Pulsars next thermal scope - what do you think ?

http://pulsarnv.com/thermion/?fbclid=IwAR2hCoZOA2ND8gST8_wmH7RMPMWxqp0ukMHF8WwNorjMl_ALk7-Lb5w2Ucc

How much?

Pricing and full details won't be released until SHOT Show, the last week of January in Vegas.

This is going to be a huge change and shift moving to a traditional rifle scope look and feel. I can see some benefits and I can see some negatives as well. From what I've been told these are going to be pretty impressive. I'm ready to get my hands on them in the field.

- Jason

Well, now people will have a thermal scope on which to put their custom height 30mm rings as opposed to just being the height of whatever mount came with it (e.g., Pulstar Trail, Trjicon IR scopes). However, it looks like it will be a minimum of a mid height scope ring, if not a tall.

Going with rings will make mounting on some traditional rifles much easier...which appeals tremendously to their European market and to a goodly portion of the possible US market.

If only it had an optical zoom and not digital

Summer 2019? Too late for my wants.

Are the turrets used for the menu controls? Wonder how well that will work.

Not happening with any thermal in the foreseeable future. Germanium lenses don't work well stacked as needed for optical zoom. If you watch military helicopter videos, when they zoom on thermal, there is a complete lens change in order to change the level of magnification.



Nobody is saying, but at least one of the side turrets also has a button, so maybe a combo of turrets and buttons? There are also buttons above the eye piece. I suspect one or more turrets are battery compartments.


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As far as magnification goes, the unit shown in the ad is an XP50 with 1800 meter detection range. The current Trail XP50 has an 1800 meter detection range and is 1.6x. So it is probably safe to assume that the Thermion XP50 will be 1.6x or in that ball park.

No swappable battery pack like in the Trail models. Maybe external battery pack only?

Few would buy if it was external battery only.

I think it's going to be great. I'll fiddle with it some at Shot and report back. Will probably have a hunt with the Pulsar guys in a couple of months and will get to run it in the field.

I would be a buyer on this on based on MDMORROW Report back from the show and possibly a trial run in the field.

I had the First Gen IR Hunter Thermal, and have since traded it off for a long range gun but looking at this new scope might be the ticket, will be interesting to see what the reviews are like...and of course what the price is going to be...
Looks like it could be a Hit...

I would reckon we'll probably get in the field with it maybe around March roughly. Best guess.

Will report back with more info. We'll also probably start a waiting list in the next week or so. No money or anything but just a list of interested folks.

So you had one of the 320 resolution IR Hunters? Pig_Popper and I got to field two of the first two to come to Texas. IR Defense still had a lot of bugs to work out back then.

I think the pricing is going to be really interesting. We won't know until the week of SHOT but that's only 3 weeks from now. I'm interested to see if things slide down at all or stay right about where they are. My crystal ball prediction is, if they drop, it's not by more than a couple hundred dollars. Again pure speculation.

Jason

From SHOT show

Is it just a XP50 that can use scope rings or did they upgrade the internals?

Information given here on availability date:



It is being reported from SHOT show that the Thermion is replacing the APEX which will be discontinued.

It has onboard recording, increased onboard storage to 16 GB

It’s a 30mm scope body, rings are NOT included with the scope

Color screen with color palettes with Picture in Picture feature

Battery Power: they are calling the battery packs B-mini packs, the shorter turret B-mini will run about 4 hrs the taller version about 6 hrs. There is an internal battery as well making this a “hot swap” capable device. If you remove the B-mini battery you’ll have about an hour of internal battery to run on so you can charge the B-mini pack.

XM version is the 320 res which will be in 30, 38, or 50mm lens sizes.
The 30 is 3.3-13.2x | 38 is 4.2-16.8x | 50 is 5.5-22x

Retail pricing : XM30 is 2799.00 , XM38 is 3299.00 , XM50 is 3799.00

XP version is the 640 res - no model or pricing info yet

So they have some decent magnification on their 320 (XM) line. COOL!

I wonder about the 640 line...

Im not sure why I can edit the vid link above...

That's a lot of native magnification. Not sure how I feel about that. I like zoom when hunting one animal. I like the wide field of view when shooting a sounder of pigs.

I'm still at SHOT but here is some more info.....
As we announced this last week on The Late Night Vision Show, some big news is the RXQ30V has gone out of current production for 3 months. It will return with a black and white AMOLED instead of the green tinted display it currently has. It will remain an active model though 2019.

All Apexes are gone and the Trails will stay only until the first Thermion units ship. At that point they will be discontinued. The Trail LRF's will be an active model through 2019.

Here is a break down....

