Thread: How important LRF in thermal handheld?

You need it if you’re shooting out to any distance where you need to know range.

Possums in trees - not needed
Rabbits with shotgun - not really needed
Rabbits inside 50 with .22 - helpful
Rabbits 50 to 80 with .22 - much more helpful
Anything past 80 with.22 - needed
Anything past 100 with any calibre - helpful to needed.


I use an old pulsar xq?? from 2016 and a pulsar Telos with lrf. The telos has some great resolution if you want to count the hairs on a rabbit, but it doesn’t completely blow the old unit out of the water. The old one still tells me where animals are and actually has better FOV. The main thing with a thermal is it lets you see more animals, even the cheaper ones are still infinitely better than a spotlight. Higher specs are better but at a rate of diminishing returns and improvement is only by degree. Whereas a built in RF is a fundamental improvement.

A thermal with 20% better picture won’t put 20% more deer on the deck, but you will be able to see them 20% better when you see them.
A built in RF will preclude you having to take marginal shots at unknown distances.