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Four of the best Pulsar Kit

Four of the best Pulsar Kit

Shooters have never had a wider choice of thermal and night-vision products and brands. All have their merits, but none yet offer the 360º polish and performance of marketleaders Pulsar. Commenting on this to the editor the other day, he replied: “why don’t you round up some of your favourites and write about them?” So here we are.

Top picks

I’ve chosen three top-of-the-line thermal devices: the Accolade 2 XP50 Pro LRF biocular, the Helion 2 XP50 Pro monocular and the Krypton FXG XP50 front-mounted add-on (a.k.a. “clip-on”), as well as the Krypton’s much more affordable digital NV counterpart; the F455 clip-on.

Background

On my own forays, I use a “basic” Helion XQ19F for spotting and a Krypton for shooting. I took a deep breath before shelling out for the latter, but have no regrets, as the Krypton’s versatility and performance are currently as good as it gets. By contrast, the Helion XQ19F was the first and cheapest Helion model ever released, so my gear spans two extremes.

It also exemplifies two personal beliefs: firstly, you can get by very well with a fairly basic thermal spotter (especially one that benefits from Pulsar’s “Image Detail Boost” algorithm) and secondly, ethical hunting with a thermal sight calls for all the investment you can muster to ensure consistently accurate shot placement and humane kills. This is why I’ve included the F455 digital NV clip-on here. If you can’t afford to buy a high-spec thermal riflescope, you’ll have better success with good digital than with low or mid-priced thermal.

Regarding thermal spotters, if you just want to pick up heat sources and locate them in the landscape, basic will do. It will also do if you can call on a good knowledge of the local wildlife and plenty of experience observing it in the thermal spectrum. But if you need to make confident identifications at long range, to watch animals intently or to spend many hours with a device as part of your professional activities, a more substantial investment is called for. Equally, if money isn’t tight, spend it, and enjoy great images!

Accolade 2 XP50 LRF

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A true no-compromise thermal observation device, the Accolade 2 has a single 50mm germanium glass lens up front, but relays the processed image to separate displays in each eyepiece. This means your visual cortex gets simultaneous matching images from each eye and can dedicate itself entirely to their interpretation. The result is a viewing experience that is notably less fatiguing, more natural and more immersive than with conventional monoculars. You feel part of the scene you are observing, improving your ability to situate heat sources in the landscape and to re-acquire them quickly when switching to your riflescope.

The Accolade is also compact, light, and easy to control using an intuitive cruciform array of 4 top-mounted buttons: rangefinder/scroll-up at 12 o’clock; stills/video/pause at 3 o’clock; zoom/modes/scroll-down at 6 o’clock and power/calibrate at 9 o’clock; with the menu/enter button at the centre.

The buttons fall naturally to your fingers with a 2-handed hold but are easily reached from either side, permitting one-handed use also.

The focusing dial is handily located between the eye-cups, which is separately adjustable to focus each screen and can be moved laterally to match the interpupillary distance of the user’s eyes, for a truly personal fit.

Power comes from a flushmounting, high-capacity, quickdetachable B-pack battery that can be recharged in situ or via the supplied charging dock, and easily swapped out by feel in the pitch black. Pulsar uses this format in their Helion, Krypton, Forward and Digisight lines, too.

A further benefit of the Accolade is its built-in 1,000m laser rangefinder. Judging distance with thermal takes practice, so the rangefinder isn’t just a valuable substitute for visual estimation but also a great way to train your judgement by first guessing the distance, then lasing for confirmation.

Helion 2 XP50 Pro

If you won’t spend long periods behind your thermal, if you can live without a built-in rangefinder, or if your pockets simply aren’t deep enough for an Accolade, then the Helion 2 XP50 Pro runs it a surprisingly close second, despite the £1,250 price difference. Both units use the same 640x480 @ 17 μm (NETD <25 mK) sensor, but the Helion’s F50/1.0 lens benefits from a newer and more efficient design, and its single 1024x768 AMOLED HD is arguably more than a match for the Accolade’s dual 640x480 AMOLED screens. The result is - to my eye - the best image in the Pulsar line-up, albeit without the Accolade’s immersive quality. Physically, the unit is well-balanced, with the five control buttons in a line along the top, image focus behind the objective lens, and dioptre adjustment at the eye-piece. Provision for the supplied hand-strap may suit righthanders, but I prefer to use a neck strap such as the one recently introduced as an optional extra by Pulsar. Both the Accolade and Helion also feature the same well-designed, flat-folding, hinged lens cover.

