I've read a lot about this night vision scope, sounds too good to be true but the NRA American Rifleman "Optic of the Year". anyone have one of these, pros, cons, mounting etc. for about $800 sounds like a great deal. any input appreciated.

Yeah, they are really cool. Check out all the vids for them on Youtube...
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wraith+4k+mini

I bought one and also bought the monocular. Took me a bit to figure everything out, but it works great and I like it. Pretty easy to set up and use, though I was forced to read the instructions and get a little help from the forum. You might as well get the monocular so you don’t have to wave the rifle around in the dark.

Absolutely, positively very good advice.

Ive seen pics of some setups, what does the monocular do? Ive noticed the available mounts have the mount for a monocular. Just a magnifier?

It’s a hand held IR device for night vision. Use it to view your night hunting area. The IR light is built in. Small and light. The batteries, if you keep it on while hunting, don’t last forever, so I bought a rechargeable battery pack.

If you don’t get the monocular, you’ll have to use the rifle IR to look for the varmints. That gets old quick.

The Wraith Mini 4X comes with a quick detach mount for the rifle. I suppose you could just detach the scope, view the surrounding area, find the critter, reattach the scope and shoot the critter. Probably that isn’t a great plan in the dark, so that’s why I got the Monocular.

The monocular is handy as heck. You can scan all around you in just a few seconds, and safely, to detect your quarry. Using the NV on a rifle is cumbersome, tiresome, and not a very safe thing to do.

If you can, get a thermal monocular. If it's halfway decent, NOTHING can hide from it. Conventional NV and DNV works, but it just can't reveal hiding warm blooded critters like thermal can. But anyway you go, a monocular is just about a MUST have.

What he said x2.

x3, if you can swing the cost, get a thermal monocular, one of the best hunting investments I've made. Coupled with the Wraith Mini you get the best of both worlds, the increased image resolution and daytime capability of the Wraith and the ability to spot game quickly with the thermal. I take my thermal monocular (AGM Tm19-384) with me on every hunt, day or night. Allows you to locate game in cover and can aid locating a downed animal. If you want a lot less expensive thermal monocular, I would consider InfiRay Xinfrared T2 Pro Thermal Monocular ($419 on Amazon), I was surprised how well it works. Check out the videos I posted in the link below.

https://texashuntingforum.com/forum...for-less-than-500-that-works#Post8787417

Another thing you may want to consider is an upgraded IR illuminator. The one that come with the Wraith is pretty good but a more powerful IR will improve your image quality and range.

All it takes is money, LOL

Some good points above. What I didn’t know was that I could get a thermal monocular for less than the cost for the Wraith monocular. Might have gone that way had I known.

The IR illuminator for the Wraith Mini 4K is good for 200 yards at least. Maybe 300, but I’ve only used it for the 150 yards to a feeder. The illuminator mount will need to be adjusted for direction and then focused. Until a forum member explained that, I wasn’t getting great results. All is good now. For my purposes, so far at least, I don’t feel the need for a more powerful IR illuminator.

One thing I like about the Wraith Mini 4K is that it’s good for daylight and dark. No scope swapping needed.

And here I sit in my recliner while a big hog is out by that feeder, right now. Dang…

I have a Springfield Armory M1A that I have a Bassett Machine mount on, recently took scope off. Do yall think the Wraith would work on this weapon. Recoil is very little for a .308 due to Garand action of course. I think taking hogs with a 20 round magazine would work, dont yall? any honest opinions welcome, scarcasm is inevitable.

My Springfield M1A also has a Bassett mount. I've used it with the earlier model Sightmark (Photon XT & RT) scopes without issue. I've also used it with a thermal scope that is rated for .308, again without issue. I limit my bullet weight to 165, just to be on the safe side recoil-wise. The Wraith is an upgrade to the earlier Sightmark scopes and will easily handle M1A recoil.

My Sightmark Wraith powered up about 4 times while I messed with it. Hasnt powered up since, took it back to Academy and got my money back. I would not recommend one.

The mini is a fantastic and cheap option for night hunting. I highly recommend a thermal monocular to go with it. I was lucky enough to get a very nice thermal on sale for $750 and that puts me in for about $1500 for a complete night hunting system. That is incredibly cheap considering most thermals cost in the thousands.

The mini is lightweight compact comes on superfast and has worked flawlessly for me so far. Ive only used it half a dozen times or so but I have no complaints. The thermal monocular makes all the difference in the world. In fact I cant see myself ever without one again in any hunting situation except maybe middle of the day with no possibility of hunting low light.

I recommend highly to get one but it is almost worthless without a thermal to go with it.

That would really depend on the type of hunting you do. I have known plenty of coyote hunters that don't use thermal and are quite successful. For folks hunting over a feeder or bait, a thermal certainly may not be needed.

Of you are doing spot and stalk, then yeah, thermal can make all the difference in the world. It is also great for helping find downed critters.

I agree with DNS, I generally hunt pigs at night over feeders and I have killed a BUNCH of pigs with just my Wraith. Now that I have a thermal monocular, I don't leave home without it, it helps even during day time deer hunts.

Yes just sitting in a stand with perfect sight and no clutter the wraith does work and works well. That's why I really like mine. But then you are identifying objects with your gun and that isn't very practical or safe. My words of "worthless" were exaggerated to prove even Bigdad's point of " I don't leave home without it" before he even mentioned it. The exaggerated wording was mostly to utter how much a handheld thermal makes the wraith better. Not just better it gives it a perfect package for the low income night game. Find hogs with the handheld and go get'em with the wraith. I cant do that with just the wraith so for me it just doesn't work without the thermal. So the wraith for me by itself is just OK and really not the best for a true nighthunt except in a perfect scenario. Thank you for correcting my thoughts guys and proving MY point Bigdad.