So in PSA’s hourly emailed sales brochure (side note: seriously? keep this up and you’re going to end up in the spam folder, guys), I see this:
Now I have no idea whether this is a good buy, or the product quality thereof either, but I have to ask myself: outside the .dotmil and law enforcement, who the hell would want to buy this kind of thing?
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that this shouldn’t be available, and “just because” isn’t sufficient reason to want to own anything gunly. No no siree, not me never.
But you’re going to drop a grand on something that I can almost guarantee you’re never going to need or use, outside your fevered Red Dawn fanboi fantasies.
Please let me reiterate: if you’re going to spend a grand on something intrinsically useless, be my guest.
But a thermal optic?
Feel free to correct my thinking, in Comments.
Update: Clearly, according to my ahem propertied Readers, I’m showing my Suburban Bias.
My apologies to one and all.
While agreeing with your conclusion, I can understand the appeal. There’s a bunch of fascinating vids on the YouTube showing the performance of thermal imagers. They allegedly can spot the slightest thermal signature — raise your pinky above the parapet at several hundred yards — boom. That’s enough to trigger the “I gotta get me one of those!” reflex in many a would-be Red Dawn type.
For me, it’s the opposite … another reason not to be anywhere near a two-way range of any kind. Add drones in the mix and I’ll certainly just stay in my bunker, thank you. They’ll probably still get me there, but at least I’ll have snacks and a good book — my fat ass won’t be cold, tired, and terrified while waiting.
Best use case nowadays is night wild pig and coyote culling.
I was going to say the same thing.
Forrest:
I’ve got to agree. We’ve got a mountain to the west of us that’s a haven for two packs of ‘yotes; they’re out there singing every night. Being able to use a GOOD thermal vision scope (bad ones don’t have enough resolution with which to be sure of your target) to take them out on overcast nights when there’s not enough for a night-scope to amplify would be great.
Another night-time pest around here are the raccoons, who love to raid garbage dumpsters and bird feeders in the dark. A silenced .22 with a thermal scope on it would be good stuff for that.
Four years ago we had a mountain lion (cougar, puma, whatever they call ’em in your area) walk right down the alley between the houses at around 2:00 in the morning. Every dog behind a fence went absolutely ape-shit, and I got up in time to see that big cat race across the highway in some headlights as he scrambled through the ditch and over the barbed-wire fence up the foothill of the mountain. Haven’t seen one (or sign) since, but a thermal scope on a small carbine would have been reassuring.
I pretty much gave up hunting a couple of years ago, but that sight would be sweet for taking out some of the Coyotes that infest the land where I hunted deer.
If it was in the $100-$200 range I’d put it in my stable.
But at my age, 70, a grand is a big bunch of play money and I’m very reluctant to give it up.
I’ve pretty much gotten rid of all the email notifications as they became more and more irritating.
I guess I am now a full fledged curmudgeon.
Fast Richard and Forrest nailed it.
When I worked at the big box store that sold outdoor recreation equipment we had some shitty scope type thing that people would come in for. One customer had bought it and said it was good for seeing shapes in your backyard in the suburbs and that was about it.
If you want good night vision it is going to be expensive and probably be outdated in a few years.
Most people use it for shooting feral hogs and coyotes at night. Maybe raccoons. At an open house at a local gun shop, there was a vendor that sold the real deal stuff. Prices were over 10k for NODs or whatever they are called. Financing was available.
After dark hunting of feral hogs, coyote, and assorted pests and vermin. “Red Dawn” fantasies aside, if you live on rural land it’s nice to be able to see what’s out there when something goes bump in the night. Let me put it this way, if you wer going to install security cameras outside your home, would you put in daylight only models which would need you to turn on lights in order to see anything after dark, or would you opt for the models which DO function in darkness?
I have a not-that-expensive thermal optic, and a good starlight scope. Never mounted them on a gun until i bought a 70 acre property in NE Texas, and mounted the thermal on a 300blk suppressed AR, which i had to do to take out garden/yard destroying pests endemic to this area. Mounted the ps-14 on a suppressed 22LR for almost-ripe-peach stealing raccoons. Then adopted some dogs thrown away by douchebags, and our farmigos have kept the need for shoooting critters down considerably. They kill the shit out of interlopers, run off feral pigs, kill copperheads with/without getting bit depending on their tithes to the dog god, but it is still fun to watch deer in our field (beyond the dogs Halo collar range) with the scopes.