Wish I could say my first night vision experience was a success but I’d call it more of a learning experience. [emoji50]
I met Jason Friday evening to pick up a Photon RT ( thanks for meeting me so late Jason). When we got to the farm I checked it out then mounted it and decided it was too late to sight it in so went to bed. Saturday it rained most of the day and after one failed attempt on our “range”, I finally gave up waiting on the rain to stop so I set up a target behind the house and shot from the barn to get it sighted in. Would have gone smooth if I’d paid closer attention to the instructions Friday night but I adjusted the wrong way and took the second round of shots off of the paper. Got it sighted in, went to dinner, and waited for dark. When we got back from dinner I grabbed my gun and headed out on foot. There has been so much rain I didn’t want to mess up the roads with the Ranger. After wading through mud for a few hundred yards I got to the first field and looked through the scope. I couldn’t see more than about 40 yards and walked through that field to the next and still couldn’t see squat. I stood in the darkness for a while listening for hogs or coyotes and eventually picked up a lone rabbit which I watched for a while. Disappointed with the range and not heating anything I returned to the house. Once I got there I was standing at the back of my pickup and decided to take the scope off of the gun to see if that made any difference and about that time heard the dogs barking down at my sister’s. I looked through the scope in that direction and saw a deer in the field around 250 yards out. I remounted the scope and range dropped to about 40 yards. Thinking I must have mounted the QD amount crooked, I removed the 12 screws and went outside to look through the scope sitting on the ring bases. Still no range so I picked the scope up off of the bases and everything cleared up. After messing with it for a few minutes, I finally realized the IR light was bouncing off of my fixed front sight and washing out the image in the scope. I went back inside, mounted the scope as far forward as I could, and adjusted the IR light as far away from the sight as I could. I went back outside and finally have a decent view with the scope mounted. It isn’t perfect but it is hunt-able. It was late and I didn’t want to sight it in again so went to bed. This morning I went outside, shot 3 rounds with one load and 3 rounds with another with a corn sack as a rest. No adjustments necessary.
So I learned I definitely need a tripod for night hunting when I’m on foot, you need to pay attention to front iron sights if you are using IR, I need something other than a mounted scope for scanning the fields, and I can’t wait until my thermal comes in.
Haven’t decided if I’m going to hunt with the scope like it is or if maybe a riser would eliminate the rest of the IR bounce back.
I met Jason Friday evening to pick up a Photon RT ( thanks for meeting me so late Jason). When we got to the farm I checked it out then mounted it and decided it was too late to sight it in so went to bed. Saturday it rained most of the day and after one failed attempt on our “range”, I finally gave up waiting on the rain to stop so I set up a target behind the house and shot from the barn to get it sighted in. Would have gone smooth if I’d paid closer attention to the instructions Friday night but I adjusted the wrong way and took the second round of shots off of the paper. Got it sighted in, went to dinner, and waited for dark. When we got back from dinner I grabbed my gun and headed out on foot. There has been so much rain I didn’t want to mess up the roads with the Ranger. After wading through mud for a few hundred yards I got to the first field and looked through the scope. I couldn’t see more than about 40 yards and walked through that field to the next and still couldn’t see squat. I stood in the darkness for a while listening for hogs or coyotes and eventually picked up a lone rabbit which I watched for a while. Disappointed with the range and not heating anything I returned to the house. Once I got there I was standing at the back of my pickup and decided to take the scope off of the gun to see if that made any difference and about that time heard the dogs barking down at my sister’s. I looked through the scope in that direction and saw a deer in the field around 250 yards out. I remounted the scope and range dropped to about 40 yards. Thinking I must have mounted the QD amount crooked, I removed the 12 screws and went outside to look through the scope sitting on the ring bases. Still no range so I picked the scope up off of the bases and everything cleared up. After messing with it for a few minutes, I finally realized the IR light was bouncing off of my fixed front sight and washing out the image in the scope. I went back inside, mounted the scope as far forward as I could, and adjusted the IR light as far away from the sight as I could. I went back outside and finally have a decent view with the scope mounted. It isn’t perfect but it is hunt-able. It was late and I didn’t want to sight it in again so went to bed. This morning I went outside, shot 3 rounds with one load and 3 rounds with another with a corn sack as a rest. No adjustments necessary.
So I learned I definitely need a tripod for night hunting when I’m on foot, you need to pay attention to front iron sights if you are using IR, I need something other than a mounted scope for scanning the fields, and I can’t wait until my thermal comes in.
Haven’t decided if I’m going to hunt with the scope like it is or if maybe a riser would eliminate the rest of the IR bounce back.
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