to copy my post from another site I belong to about the Thor lt. Wrote a week or 2 ago.

"I was hunting with my 2 cousins last night. cousin A had had a thor-HD that he recently gave me (woot!!!) and upgraded to a thor LT.
cousin B had a pulsar trail something or other (about 3 years old) and an armasight zeus something that is (maybe 4 years old). these are all 1x (ish) thermals.

The thor HD was definitely a step below the other 3 scopes. Had kind of a fish eye effect and was harder to get focused. But again, free thermal!! the armasight guzzles battery like nothing else and wasn't a whole lot better than the HD. The pulsar was probably the best of the bunch, followed by the thor LT, then the armasight and then the HD.

it usually went like this: thor HD - "guys, there is something white over in the trees. about 75 yds out. maybe small?"
armasight - "hold on, I'm looking for new batteries again"
Pulsar - definitely small. rabbit, skunk or possum"
Thor LT - (who lives on the property) "that's a rabbit.


Ranch hand with a pulsar thermion xm50 - I shot 2 coyotes at 200 yds last night with the 308. I can easily tell between coyotes, hogs and calves in the pasture at 200yds. but for close work, under 40 yds, the 5x minimum power is too much.


so, yes, the thor LT was quite nice for $1k. but the $3k-4k scope are significantly better.

Also, the only night vision I have used was not great night vision, but it was ok on bright nights, and the dinky integrated light made it nearly useless on dark nights. On a dark night you could only see what the flashlight could illuminate. And detection is SO much better with a thermal.
Personally, I would much rather have cheap thermal than nice night vision.