Thermal help!

[Redman797]

Ok guys. So ready to purchase now. I’ll be hunting wolves, mountain lion, and coyote at distances of 100-400m shots. ID will be out to 800 with occasional 800m shots. I’ve been using a regular day scope for those shots and stepping into thermal.

im torn between the Trijicon reaper 35mm and the halo-LR. Am I better off going with the halo? Is the quality the same? I realize with bigger objective that the halo would be clearer further out, is the halo image way better and is the optic built same quality being polymer vs metal? It won’t be babied since it’ll be carried on 4-7 day backpacking and stalking in the mountains of northern Idaho.

 

[wigwamitus]

The core is the same, the halo-lr front lens is higher quality material, the rear end is the same (pvs-14 rear end) ... the halo-lr has real mil-has holding reticles, which the trijicons do not have. That enables you to shoot out to 500yds on yote sized targets (and get hits if you could do it in the day).
The images are pretty close. The better material in the halo-lr and the improved (2019 versus 2014) image processing gives the Halo a plus in this area. But "way better" not in this viewers opinion.

With the trijicon beyond 300yds ... you'll be flat out guessing. Basically aiming with a cross hair and using the critter as the reticle.

The trijicons do have 19mm or 35mm or 60mm focal length lenses, the halo is 50mm. But the halo's "price per focal length" is lower.

 

[Redman797]

So for the money and my requirements the halo-Lr is best is why I’m seeing. 7500 is a stretch for me. Originally was looking at the Thor 4. But the halo-Lr is looking like a way more solid option

 

[shoots100]

The Halo, Trij and XG50 are your only options for un cooled thermals and even with their top quality core and resolution, your really pushing it taking 800m shots.
After some time behind one, you may get better with Id'ing targets out to that range, but once you magnify the image to take a shot, there's going to be severe pixilation, especially when dealing with adverse weather conditions.
In the attached review (skip to 7:10 ), you can see how the image is semi pixelated at half the distance your asking a thermal to perform.
Of course what your going to be seeing in the display of the scope will be a little clearer, as there is some image degradation when recording.
Be aware, these scopes have recoil/caliber restrictions too.