STARLITE SCOPES FOR NIGHT HOG HUNTING?

[SIMBA-LEE]

Anybody hunting hogs with night vision scopes? Any info or advice would be helpful. I'm in Texas and night hunting for hogs is legal.

[the_master_midget]

D 760 or D 740 scope is your best bet. dedicated is better than clip on less adjustments. One of my best friends owns a night hog hunting outfit in Georgia. He does it 365 so he has a lot of time in the field and has seen a lot of gear. He knows the pros and cons of different equipment. The Luna IR is the best IR illuminator on the market for the money.

[SOWT]

Where in Texas are you hunting?

[SIMBA-LEE]

I'm not hunting yet, no night vision. But it will be south of San Antonio, if and when. The only night vision scope I've tried out after dark was a friends NVRS Titanium 1.5x42. I only looked across his residential street at a field with street lights messing up the view, and wasn't all that impressed. But maybe in full darkness with no street lights it would work better? His cost $400.

If I can't get a decent NV scope for about $400 I'm thinking of just using a rifle mounted high-power white light. Will that work with hogs?

[TX Rancher]

I'm not hunting yet, no night vision. But it will be south of San Antonio, if and when. The only night vision scope I've tried out after dark was a friends NVRS Titanium 1.5x42. I only looked across his residential street at a field with street lights messing up the view, and wasn't all that impressed. But maybe in full darkness with no street lights it would work better? His cost $400.

If I can't get a decent NV scope for about $400 I'm thinking of just using a rifle mounted high-power white light. Will that work with hogs?

How well visible light will work for you will be influenced by how much the hogs has been hunted and was light used. They're pretty smart and catch on to visible light hunting pretty quick. If you use visible light, I suggest you turn it on pointed at the sky and then lower it onto your target. I've had that work...sometimes.

I typically use a D-740 Gen III with an infrared illuminator. Even with that, the hogs will still sometimes spook if they look directly at the illuminator (while most of the energy is in the IR wavelengths, there's enough spill over into the visible spectrum to be detected if looking directly at the illuminator).

If I'm working in brush I use a MUM. The 4x magnification of the D-740 can be a hindrance at close quarters in brush.

[JohnnyC]

I'm not hunting yet, no night vision. But it will be south of San Antonio, if and when. The only night vision scope I've tried out after dark was a friends NVRS Titanium 1.5x42. I only looked across his residential street at a field with street lights messing up the view, and wasn't all that impressed. But maybe in full darkness with no street lights it would work better? His cost $400.

If I can't get a decent NV scope for about $400 I'm thinking of just using a rifle mounted high-power white light. Will that work with hogs?

A Gen 1 scope like your friend has will only get worse as the light level drops, not better. $400 doesn't really buy you much good in the way of night vision. You can find some older Gen 1 cascade scopes that perform reasonably well, but again they're more expensive. You'll also want to add significant IR illumination as well. Probably one of the best deals on the market right now (cheap-wise) are the Zeiss Orion 80 surplus scopes that are floating around. They're around $600 bucks on the low end, but they're used surplus, and may be near end-of-life as Gen 1 tubes don't last nearly as long as the modern Gen 3 tubes on the market. Gen 1 lasts around 1000 hours, whereas modern Gen 3 are 10,000+ hours.

NV is one of those "pay-to-play" games and cash is king. Not to say you can't find good deals or be successful with minimal investment, but modern Gen 3 Pinnacle tubed optics are around $3000 give or take. Gen 1 PVS-4's are upwards of $1200, and it varies up and down from there.

If $400 is your budget, either keep putting pennies away until you can afford something you'll be happy with, or buy a good white light. You'll probably be far more successful with a light than a $400 NV scope.