WT1 75-3 Thermal rifle scope on the .22 Hornet...Perfection.

[CliveWard]

Hi All,

 

I've been at this a while now, with most of my shooting in the past 27 years being done at night, the last 14 years with night vision of some sort and the last 2 with a thermal rifle scope.

 

I think for now I have settled on night hunting perfection...

 

 

The Weihrauch HW66 in .22 Hornet has always been my favourite rifle for mounting a dedicated night vision rifle scope to. I've adapted it further by shortening the barrel to provide around 13" or rifling and fitting a Kydex cheek piece to get the fit and cheek weld 'perfect'. It's very stable, ergonomic and compact for walking or shooting from a vehicle.

 

The trigger is absolutely fantastic and a very light 2 stage match type and the .22 Hornet has plenty of power for sensible range night time foxes and more than enough for long range bunnies.

 

Our new WT1 75-3 thermal scope mounts nice and low onto the rifle and provides an outstanding image. The 6x native magnification with the ability to boost it up to 12 and 24x is the deal clincher. I've used other far more expensive thermal rifle scopes with almost identical system resolution but lower optical magnification and I have to say that optical magnification is the key for the sort of longer range shooting we do in the UK.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-PfChhTcMI

 

Here's a bit of video I recorded last night while we were out shooting. The view through the eyepiece is considerably better and more 'contrasty'. Setting the gain/contrast carefully gives a completely smooth, noise free image with excellent temperature variations in the target animals. It also has the ability to punch up the gain a bit to see through fog, identify your target and also define the backdrop properly.

 

In terms of clarity, species can be 100% identified at distances far far further than I would want to shoot at.

 

So for now I'm satisfied.

 

 

Cheers

 

 

 

 

 

Clive

[trucraft]

That's a very nice little set up.

Beautiful stock on that rifle too.