My decisive review of the benchmark thermal scope, Pulsar’s Thermion 2 XQ50, featuring extensive video footage from my own XQ50, comparison with the XP50, my definitive target solution for zeroing any thermal scope, and some tips on other key settings:

In southern England where I made this video, like much of the USA and Canada within the same latitude band (45N-55N), the amount of daylight ranges from just over 8 hours of useful daylight on the winter solstice up to almost 17 hours of good daylight at the summer solstice. We spend more hours in darkness than in sunlight. A glass scope is only useful between about an hour before sunrise to about an hour after sunset. In the winter, glass scope shooting is finished by 5pm, but night-vision shooting is just getting started. With a thermal scope, you can shoot whenever you want. If you get home from work at 7pm on a December day, even if the sun set 2 hours ago, you can still go out shooting with night vision. But for hunters, thermal vision is much more than just being able to see in the dark — because it vividly highlights the animals the hunter is looking for.

UK daylight hours (e.g. in London with latitude 51.4934° N)
UK daylight hours (e.g. in London, latitude 51.4934° N)

My loadout in this video:

Thermion 2 X!50 ballistics/zeroing chart for M&P 15-22 with the above setup:

Range (m)XY
50 (Zero)-00.25-03.50
100-00.25-18.75
150-00.25-44.75
200-00.25-154.75
250-00.25-451.00

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