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Post by elkman1310 on Jan 20, 2021 18:39:07 GMT -5
I went with this day/night optic because of all the good reviews and a lot of coyote hunters using it. The idea of have a dual purpose was one of the major factors for going with this scope. As I posted earlier they recommend and do offer a mount for bolt action rifles but like a lot of things there are none avaible so I machined one to work in the meantime. The mount works well but it does raise the scope up another 1/2 inch so forget about making cheek contact with this setup if you use a stock that doesn't have a high check rest. The stock I ended up using does have a really high check rest so that helps.
The scope really is a digital video camera its not a true conventional scope it require batteries to power it. Forget about using standard AA rechargeable lith. batteries they only charge to 1.375 volts so your really starting off at 3/4 charge so if your playing around with the zoom and all the other features battery life is pretty short 2.5 hours tops. Regular copper top batteries last a little longer so what I ended up doing was going to Tenavolt rechargeable AA batteries they are actually a 3.7 volt battery that they have scaled back to 1.5 constant volts till they drop off then go dead pretty quickly but for over 5 hours they will give you a solid 1.5 volts. There are also some different battery packs avaible but that requires it being mounted else where on the gun stock or barrel I didn't want to go that route.
So how well does this scope work it works really well day and night time it does go from 4 power up to 32 power but that is not what you run at night 4x looks really great an so does 8x seeing 200 yards at night is no problem at all with the IR Illuminator that comes with this scope. Atmospheric conditions do have a roll on image quality but I looked through this scope while it raining the other night and I could still see 200 yards that was really surprising.
Today I went back out to the range to sight the gun back in because I made some changes to the mount. You bore sight your gun at 25 or 50 or 100 yards and sight it in just like a regular rifle. In the scope you go to settings and they have a setting for sight in it gives you a four side reference marked so you but your cross hair in the center of the target and then you move that second aiming system to your bullet hole and then save that and fire a shot and see where you hit it is slick and its really accurate. In the display on the top left corner it shows a X and a Y axis just like a read out on a lathe or milling machine when you have your gun zeroed where you want it you write down those two numbers they do stay on the display till you would make another change its there for a quick reference to get you back on the target if you remove the scope for some reason pretty darn nice feature.
Today visibility was pretty hazy using one inch orange target dots with a black dot in the center there was no problem seeing the orange dot on 4x to 16x put I could not see the black center adding more power did not help so I left it on 8 power to sight the gun in. You have to remember your not looking through a scope with lens your seeing what the HD 1080 camera is seeing which makes a difference. The scope held point of impact with no problem Granted this is mounted on my 6mm Dasher which doesn't have much recoil and is deadly accurate so any change I made to the scope the bullets went right there. This scope is rated for up to 308 Winchester it will handle more but if it experiences more shock then what it likes it will shut off and reboot. You won't shoot any smaller or bigger than what your gun is capable so there is no black magic there.
So my first impressions are it is one heck of a buy and I am really anxious to hunt with it I hope the weather is good enough to go Friday evening. |
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Post by elkman1310 on Jan 22, 2021 9:25:43 GMT -5
Well here is a quick update. Went out last evening from 4:30 to 8:PM Saw five deer but not didn't or see or hear any coyotes. Also for some reason no coyotes showed up on any of the cameras in all three fields all night they seem to have a 3 day cycle and when they come it is usually after 2 AM
The equipment worked great. The call sounded really good and you can really crank up the volume if you need to. I have to say the night vision binoculars are a bit awkward to use because of the really long eye relief I should say arms length eye relief so I think I will just mount them on a tripod when I don't hunt out of the hut. They do have way more field of view then the scope and two people can look at the display screen at the same time so for the money they work well.
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Post by Ice on Jan 22, 2021 13:12:17 GMT -5
Well here is a quick update. Went out last evening from 4:30 to 8:PM Saw five deer but not didn't or see or hear any coyotes. Also for some reason no coyotes showed up on any of the cameras in all three fields all night they seem to have a 3 day cycle and when they come it is usually after 2 AM Par for the course...deer hunt = see yotes, yote hunt = see deer. I really thought that only happened to me. Waiting to see how it continues to pan out. |
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Post by elkman1310 on Jan 25, 2021 8:48:48 GMT -5
Another quick update we tried a different area in farm country that we know has more coyotes. Saw 20 deer which was nice but no coyotes. So far we have been hunting early like from 4:30 till 8:00pm and that has not produced any results so our next try will be a early morning set like from 1:00 AM till maybe dawn and see what happens.
Quick note on the night vision binoculars I mounted them on a tripod and that worked far better than trying to hold them at arms length. The IR light has 5 brightness settings on the highest setting of 5 you could clearly see anything walking around in a field 600 yards away that was really surprising for a unit that cost $260.00 the Sightmark scope is awesome everybody that has looked through it loves it. The stock IR light is good for a honest 300 yards on a clear night you can see eyes further than that but for really good definition 200 yards is really clear. No wonder they sell so many of these scopes.
I do think the 2x16x28 model would be the better option for most people you can't run above 12 power at night 4 power looks really good so that's where I keep it. The rechargeable Tenavolt batteries are the answer for battery power and after reading the directions again I figured out how to put the scope in sleep mode to save battery life. The Binoculars are doing well on just AA batteries probably have 5 hours on those they do run down but all you need to do is turn the IR light off for a little while and they snap back to at least half. also since the IR light is what sucks the power just keeping it on level 2 will show you anything in the field that the rifle scope will cover.
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Post by buckeye68 on Jan 25, 2021 14:00:50 GMT -5
Please keep the reports coming. Good info.
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Post by elkman1310 on Jan 26, 2021 16:11:53 GMT -5
Well here is a quick update we went back out early again because of other business to take care of. We did hunt a different field but on the same farm. I start off with a rabbit distress call first and see if I get any kind of reaction. I probably let that play for about three sets on the caller. Then a lone female howl or too and see if that might trigger a response and if that don't work I hit a double coyote call and wait again. Last night the first calls didn't trigger anything but when I used the two coyote call we did hear a coyote respond way off in the distance. We had to leave by 8:00pm and no dogs showed up when we where there. When I got home I looked at my phone it has the Spartan app for the trail cameras well 15 minutes after we left good old coyote shows up right in the field we hunted.
So know we are going to start later in the evening and in this area there aren't very many coyotes so unless one is near by I don't think you'll see one come rushing in. It may take a hour or more for a coyote to respond to the call. Nobody said hunting eastern coyotes in Pa, is easy. Out west there a dime a dozen in some places Pa. is another story even when they hold coyote hunt contests that run a couple days they don't kill very many. We did pickup another big farm to hunt that the owner says he hears and see coyotes all the time its about a 45 minute drive but no big deal.
Like they say every hunt is a learning experience if your not hunting your not learning nothing.
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Post by 71yella on Feb 20, 2021 17:11:12 GMT -5
Elk, i have one of these also,i returned 2 different ATNs, really like it, its on a 300blk AR, i use a battery back up pack for cellphone, called a pocket juice,with a usb cable and it lasts forever it seems, i have only used to look for hogs and totes in my pasture but when i fire it up it always shows full charge, i just go thru batteries in the illuminator, used it to video my problem hog catching a 110vmax behind the ear last Sept. 210lbs DRT
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Post by elkman1310 on Feb 22, 2021 17:59:13 GMT -5
Have not had a battery issue with the illuminator mainly because I don't turn it on unless I am going to shoot. I use my night vision bino for scanning. Our weather really sucks we keep getting snow just about every other day and the snow in the places I want to hunt is about 12 to 14 inches deep. Can't last forever.
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