Thread: Thermal handhelds - how far can you really spot an animal?

Sold my Pulsar Helion 38mm(hand held) after having it 3yrs,good peice of kit.I brought a Guide TA 435 clip on 18months ago(hand held and clip on scope in one unit)fov at 50yds is 29ft,100yds is 58ft.Can tell between a stag and hinds at about 1.4ks on a good night.Pick up on cattle and deer 2k away and tell the difference.Cattle usaully stay in the one spot or move very slowly.Deer feed, look up,feed,move around,never stand still much.Put their noises in the air to smell out the enemy around.All very well for going for distance,but most of my night shooting is inside 200yds for deer so this is where fov is important and quality of picture for scanning and finding yr target quickly at night.The TA 435 is and very good 2 n 1 peice of kit.You may scan a area every 10 minuts thru the night and and only need to put it on yr scope once for a deer or pig.You can run it of a power pack,but i find the Nitecore RCA 123A last about 1hr 40minuts run the thermo none stop.So if you turn on, scan for 5 minuts at most and rest for 15 minuts.I only use about 3 or 4 pairs of batterys thru the night.I can change the batterys in the dark in about 30 seconds and have a charger running off a small powerpack to charge batterys if needed.Sometimes i see these TA435s on trade me going for 3.5k or so.A good unit for the price second hand.