Thread: Guns and Optics

Originally Posted by longshot

You can't hunt these days without a thermal, it's just too hard, if not impossible.

What the heck?
Comments like this just reiterate that not everything on here is useful.

There are more deer around now than there has been for a long time and plenty of them are hunted successfully WITHOUT a thermal.



Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

I think Thermal use will start changing soon. Talking too a relatively senior doc staff member last week and in some regions they are now sending out staff for training with other enforcement agencies, in how to approach hunters in a ranging type scenario. mostly because night time hunting on public land has become an issue as I understood it.

270 is making a come back baby! yeah!

Originally Posted by gimp

Tell me more about how FFP and SFP fixed power scopes are different?

judging by rest of post hes taking the mick...maybe youre reverse micking....

Originally Posted by kukuwai

What the heck?
Comments like this just reiterate that not everything on here is useful.

There are more deer around now than there has been for a long time and plenty of them are hunted successfully WITHOUT a thermal.



Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

Ok, I been an old fud have been using thermal for years.
I took a hunter that reckoned he didn't need it.
On the walk to our chosen spot where the deer shot fall down onto the track I spotted 5deer in the thermal on the way.
I pointed out to him where they were and asked if he could see them through his binos.
At first he reckoned I was full of shit till he had a look through the thermal.
All 5 we would of walked past not been any wiser but for the thermal.
Needless to say he bought one!

Sent from my SM-A556E using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by andyanimal31

Ok, I been an old fud have been using thermal for years.
I took a hunter that reckoned he didn't need it.
On the walk to our chosen spot where the deer shot fall down onto the track I spotted 5deer in the thermal on the way.
I pointed out to him where they were and asked if he could see them through his binos.
At first he reckoned I was full of shit till he had a look through the thermal.
All 5 we would of walked past not been any wiser but for the thermal.
Needless to say he bought one!

Sent from my SM-A556E using Tapatalk

Mate I have one too, 100% its gunna help you locate animals but I often don't bother with it.

You definitely can hunt without one. It is possible

Sometimes the only thermal you need is the one coming up the hill
Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by tiroahunta

judging by rest of post hes taking the mick...maybe youre reverse micking....

All sorts of shit gets talked late at night. Last night was a shit storm. No doubt often alcohol assisted.
Maybe the site should have a 8 hour window for editing or deleting for posts made after 11pm so that people can recant.

To be fair, I thought the whole first post was likely a troll.

Hence my second post

Originally Posted by Tahr

All sorts of shit gets talked late at night. Last night was a shit storm. No doubt often alcohol assisted.
Maybe the site should have a 8 hour window for editing or deleting for posts made after 11pm so that people can recant.

To be fair, there is not much of a night crew on here, I am often around from 12-4 and the place is usually dead.

I was going to start up a night crew thread for late night drunken ramblings, perhaps that might work.....

Originally Posted by gimp

Tell me more about how FFP and SFP fixed power scopes are different?

Well it’s just what I heard, and it’s definitely one of those things that makes perfect sense if you don’t think about it too much. I actually run both, it was getting so hard to find a good fixed power scope, I decided the best way was to just araldite the power ring on a couple of variable scopes to convert them to fixed power. Even though one is FFP and the other is SFP, I am still trying to figure out how they differ.

Good one! Can't wait until December! But also what are the airfares to Norway these days? @Nosc

Originally Posted by MB

I don't think that much has changed. Those calibres are fine. Lots of people still using fixed power scopes and non-illuminated reticles. Can't use a thermal or night vision scope when hunting on DOC land, but handheld thermal spotters are now allowed. I think their usefulness depends on where you are hunting.

Thanks MB. I think what I meant was the manufacturers seem to moved away from long, skinny cases, to short fat ones. Perhaps due to improved efficiency in powder burning, perhaps better accuracy, but certainly short actions will be cheaper to manufacture, which is probably the main driver.

Re Optics I "found" a very old Schmidt and Bender 8x fixed power in the back of my mates storage shed. I recall I couldn't beer to part with that when I sold the rest of my gear. I'm thinking a hand held thermal for spotting and S&B for daylight shooting. I don't have a rifle yet....

Originally Posted by whanahuia

To be fair, I thought the whole first post was likely a troll.

Do you get a lot of Troll Dolls on this forum. I thought it was for guns and scopes and stuff?

Originally Posted by KERR

Thanks MB. I think what I meant was the manufacturers seem to moved away from long, skinny cases, to short fat ones. Perhaps due to improved efficiency in powder burning, perhaps better accuracy, but certainly short actions will be cheaper to manufacture, which is probably the main driver.

Re Optics I "found" a very old Schmidt and Bender 8x fixed power in the back of my mates storage shed. I recall I couldn't beer to part with that when I sold the rest of my gear. I'm thinking a hand held thermal for spotting and S&B for daylight shooting. I don't have a rifle yet....

A handheld thermal on it's own, is better than a thermal rifle scope on it's own. It's hard work and rightfully frowned upon to scan for animals with a rifle mounted thermal.
Some people run a handheld thermal and a thermal scope, that set up is only good for private land hunting. Thermal scopes are a no no in the DOC estate. The main advantage of a thermal is that it helps alert you to the presence of the animal, once you know there is a deer in the scrub, you're often 80% of the way there. What you aim at it with just needs to be able to see it clearly enough to shoot it.

For night shooting, some including myself, use a handheld thermal and a NV scope. A NV scope costs much less than a Thermal scope, but can still aim at animals in the dark. It also gives you a different picture than the thermal, this is helpful for target ID.

Regarding calibers, there has been a strong trend for faster twists and heavy for caliber bullets over the last few years. It has breathed new life and previously unseen abilities into some old favorites and spawned a whole new generation of marketable modern miracle calibers too.

Fixed 8x is high for a hunting scope, out on the tops, no real problem, but in the bush it will hold you back. Being very old, it will be more susceptible to fogging up and will probably not track as well as a modern scope if you want to dial up.

Originally Posted by KERR

Do you get a lot of Troll Dolls on this forum. I thought it was for guns and scopes and stuff?

Haha, yeah, no there are not a whole bunch of trolls on here, just people who are intolerant of others differences and naming them trolls.