Contractor Thermal Imaging Sight

This thing is amazing. I'm new to thermal so I have no prior experience or knowledge of other optics to compare it to. I did, however, do a lot of research before making this purchase. I saw tons of Chinese options out there, but wanted to do business with a reputable American company. Armasight was highly recommended, and boy am I glad I chose this one. It has good imagery, and the thermal is amazing. I haven't made any kills yet, but come next hunting season I plan to put it into action. Very simple and ergonomic. I love this optic!!

1) picked up package. something was loose inside box. it turns out the box the scope was in... was in another box..no foam padding for the thermal ( one piece of bubble..) and loose ..to take a beating in the bigger box.2) I bought a $40 red dot that came in a foam padded case...but a $3k thermal is ok to bounce around????I will test it out in a few days..but first impression has me a little concerned ...

Since Amazon deleted my very long, very thorough review of this scope due to not meeting their community guidelines, all I have to say now is that it's great. 5-stars.

It's top of the line. Had an issue with shutdown but I removed batteries and it started back up fine. Does all it's described to do. Neato.

So I only got to use this on a 5.56 for a few hours at night on a hog sweep. So my experience is relatively limited.The only real down side is the battery life, they say 4 hours but its more like 3. So spares are a must if you take this out hunting.Now a plus or minus depending on how you look at it, it's noticeablely heavier than other thermal scopes with a 12 micron sensor.The quality of the picture is fantastic and it doesn't start looking pixilated until the highest zoom setting. At 500 yards, you can tell the difference between a coyote and your dog, provided you know your dog's print well. A hog versus dog is fairly out to almost 900 yards. Most importantly you can identify a person versus 4 legged animal instantly. You can tell this is a high quality scope with high quality parts just by holding it, and is something I would almost expect an NGO contractor to have in the mountains of Afghanistan.I wish I had more time with it to give a good review, as I would put it at top shelf Pulsar thermals, but I don't know how well it holds up on heavier round (.300 WM or .338 Lapua) or in poor weather conditions.I wouldn't be surprised that in perfect conditions you could see a person at 1000 yards hiding under a blanket or in a trash can just from the heat their body is putting off. It feels almost as good as the ones police helicopters have, both with zooming and scanning.It is expensive though and why I only got to try it for a few hours, and not own.