Krypton FXG50

Pulsar calls the FXG50 a “front attachment/monocular”, and you can buy it complete with a plug-in 5x30 B optical day monocular, or add one later as an optional accessory. The 5x30 B has good glass, making it a handy daylight device in its own right, but the x5 rating is inevitably a compromise. It’s arguably too low for a minitelescope and too high to get the best from the Krypton’s screen, which it can’t show in full. The 5x30 is much better than nothing and is super-easy to fit and remove, but I’d rather see a dedicated x2.5 unit. The primary use of the Krypton, of course, is as a clip-on device that can convert any day scope into a thermal sight in seconds, conserving all the day scope’s assets (familiar head position and reticle, confirmed zero, and standard adjustment values) while adding the sharpest thermal image available. Mounting is via an annular PSP adapter attached to the thermal unit and mated to the day scope using one of a set of Delrin bushings. Three different adapter/bushing sets are available, accommodating all scopes with objective outside diameters from 45.5mm to 65.5mm. Just slide the correct-size adapter over your objective lens, lock it in place with the cam lever, and you’re ready to shoot. Most importantly, this produces no zero-shift, at least none I have been able to measure. The Krypton itself has a spectacular specification comprising a 640x480 sensor with pin-sharp 12μm pixels feeding a 1,746 x 1,000 AMOLED HD display and giving a quoted maximum detection range of 2,300m (vs. 1,800 for the Accolade and Helion). Control is via a top-mounted focusing dial and cruciform 4-button array. Also supplied is a handy Bluetooth remote that lets you operate the device while keeping your hands on your rifle. The trusty B-pack locks into the left side, and on the right, above the USB port, the heat-sink sports an inexplicable Picatinny rail. Performance is best between x1.5 and x4.5, though you could go as high as x8. Because thermal targets are so distinct, however, low magnification is ample and I run my Krypton at the base setting of my x3-x15 and x4-x16 scopes.

Forward F455

The Krypton shares its layout, 1,746 x 1,000 AMOLED HD display and compatibility with the 5x30 B with the F455 digital NV clip-on. A shooting buddy liked my test sample so much he bought one, and he reports the same absence of zero shift I’ve experienced with the Krypton. Imaging aside, the main differences lie in the adapter arrangement, in which the adapter remains clamped to the day scope, with the digital device attaching to it via a bayonet fitting; and in the presence of a covert 940nm IR LED illuminator. This has three brightness settings but is nonfocusable and non-zeroable. Fortunately, Pulsar made it detachable, providing that Picatinny rail for mounting an aftermarket unit. My friend bought a compact 940nm Night Master NM1 CL and an adjustable mount and is very happy with the result. He also uses Pulsar’s well-priced Axion XM30S thermal spotter to good effect.

Conclusion

All my picks also feature onboard recording, USB connectivity for charging and data-sharing, WiFi connectivity with Pulsar’s Stream Vision smartphone app, access to regular firmware upgrades, enough memory for thousands of stills or over 8 hours of video, and robust warranty support from longstanding distributor Thomas Jacks. They’re expensive, sure, but by no means over-priced, so, if the pandemic saved you a chunk of cash on holidays, fuel and nights out, maybe now’s the time to treat yourself!
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gun
features

  • Model : Accolade 2 XP50 Pro LRF Helion 2 XP50 Pro Krypton FXG XP50 Forward F455
  • Device type: Thermal biocular Thermal monocular Thermal clip-on Digital clip-on
  • Lens: F50/1.2 F50/1.0 F50/1.2 F50/1.0
  • Display: 640x480 AMOLED 1024x768 AMOLED 1746x1000 AMOLED 1746x1000 AMOLED
  • Sensor: 640x480 17μm <25mK 640x480 17μm <25mK 640x480 12 μm <50mK CMOS HD 1280x720
  • Magnification: 2.5 − 20 (x8 zoom) 2.5 − 20 (x8 zoom) x1 (host x1.5–x6) x1 (host x2– x8)
  • Price: £4,649.95 £3,399.95 £3,999.95 £1,199.95
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