thermal scope questions

[thorborg]

I casually looked into thermal scopes and read the ups and downs and styles.
Started to discount my interest as they seem to require the use of an eye cup which is problematic for me with glasses.
Then I saw the Sig ECHO1, mentioned by another member here in another thread, which appears to accept a long eye relief as with reflex sorts. Things were looking up.
Some info I cannot seem to find though, hopefully someone here can share.
What is the reticle coverup @ 100 yds? My Burris fastfire is 3 minutes which leaves a lot of guessing at 50 yards but is acceptable (for me) Would this be a similar coverage for the Sig?
Also, The specs say a 3 to 30 second refresh rate.
What does this mean?
I took it as what I see when I pull the trigger, may have happened up to 30 seconds earlier?.
That just cant be right.
Any sig users able to enlighten me.
Thanks

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[jordanka16]

I looked up the specs for the sig, says a 30hz refresh rate, which is good but not great, you would notice some lag on a fast moving target.

The other stuff I don't know.

 

[jbett98]

What are your plans for one of these. Hunting or home protection?

 

[j8tnub]

ODFW regs say cannot use to hunt any wildlife. The echo1 is cool. I have one. No trouble shooting at 100 yards. The thermal sensor resets every 5-30 seconds. It has a little count down timer in the corner. You are able to use it the entire time.

 

[thorborg]

What are your plans for one of these. Hunting or home protection?

Ostensibly home protection albeit a shirt tail relation has offered a couple times to show me around the hog fields of Texas the next time I visit. (no, he doesn't own a helicopter)
The reality, more likely, after the first set of batteries and grins are used up, it'll sit atop the rifle where it will command only bragging rights until I die, the revolution, or Oregon changes it's laws.
VIVA the mad money!

 

[SIG34]

60hz or higher! Or the frame rate will make it feel like slow motion..

 

[Sealesniper]

60hz or higher! Or the frame rate will make it feel like slow motion..

60hz would drain battery fast i will suggest 50hz

 

[SIG34]

60hz would drain battery fast i will suggest 50hz

How long is your mission??
You can get "external battery"

 

[American123]

I have an ATN ThOR model, thermal is super fun, I have yet to shoot anything with it, but it's darn cool to go on a walk in the evening and use it to look around at the neighborhood and any heat signatures that may be present.

Hz refers to frames per second. 30 hz means that in every second the image will refresh 30 times, 60hz, 60 times, the high speed military guys tend to run the higher hz because they need to make sure when they aim they are not lagging. For most of us civilians, we can live find with 30hz, on a fast moving target you will just possibly need to lead more.

The fact that you own thermal or NV sets you into another dimension compared to the majority of gun owners. I am not trying to say we are super amazing or anything just because of owning night vision/thermal. But the fact that you could potentially address a situation in pitch black and see a target when the target can't see you. Game changer.

I recommend if you go the thermal route, have offset iron sights and a white light on the rifle. If using the thermal becomes less desirable in the moment of need, you can easily transition to offset irons and light up the target with white light. That's how I have set up mine anyway.

I don't know if anyone who has gotten into thermal/night vision has regretted it expect for maybe buyers remorse by spending money they shouldn't have.

 

[Doc In UPlace]

I'm shopping for a useful thermal scope system myself, and it appears that the ATN HD 640 series has a zoom which rescales the reticle if I recall correctly (is this right American123?)

A self-proclaimed equipment "ho" advised that the Trijicon units are "better than" the ATN ones, and once I saw the prices of the Trijicon's (approaching $10,000) I should hope and expect they would be "better" than the ATN units costing about $3,500.

Part of my need for acquiring a thermal is that we can use it in our jobs as investigators on phony workman's comp claims to record Subject activity after the sun sets and through light vegetation. The ATN's have a built-in SD card recording capability which makes it look pretty good.

Once you look at units costing as much as $45,000 the ATN price of $3,500 seems kind of inexpensive. At first I was thinking HOLY COW! Now I'm thinking, hmmm, a deal at 1/3 the price.

Then as a bonus the thing can mount on a rifle and that's kind of handy, too. Being able to see in total darkness is an undisputable advantage in certain situations.

 

[American123]

I'm shopping for a useful thermal scope system myself, and it appears that the ATN HD 640 series has a zoom which rescales the reticle if I recall correctly (is this right American123?)

A self-proclaimed equipment "ho" advised that the Trijicon units are "better than" the ATN ones, and once I saw the prices of the Trijicon's (approaching $10,000) I should hope and expect they would be "better" than the ATN units costing about $3,500.

Part of my need for acquiring a thermal is that we can use it in our jobs as investigators on phony workman's comp claims to record Subject activity after the sun sets and through light vegetation. The ATN's have a built-in SD card recording capability which makes it look pretty good.

Once you look at units costing as much as $45,000 the ATN price of $3,500 seems kind of inexpensive. At first I was thinking HOLY COW! Now I'm thinking, hmmm, a deal at 1/3 the price.

Then as a bonus the thing can mount on a rifle and that's kind of handy, too. Being able to see in total darkness is an undisputable advantage in certain situations.

I have really enjoyed the ATN model I have, the zoom is a digital zoom, so the picture gets grainy as you continue to zoom, if you intend to use it at distances I would buy the one that starts with a higher magnification. I bought the 2.5x25 magnification model and it works great, but if you want really good clarity at extended zoom it wouldn't be the right model. at 2.5x I can see EVERYTHING very clearly. My girlfriend and I have enjoyed watching the drunks in the pitch dark be idiots as they walk home from the beach near her place.