Pulsar Axion thermal handheld monoculars

Axion Key XM22 (unknown magnification) $1,699 (no video recording) - This unit will not be shipping until later in the year, it can be disregarded for now
Axion Key XM30 2.4-9.6x24 $1,899 (no video recording)
Axion XM30 4.1-16.4x24 $2,199
Axion XM38 5.5-22x32 $2,599

Pulsar Thermion thermal rifle scopes

Thermion XM30 3-13x $2,799
Thermion XM38 4.2-16x $3,299
Thermion XM50 5.5-22x $3,799

Thermion XP38 1.5-12x $4,499
Pulsar Thermion XP50 1.9-15x $4,999


Pulsar model codes:

XQ = 384x288 17 micron
XM = 320x240 12 micron
XP = 640x480 17 micron

I hope this info helps a little bit.

- Jason

Well the battery pack didn’t last long this should save them money since I’ve had 3 go bad with in 8 months.

And that, KK30RAR, is the giant unspoken shortcoming of proprietary battery packs.

Very true I just returned two for warranty but they have no new batteries in stock to replace them this may be a big issue later on down the road . I’m not complaining about the trail and Helion they both work get but the batteries are not .

How will image quality compare to current models? Seems like a lot of razzle dazzle about being able to use scope rings but not much about image and technology updates.

Here is the info on the batteries for the Thermion

http://www.pulsar-nv.com/glo/products/33/power-supplies/aps-battery-packs

Well, the 320 resolution is going with the 12 micron sensor which is an improvement at the 320 level, but is actually less resolution than their previousl 384 resolution models. The image should look a little better. 640 is still 17 microns as with the Trail.

Really, however, there hasn't been a lot of change in the hardware technology in the field. Ain't nobody getting better than 640 resolution in the civilian market. So companies improve the product through adding or changing features that will make products appeal to more people. Pulsar is having both their 320 and 640 lines with increased magnification over the Trail line, though the improvement is better in the 320 line than 640.

So if image quality improves, it probably won't be a huge difference physically, but may be improved with some different firmware manipulations, put into a package that is more user-friendly across rifle platform types. Note that the detection range for the XP50 in Trail and Thermion lines remained the same distance.

To be honest, I think the features of the more capable scopes are fine. I'd rather see them work on production efficiencies (costs) than new features.

At the upper end, it’s a bulkier Trail XP50 that looks like a scope for the people who care about looks. On the lower end, recording and batteries are a nice upgrade vs the Apex and it may be an image quality improvement. My preference would be the current mounting method as it reduces the possibility of me mounting it canted.

DNS is right. I think there will be some slight improvements on the image quality of the XM models due to the 12 micron core. As for the XP models I would expect no improved image quality unless they have a slightly improved AMOLED or a better germanium lens. I'm not saying that's happened, I'm saying it would be the only possibility of improved image quality. The big news (and you can like it or hate it) is the 12 micron core allows them to raise the magnification level while keeping the lens size small.


We've reached a point in the thermal market right now that a 12 micron core is pretty much the current top end of what we can do. I expect some HD cores within 2-3 years but that's speculation based on hear-say from insiders. All manufacturers can really do at this point is make minor improvements to image quality and features. We saw absolutely no downward movement in prices and you aren't going to be seeing a big drop (at least not soon) for several reasons. Without writing a novel, I'd quickly say that actual manufacturing costs are expensive, thermal cores aren't cheap and they are in high demand, marketing, warranty and business costs are high and then it comes down to a supply/demand issue. If you're selling every single widget you can make for $5, why lower the price to $3 in the hopes of selling more. More that you can't produce if you wanted to. I've been privy to some of the reasoning behind the manufacturer's retail pricing on a few thermals and it's really pretty interesting.....sometimes certain optics have a high price to actually deter too many sales of that particular optic and to push sales to other specific less expensive optics that can be produced more quickly. There is a lot of upper level marketing going on that had never even crossed my mind.


The big thing to remember is, the US didn't demand or even ask for a conventional scope design. The rest of the world did. While the US is the largest single market, we are still less than 50% of their total sales. We also didn't demand the big jump in magnifications, the other markets did. What we forget is that no other buyer of these scopes outside the US is putting them on anything but a bolt action rifle. Period. They logically want a traditional scope look. They are also using them hunting in two ways that are vastly different than we are. Rather than shooting mostly hogs and coyotes, they are shooting (depending on the country) rats, rabbits and foxes or large game including many kinds of deer and elk. So for them, higher magnification makes sense on both ends. Small animals, they want more magnification, larger animals at further distances, they want more magnification and care less about FOV.

As for your preference on the mounting method, I agree, it's my preference too. But I'm thinking these are eventually going to grow on me. I still hold out hope that we will see some "traditional" thermal designs from Pulsar again in the future. I think the secondary market on the Trails is going to be very strong even after they are discontinued this summer.

- Jason

Good insight. Thank you.