Best Thermal Scopes for Coyote Hunting

Hunting is an exciting, challenging, and rewarding sport that millions of people enjoy every year.

Each hunt is unique, presenting its own challenges, forcing you to learn, adapt, and overcome them constantly, helping your skill as a hunter grow.

Yet, some animals require a more advanced skill set, and one of the most popular of these are coyotes.

With their natural camouflage, stealth, and speed, coyotes can be a hard hunt during the daylight even with excellent visibility. Adding in the fact that they are nocturnal so you will most likely need to plan and navigate all their natural advantages in the dark, can make it difficult to have a successful hunt without some advantages of your own.

One of the best ways to give yourself that needed edge is by having an excellent thermal scope that will allow you to easily spot a coyote at night, no matter how well they may be blending into the brush.

Here are some of our top thermal scopes to keep you shooting all night long.

Pulsar Core RXQ30V 1.6-6.4×22 Thermal Riflescope

Thermal scopes, as a rule, tend to be one of the more pricier hunting accessories, which is why the Pulsar Core RXQ30V is so fantastic. The Pulsar Core offers high performance at a very competitive price point.

The thermal scope offers 1.6x optical magnification, so images are crisp at clear at the base level of magnification.

Once you go beyond the base level, the magnification becomes digital. Knowing that could be an issue, Pulsar made sure to have excellent 384×288 resolution to maintain image quality even at higher magnification levels, allowing you to hold your aim with ease.

The Core has a green digital sapphire screen, which is known to reduce the issue of eye strain that is a common complaint to those who use thermal scopes frequently and is also completely waterproof as long as the battery pack is in place.

Heat signatures can be detected at up to 900 meters, and the Core has a quick detach mount, so it can easily be transferred from one rifle to another.

The only con we found with the Core is that it does tend to burn through batteries fairly quickly, so we do recommend having some spares on hand.

Armasight by FLIR 336 2-8x25mm Predator Thermal Imaging Rifle Scope

It comes as no surprise that the Armasight made its way on to our list since it is built with the FLIR Predator, which is currently one of the best thermal cameras on the market.

Similarly to the Core, the base 2x magnification is optical, with magnifications higher being digital.

Striving to reduce pixilation at increased magnification, the Armasight has both a display resolution of 640×840 and a pixel array resolution of 336×256, giving you excellent clarity when zeroing in on your target.

Knowing that customizing your scope can give you an extra boost, this thermal sight offers six color modes, 3 of which are variable so you can pick the thermal scope mode that allows you to spot coyotes efficiently with minimal eye strain.

Additionally, there are six reticle patterns with four different color options to give you a variety of aiming options to choose from.

ATN ThOR-HD 640 1-10x Thermal Sight

The ATN ThOR is one of the more expensive thermal scopes available, but it has a bevy of unique features not seen in many of its counterparts.

The ThOR has impressive onboard video capabilities that can record HD videos and take HD pictures, allowing you to review them later on a computer or tablet.

Since trying to start recording a video and aim simultaneously is not ideal, the ThOR also has an option to have recoil activated video.

Have someone that wishes they were hunting with you, but couldn’t make it? Well, then all you need to do is stream your hunt as you go; all you need is a wifi hotspot.

This thermal scope also has both a built-in rangefinder and ballistics calculators, which are excellent for getting perfect aim in the dark.

The magnification is 1-10x, and all magnification is digital as opposed to optical. To make sure you still have a crisp picture even at higher magnification, the ThOR has a 640×840 resolution.

Under normal circumstances, one might assume that all this fantastic technology means that there is a risk of your battery depleting while out in the field.

Still, the external battery pack nips that issue in the bud by promising enough juice for up to 22 hours of continuous use before it dies.

Overall, this is an excellent choice for those seeking awesome videos of their hunts and a pretty darn good thermal scope.

However, there are a few issues, such as the weight of the scope and the steep price point.

Pulsar Trail XQ502.7-10.48×42

The Pulsar Trail is the highest priced thermal scope to make our list, but Pulsar took their time to make sure the Trail was well worth the money.

It offers optical magnification at up to 2.7x and digital magnification up to 10x.

The thermal sensor has a resolution of 348×288 and will keep any coyotes in your sights image crisp and clear, even when the magnification is maxed out.

Wanting to give you every advantage possible, the Trail also has an amazing heat sensor that can home in on a coyote at up to 1470 yards.

Offering an impressive 13 electronic reticles, they make it easy to take full advantage of the long-range capabilities and snipe a coyote from a distance with ease.

The Trail is also made for simple swaps between rifles, allowing you to save up to 3 rifle profiles and five different zeroes saving time and energy, particularly if you are hot swapping your rifles.

The Trail has an integrated rangefinder to help achieve pinpoint accuracy and onboard video recording and streaming that can be activated via a multi-use remote and saved onto internal memory so it can be viewed later.

The only minor con we could find for the Trail is that since it is stadiometric and therefore, estimates range based on object size, it is not accurate as a laser range finder.