Night Vision Bargain Disappoints

Back when I moved here, I bought myself a cheap night vision scope, thinking I would shoot coons and other critters with it. I believe I wrote about it recently. It’s an ATN X-Sight II. I used credit card points to buy it, on a lark. The cost was $600, which is not a lot for night vision. It came with an infrared flashlight to help it see things.

I was busy with my dad, and I never got around to night hunting. Now I’m trying to get the scope to work.

It’s a badly executed product. No two ways about it. Yes, it works, but it won’t do what the ads make you think it will do.

1. The IR illuminator is not very good, so you need to get a better one for long distances.

2. The scope will eat the 4 AA batteries ATN says to use, so don’t even try. Buy a zippered butt pack and a 20,000-maH USB battery plus a micro USB cable and use these items to power the scope. It will run for hours. ATN sells its own version of this setup for $100, but you will pay more like $30 if you buy things separately.

3. The scope has Bluetooth, but it does not work well enough to be useful for anything.

4. ATN has an app for the scope, and it will help you change the scope’s settings or show another person what you see through the scope, but that’s about it. You can look at your own photos and videos, but you can’t save or share them. As for changing the settings, you can do that using the scope’s buttons.

A few days back, I tried to use the scope in the backyard, just to get ready. Without the illuminator, all I saw was a green mess. There was nearly no contrast between one thing and another. When I turned on the illuminator, everything went bright green, and I saw nothing at all.

Today I updated the scope’s firmware, and suddenly it started working. Here’s a photo.

As you can see, the scope is still a little confused about the date.

Now I can see well enough to shoot varmints. Unfortunately, the scope is zeroed for my .204 Ruger rifle at 100 yards, and I expect to be shooting at maybe 50. I have to take it out and shoot some close-up targets.

How do you shoot varmints if you can’t see them? That’s a great question. The scope has a small field of view, so there is pretty much no possibility that I will be able to spot game. I can put bait out and watch a small area, or I can get a different tool for spotting. I can find animals with the other tool and shoot them with the scope.

I think. I’m just guessing.

Night vision is the cheap way to shoot at night. The best way is thermal. A thermal scope will make any warm object light up, even if it’s behind leaves. If you take a thermal optic out in the woods at night, you will be able to see every animal around you a long way off, as long as the view isn’t completely blocked. You’ll even see birds in the trees, like little Christmas lights.

I’m thinking I should get a thermal monocular. When I spot critters, I can shove put the monocular down and use the scope.

I’m trying to get advice as to whether this is a good idea.

What if it works? Then I’ll use the night vision scope until I get tired of it, and I’ll upgrade to a thermal scope. I believe I’ll still need a monocular to find things, because monoculars have big fields of view.

After that, I should be able to hammer hogs at will, provided I can find them.

It’s annoying, buying a product from a company that doesn’t seem to care about whether it works, but as long as I accept the fact that it doesn’t do everything it’s supposed to, I should be able to have a lot of fun with the X-Sight. I will be very cautious about buying a thermal made by ATN, though. You only get to fool me once.