Night Is Day with the Pulsar Trail XP50 Thermal Scope

Following last weekend’s NRA Annual Meetings, Breitbart News had the chance to hunt wild pigs in Texas using a Pulsar Trail XP50 thermal scope.

The scope was on display at the Pulsar’s booth at NRA Annual Meetings, and we held it and looked through it in bright light. We could clearly see heat signatures as one of the company’s employees explained how well the scope worked, day or night.

The next afternoon we were outside Waxahachie, Texas, with numerous .308 rifles outfitted with the Trail XP50 thermal rifle scope. Our plan was simple — dinner at Three Curl Outfitters’ lodge, an hour at the range, and then a night of hunting wild pigs.

We were at the range near dusk, and the scope’s performance in that low light was impressive. Then came the dark of the night, and the scope’s performance was next-level.

Creatures emitting a heat signature showed up very black in the scope, while the rest of the landscape showed up in various shades of light gray and white. There was no problem ascertaining that which emitted heat and that which did not. Moreover, creatures emitting heat showed up in great detail. You could see the wild pigs clearly, silhouetted in black, just as you could clearly see the other animals that were moving through the fields that night.

Perhaps the best way to understand the clarity and detail of the XP50 image is to see a photo we took through some Pulsar thermal binoculars. It is the same technology, simply used in a binocular instead of the scope.

The following photo is of our guide walking back to the truck from a tree line. The photo was taken in the dark of night:

View this post on Instagram

This is @pulsarnightvision thermal binocular technology (gives you an idea of how their thermal rifle scopes work). I used the binoculars to take this pic of our guide, @threecurlstephen, walking to the truck from the tree line in the dark of night. @wearebreitbart @three_curl_outfitters @georgia_carry @sightmark #pighunting #pighunt #thermalscope

A post shared by AWR Hawkins (@awr_hawkins) on May 9, 2018 at 3:18pm PDT

Our first impression of the Trail XP50 thermal scope was amazement. The scope literally turns night into day and then goes a step further by identifying heat signatures.

The pig hunt was successful, to say the least:

View this post on Instagram

These are all the pigs we stacked up last night. I literally cannot say enough about the @pulsarnightvision Trail XP50 LRF Thermal Scope on that rifle. Incredible. @sightmark @conway_haynes @gunsandammomag @wearebreitbart @thenssf #pighunting #pighunt

A post shared by AWR Hawkins (@awr_hawkins) on May 8, 2018 at 3:15pm PDT

The Trail XP50 LRF thermal scope differs from the base XP50 in that it has a built-in rangefinder. That scope was also used at the range and during the hunt near Waxahachie.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.