Thermal Scopes: Good, Better, and Best

So, you want to buy a thermal scope for hunting, but you don’t know where to start. We’re going to make it easy on you by picking our three top recommendations at three price and performance tiers. Those picks are based on our thermal scope test where a team of professional optics testers, predator hunting competitors, and new thermal users evaluated night optics while coyote hunting. We also sent hundreds of 22 Creedmoor rounds down range while testing the scopes at the range.

The Good category is an entry-level thermal that will allow you to see animal at night, but is best used under 100 yards. The Better category has some top-tier features and good performance, but at a middle of the road price. The Best category is a money-is-no-object scope with elite field performance.

This is one of the best bargains in the thermal market, and is fully capable of getting you on coyotes and pigs out to near 200 yards. It will easily capture video and photos and transmit them to your phone. It comes with a solid rail mount. It’s easy to operate. And it gives hunters an opportunity to dip their toe in the thermal category without taking out a second mortgage.

If you want a bit more resolution, consider Athlon’s Cronus ATS Pro 35P-400, with a 400×300-pixel core. That unit will cost you about $1,500; in our view the increased performance doesn’t quite justify the up charge.

The 25P-250 Cronus isn’t racing for the bottom. Its one-button and rotary selector operating system is fast and intuitive. Double-tap the power button to reveal the menu, use a rotary collar inside the eyepiece to navigate its options, then hit the power button to make selections. The scope has 10 selectable reticles, five based on MOA and five based on MIL dimensions adjustments, and seven color palettes. While the Athlon doesn’t exactly have a ballistic calculator, it does have the ability to customize reticles to various holdover values at specific distances.

Athlon’s mobile app is a little clunky — among its other shortcomings, it only works in horizontal mode — but the photo and video transfer is easy.

The single-point rail mount is decent, and makes for fast mounting, but it’s not a precision attachment. We also had fits keeping the battery cap attached. That’s a small quibble, but a meaningful shortcoming since it reduces operating time. And we worried that the plasticky build might not be up to the sort of bump-and-grind abuse thermal hunters routinely demonstrate.

But those are speculative fears. What we determined in testing is that this is a thermal that’s absolutely worth the money. — Andrew McKean, optics editor

You have to use this handy, versatile, and priced-right thermal to fully appreciate its abundant talents. It’s a hand-held monocular, configured for decent mid-range scanning. But it can snap onto a mount in seconds, with the aid of a magnet for indexing, and the SLIM becomes a capable rifle sight. We tested this function for return to zero and it was right on after removing it and putting it back on. 

Nocpix Slim Return to Zero Test

This dual-use unit is the answer to those hunters who recognize that, in order to be in the hog- and predator-hunting game, you need both a thermal viewer and a thermal scope. But who has the budget to afford both? This single unit might not be the ideal of either platform, but it’s good enough at both that budget-minded hunters should seriously consider it. In fact, it was a close second to the Athlon Cronus ATS Pro 25P-250 for our Great Buy award.

Its 640-class sensor is pretty good for hog hunting inside 250 yards, but it’s not sharp enough for the long-range shooting that characterizes most nighttime coyote hunting. Second, the quick-release Pic rail mounting interface is fast, for sure, and it’s pretty precise, but it’s not a system that will warm the hearts of long-range precision shooters. Nocpix claims a 1 MOA deviation in return to zero between the transition from viewer to scope, and that’s about right. That +/- is right in line with the expectations of most hog hunters.

I tested the value proposition of the viewer-to-scope capability, and timed the transition. I used the SLIM H35 as a hand-held viewer, identified a steel coyote-sized target at 200 yards, slapped the Nocpix on my 22 Creedmoor, cinched it down, reacquired the target, and then made a first-shot hit all within 13 seconds. I recorded no point-of-impact shift.

We liked the fact that the SLIM uses standard flat-top 18650 batteries, has a smart magnetic charging port for quick power-ups, and has recoil-activated filming.

In short, this isn’t a full-featured scope or viewer. But it’s not intended to be. Instead, it’s intended to be a one-and-done do-it-all thermal that can capably transition from a viewer to a rifle sight. — Andrew McKean, optics editor

Honorable Mention: Nocpix Ace L35

We tested the powerful Nocpix Ace S60R at our thermal optics test and it was a truly impressive scope. What we enjoyed the most about the Ace was how intuitive the controls were and the easy-to-operate app. The S60R costs $8,000. But, you can get it in a lower resolution model with the same great form factor for around $3,100. It’s certainly an option worth considering in this mid-price range.

AGM Adder Hog Hunting

The future of thermal hunting is here, and it’s gonna cost you. The new 1280-class Adder V2-60 from AGM Global is bright, clear, sensitive, and fully capable of making range-adjusted nighttime shots out to 1,000 yards. The price for that performance? An eye-watering $7,700.

The V2-60 is the closest I’ve come to a thermal scope that delivers an image that’s in the same galaxy as that of a traditional scope. It achieves that performance with a souped-up 1280×1024 sensor, one of the most powerful in the class, and a high-resolution 2560×2560 digital display that is crisp and contrasty. But it’s AGM’s software that fuses these components into an almost pleasing image.

Add a blazing-fast 1,000-meter through-the-lens laser rangefinder, cold-and-warm viewing modes that reduce eye strain, an on-board ballistic calculator that displays distance-adjusted holdover, and a 9-hour run time, all packed in a fairly trim 30mm aluminum tube.

But there’s more. Two features of the Adder that may get lost in its specs include a ½-power magnification step. Most thermals have what’s called “step zoom,” in which the magnification doubles with every tap of the button. Those big steps can create large gaps in the zoom range, but the Adder’s incremental zoom creates a much more usable magnification range. Second, that 1-inch hyper-sharp display is slightly rounded, giving users the visual perception of looking through a traditional scope.

The AGM had hot competition from Nocpix’s new 1280-class ACE S60R scope and Pulsar’s Thermion 2 XL50. On paper, the Nocpix has the more impressive array of features. But here’s where the power of image-enhancing software tips the scales. In head-to-head-to-head comparisons, testers unanimously noted that the Adder had the clearest and least eye-straining image. That’s a squishy but important consideration for thermal users who might be behind their scopes for hours at a time. — Andrew McKean, optics editor