I Finally Got A Taipan!!! 😜

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N2 Shooter

N2 Shooter

Member
Oct 14, 2018
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Youngstown,OH, United States
So, I've been meaning to get a Thermal Monocle for some time, but I was going back and forth on features vs. price. Having an ATN THoR 4 384 scope already, I was hesitant to go lower in the resolution department, but I also didn't want to spend almost the same price as a thermal scope. After much thought, I pulled the trigger on the AGM Taipan.
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This probably wasn't the Taipan you were all thinking of. 😄 But it's a great Taipan nonetheless!

It was the same price as an ATN OTS XLT 2-8x, it's is lighter and higher resolution (256x192 vs 160x120), but its half the optical zoom as the ATN (10mm vs 19mm), less detection range (670 yards vs 460 yards), and less battery life (8 hours vs 10 hours), and it doesn't have as nice of a housing (to me anyway).

Although that list of cons seems to be kinda long for the AGM, I much rather have the higher resolution than anything else.
 
@WorriedMan I got this specifically so I can find squirrels in the tree. On public lands, these bastards are so well hidden, I can hear a ton of them barking, but with a fair amount of leaves still on the trees, I'm having one hell of a time seeing them.

@Ezana4CE I know you were talking about getting one to help you out with coyote hunting, and it should really come in handy if I ever decide to give a night shoot on public lands a go. I'm just not as brave as you are!
 
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@N2 Shooter The barkers are still a challenge for me because they get tough to range by sound in certain environments. Often times they sound farther away than they actually are. If you are able to locate them in trees full of folliage with that unit I’m interested.

On the one hand I feel like I’m cheating using something that can detect them easily in dense foliage. On the other hand I’d like to be able to observe their behavior of windy days or days when I can hear a lot of activity but can’t quite see much. Some months ago another member tried to talk me into getting a higher resolution thermal unit to use to locate squirrels, but I remain reluctant to the use of these units because I believe that using them conflicts with sporting aspect of the hunt for me.

How do you like it so far?
 
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Ezana4CE said:
@N2 Shooter The barkers are still a challenge for me because they get tough to range by sound in certain environments. Often times they sound farther away than they actually are. If you are able to locate them in trees full of folliage with that unit I’m interested.

On the one hand I feel like I’m cheating using something that can detect them easily in dense foliage. On the other hand I’d like to be able to observe their behavior of windy days or days when I can hear a lot of activity but can’t quite see much. Some months ago another member tried to talk me into getting a higher resolution thermal unit to use to locate squirrels, but I remain reluctant to the use of these units because I believe that using them conflicts with sporting aspect of the hunt for me.

How do you like it so far?
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I don't have the unit yet, but it will get here tomorrow.

I hope I can get out and give it a try during the week, as next weekend is Youth Small Game only, and I can't hunt. I found that out the hard way this past weekend!
 
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JungleShooter said:
Subscribed. 😊

In the hope of video footage of actual shots on small game. 👍🏼

Matthias
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I totally forgot to send you some avian thermal shots!

Here is a daytime shot I did on a Starling with the THoR 4 384 1.25-5x in White Hot mode. I was at the extended magnification of 10x so this video quality is pretty bad. You can see I literally blew the head off!!!


If I can get a torque wrench to set my QD mounts correctly, I'll put my thermal scope on The Maverick and take it out for squirrel hunting one day. I just hate to take my ATN X-Sight 4K scope off, as it's been so damn accurate.

Here is a massive murder of crows gathered at dusk, and captured with the ATN THoR 4 scope:

 
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So I got my unit, and buyers remorse immediately set in.

First of all, the unit was not new. This was evident by the opened packaging on the USB charger and the full charge on the monocle. Sounds to me like they new this was going to be a thought, because there is this big NEW sticker right on the darn box. But then there is this big massive splattering of some sort of adhesive stuck to the side, and this cost too much money to accept.

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Then there are some functional issues. The Taipan has a 10mm lens compared to the ATN OTS-XLT 160-2-8X, which has a 19mm lens. So when you boost the Taipan to 2x you half the base resolution, and you get 128 pixels, which is less than the ATN's 160 default zoom, and it shows.

But I'd be willing to accept this, as the unit also has Wi-Fi and you can hook a monitor up to it over USB. But the deal breaker for me is the front lens is fixed. I was certain from the photos that the front lens was focusable, but that is not the case, and this affects sharpness a fair bit, as it depends on the distance of the subject to you.

In this short video, you can see these two subjects in the street about 60 yards away. At first, I thought they may be cats, but even under such low lighting, I could see that these were two raccoons. This would have been easy pickings for my THoR 4 384 scope, and I had to reel my expectations back in, as the purpose of these are to let you know that something is there more than letting you know exactly what that something is.

 
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Ezana4CE said:
@N2 Shooter That sucks. The video doesn’t look too much different than the picture quality of an entry level unit. That’s a small animal to try to identify at 60 yards. Your video tells the tale. I appreciate your candor.
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Well.....

For my intended purpose, I decided to keep it! 😄😄😄

I wanted something to tell me if there was something out there. I didn't have to necessarily know exactly what it was, as I would take care of that with my mounted rifle scope.

I was gonna post this to the hunting forum, but might as well give a preview about a quick hunt I did this past Friday:

My workday finished unexpectedly early, and I decided to get camo'd up grab my gear and go. I arrived at public lands just after 5pm, and had a big fat fox squirrel in the bag 15 minutes later with the help of the Taipan!

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After I walked approximately 225 yards to get from my SUV to the tree line, I popped out the Taipan and glanced around. Right away I saw something rather close to me (10-15 yards at best) but for the love of God, I could not see it with my naked eye! After about 30 seconds, it bolt across the forest floor, and that's when I saw it was a chipmunk 🐿.
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I walked another 40 yards and gave another scan at 1X zoom, and the ultrawide display caught something about 50 yards out, and quickly after, I could see that big bushy tail of a squirrel, and she had no idea I was there.

I set the Taipan down on the forest floor and shouldered the Maverick and got a range through X-Sight 4K Pro, and I placed a Hybrid Slug in its head.

Shortly after, another squirrel started barking to my left, I tried to locate him and traveled 20 yards to find him, to no avail.

So I went to recover the squirrel but I couldn't locate him! I thought I might have took a bad shot with her being on the run. So I grabbed the Taipan and started looking around, and six trees over, there she was!

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I had to recalibrate my expectations, which admittedly were higher than they should have been given this price point. It didn't help that my first thermal experiences was with a 384 pixel scope with adjustable front focus. Nevertheless, not many purchases give such a quick return on investment.
 
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