As to your question, yes, the reticle is re-scaled as you zoom, it does not get distorted, but as I previously stated, the clarity of the image because it is a digital zoom gets distorted. At 2.5 times you can see things very clearly though and the clarity is fantastic.

I put a 256 gb SD card in mine and have played around with the recording, I have also shot with it on the .223 and that was FUN!

I would recommend the ATN model for sure, I think it serves it's purpose greatly, and although I have no experience with the trijicon model, I would be very surprised if it did anything better to actually warrant a $6500 price difference.

 

[Doc In UPlace]

Thank you for the mini-review and recommendation, very much appreciated.

 

[American123]

Thank you for the mini-review and recommendation, very much appreciated.

Yep, I should clarify that the model I have works just fine for 100 yards. I can easily see what people are doing and make out distinct features about them. It just depends on how much detail you want I guess and from how far away you want the detail.

How far away are you planning on watching the people and what kind of detail do you need to be able to see?

I could actually take a image and upload it later tonight if you want, what distance do you want the image from?

 

[Doc In UPlace]

We're usually working about a half- to a full city block from the Subjects, sometimes we're closer than we'd like to be, depending on the topography and parking availability. In feet I'd say that's 100 to 400 feet, give or take.

Would you say if you knew what somebody looked like, you'd be able to ID them in the 2.5x25?

 

[American123]

We're usually working about a half- to a full city block from the Subjects, sometimes we're closer than we'd like to be, depending on the topography and parking availability. In feet I'd say that's 100 to 400 feet, give or take.

Would you say if you knew what somebody looked like, you'd be able to ID them in the 2.5x25?

100 feet, no problem, if you start getting the length of 100 or more yards it depends on how clear of an image do you need. If I had to prove in court who someone was at 100 yards based on a thermal image I would go for the thermal that starts at 5x if I simply needed to observe an area and ID people for my own personal reference and I already knew who should be there and what they looked like I think I could get by using yh 2.5

My personal recommendation for 100 yards plus identification of people compared to other people would be the 5x

I bought mine for the purpose of shooting, if I bought mine for the purpose of identification between people at 100+ yards I would have got the 5x.

 

[Doc In UPlace]

This is really useful to know, thank you for taking the time to complete the question.

Back to the OP question regarding the Sig ECHO unit, no way in the world would you want to be after two-legged critters using a sight that illuminates your face.
I don't know what Sig is thinking but the idea that those are suitable for police and military use is just missing me.

 

[thorborg]

I've yet to release the funds for one but am getting real antsy to do so. One thought now on my mind is on the eye relief. The specs averaging 2 1/2 inches, seems in conflict with the visual slanted shape of the rubber ocular covers, which in turn conflict with recoil safety. The rubber shape appears to indicate a tight light fit to the eye is optimum and while binoculars may work that way, a recoiling rifle is something else.
So I'm wondering if the eye relief was actually 2 and a half inches, will I loose much brightness of picture as opposed to a tight fit to the cup stopping back any ground light.?
I wear glasses, so a tight fit is problematic for me though not insurmountable.

 

[dwaineshort]

I casually looked into thermal scopes and read the ups and downs and styles.
Started to discount my interest as they seem to require the use of an eye cup which is problematic for me with glasses.
Then I saw the Sig ECHO1, mentioned by another member here in another thread, which appears to accept a long eye relief as with reflex sorts. Things were looking up.
Some info I cannot seem to find though, hopefully someone here can share.
What is the reticle coverup @ 100 yds? My Burris fastfire is 3 minutes which leaves a lot of guessing at 50 yards but is acceptable (for me) Would this be a similar coverage for the Sig?
Also, The specs say a 3 to 30 second refresh rate.
What does this mean?
I took it as what I see when I pull the trigger, may have happened up to 30 seconds earlier?.
That just cant be right.
Any sig users able to enlighten me.
Thanks

The refresh is the lens recalibrating every 10 to 30 seconds. The image is in real time. Unfortunately I bought one that was on sale and it didn't come with the stupid data cable so I can't show you any of the pictures I have taken. I need to remember to try to contact Sig and see if that's something I can have replaced or order. I'm finally taking it to a friend's house tomorrow where we can shoot out to about 400 yards. I'm going to be there all night so I'm going to play around with it out in his wide-open field see if we can see each other take some pictures hopefully I can capture those with my cell phone for now.

 

[The Heretic]

I recommend that if you want to buy any SIG optics that have an electronic component to them, that you got to the SIGTalk forum and research that optic first. Complaints regarding quality or problems tend to accumulate on such forums.

Also, I think the eyecups on most thermal sights are to reduce backlighting.

 

[thorborg]

I recommend that if you want to buy any SIG optics that have an electronic component to them, that you got to the SIGTalk forum and research that optic first. Complaints regarding quality or problems tend to accumulate on such forums.
.

Thanks, I sort of tried the Sig talk forum but found it too confusing and ended up with more Ads and links than useable info. It took me a couple years to figure NWFA and be comfortable navigating so you can see why.
I did find some usable insight from comments bantered about from reviews on magazines articles and elsewhere. Even that's a challenge sorting it out.