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Military Firearm Restoration Corner

Thermal scope vs. emergency blanket


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In the first one or the part 2 one?  In the first one, it was a thermal hand held "scope."  Not a rifle scope, but the same thing, just no cross hairs.  I've actually been thinking about getting a thermal rifle scope.  In the second part, it looked to be military grade stuff, with FLIR, or Forward Looking Infra Red, with thermal stuff.  I'm not real familiar with the technology, but apparently it does more than just read the ambient thermal like the first one does.  That FLIR one appeared to also fuse in some ambient light or other reflections and it is interesting that it was defeated with a non-reflective outside layer and a heat reflective inside layer.

 

Interestingly enough, in the Waco siege, the feds had a FLIR system on a helicopter flying overhead and recording it at the end.  The first generation tapes "vanished."  A guy was analyzing a 2nd generation copy and coming up with some very interesting conclusions when he suddenly died of a heart attack, at like age 35 or something.

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Here is a basic thermal imaging hand held:

https://www.sportsmansguide.com/product/index/agm-asp-micro-tm-160-thermal-monocular?a=2252997

That's about as cheap as it gets.  For these things, the real comparison is in the imaging sensor, and this one is 160x120 pixels.  The better rifle scopes today are 384x288, with a 320x240 also out there.

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Yeah, and I'm afraid it will never come back either.  For night vision, about 25 years ago, I thought up the product idea of a rifle scope that used the then current relatively inexpensive low light cameras.  A digital low light rifle scope.  Never went with the idea.  Now that's about all you can get for a "night vision" scope that is somewhat reasonably priced.  By that, I mean $3-400 range for an entry grade, and I think they are actually pretty usable, much better than a $3-400 true image intensifier tube night scope, which is usable with an IR illuminator at closer ranges, but that's about it.  I have one of those, a first gen Russian model I bought years ago from Harbor Freight, of all places.  With the IR light on, it is pretty handy for capping coons at night. If you can chase them up the tree instead of down and away, they will wait up there behind the trunk, then cautiously peek around the trunk to see if you're watching.  With the illuminator, their red reflexes light up light 2 flashlights.  POW.  No more coon.

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