At last came the time to Zero it , I set up a white card with an inch black circle about Thirty yards away . The unit has a quick zero and the more traditional setting on it so once you shoot at the target you can move the cross to the point of impact and the next shot hopefully will be more or less smack on . I must say it was close and within five minutes I was near on pellet on pellet with it.
Now for the real test . I had settled on a spot to wait for some rabbits to come out , I wanted to try it all that way rather than me be clumsy and walk around trying to fiddle about with buttons and missing everything. It wasn't long before my first Rabbit presented itself , I turned the recorder on and lined up ready to take the shot . The sight picture was a little grainy but as I hadn't fine tuned the unit and I knew it would get better with practice . Seeing the rabbit like that at night though really impressed me and to be honest it was as easy as shooting a Rabbit in daylight . With my first kill confirmed on the recorder it was just a sit and wait job for the next one. I managed to get two more in the next hour before I decided to go for a walk round. This was a good move and within an hour I had fourteen in the bag . I had decided to go and and have a look at the footage in a quiet corner of the field and as predicted at the start I knew something would be messed up. I had taken the Jack plug out of the unit to sort something out before my walk , when I put the plug back in the recorder a Blonde moment passed over me and I had inserted it into the wrong hole so unfortunately I didn't record nothing more.
Over the next week I managed to bag a few more Rabbits with the unit and get some good shots on the recorder on the move , I will add that when you do walk round with it the weight does take its toll on your arms and I would advise a few breaks in between , especially when you have a few Rabbits in the Ruck sack that your carrying.
You can see some of the shots here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=murCr6fbg-E&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL
Now I was confident in the unit at night my latest trip was going to try and confirm what I was hoping, The makers claim you can use the unit in the daytime as well so this test was just to put my mind at rest. It was a warm sunny afternoon when I left the house . I thought I would have a walk around different parts of the ground with the unit off the rifle , I wanted to see what the sight picture was like when you come up against long and short grass and how easy you could identify the quarry amongst it .
My first sight of rabbits in the daytime came when I looked over a hedge into a quiet corner of the ground. It was great , I was seeing what looked like five black rabbits , you could see them very clear and to be honest you would have no problems what so ever shooting them . The next ones were also on short grass but I had to get down low and lie down to see them. This is where I found my first problem. The sun was shining nearly at me and as I was low down I was getting a lot of shine from the grass just in front of me . I backed of and worked my way round to some trees and this made it good again as the sun was blocked off and I got a great view of them in the unit. Next was the longer grass test. I had managed to spot one no more than twenty yards away . It was looking at me sanding up and I could just make out its head , Looking through the unit for it though took an age . It was very difficult to find him at first but luckily he raised its head a little more and a black head stood out amongst the grasses. I could have shot it but more often than not I think I would see the rabbit running off for taking so long to find it.
I decided to go out with the normal scope set up for a while until the sun went down enough for me to use the Pulsar more effectively . I put the unit in the ruck sack so I could change it in the field and save time with not going back to the car later.
My first shot of the day was at a Rabbit . It had presented itself on a nice clear path about thirty five yards in front . As I had some good tree cover it wasn't aware of my presence so I slowly got to one knee and lined the cross just above the normal aim point at the back of its eye. It was a formality and I sent the pellet right alongside the back of its head. “How could I miss that “I thought to myself , the Rabbit took a short hop to the front of some brambles but I couldn't see it properly so I left it just in case I had knocked the scope in the car. I know the zero was spot on when I left so I walked out to where the Rabbit was. I was amazed at how strong a breeze was blowing down the path it was sat on , no wonder it sailed passed it . Lesson learned and off for the next shot. I had seen on previous trips some good sniping spots where the rabbits were regular users , there was a lot of droppings in different places so I set up my ambush just behind a small bush. I had waited about half an hour when a nice plump rabbit started to head out of some trees . As it paused I could see a bad sign of myxi all over its face through the scope. I wasted no time on this one and sent a pellet to the back of its skull.
You need to shoot these as often as possible if you have myxi on your ground just to help reduce the spread of the disease. Nothing showed on the rest of the walk around that part of the ground so I decided to change the scope over for the walk back to the next part of the shoot.
This was a pretty straight forward procedure and took all of ten minutes. The scope and mounts were removed from the Rapid and a Weaver Rail is then put on via two screws. The Pulsar then just screws onto the rail in seconds. As I knew what part of the rail the Pulsar had been on previously it was more or less on zero and a very slight adjustment got me bang on. I headed off now to the part of the shoot that in previous times has restricted me with conventional Night vision Equipment . There are some buildings with bright lights shining towards this end of the ground and would of damaged to tubes in the units I have previously owned.
The Pulsar is Digital so I have no worries now of damage and I can now set up an ambush point where I know there are a few Rabbits . It was now getting to the point of the sun setting and the light was perfect for daytime shooting . There was no glare in the unit and it wasn't long before I had my first chance at a daytime Rabbit with the Pulsar . I was near to coming out from the long grass when I spotted a rabbit through the fence in the next field. It is nice short grass here and the rabbit stood out in the screen perfect . I knelt down to get a steady aim and put the dot of the reticule just at the back of its eye. It fell stone dead when the pellet struck and gave me great confidence in its units ability to shoot in the daytime with minimal sun shine .
I retrieved the Rabbit and headed towards my ambush point .
It was just turning to the point where the light was fading that I got my first shot . It was a ¾ grown rabbit by the way it fitted into the reticule I was lining the cross hair when it hopped to my left a little, as I tracked it the light of the buildings started to shine into the scopes lens. Although it did impede the shot some as I lost clarity a little I was still able to shoot it no problem . I managed two more from the same spot in the next half hour or so all with the light shining into the scope so the benefit of Digital Night Vision in these tricky situations is well worth the extra Pennies.
On my way back to base I did manage to get a couple more on Video .
So would I recommend the Pulsar Digi Sight ?. 'Definitely' , For just over £1000 for the full set up including the extra IR Unit it will definitely be my next buy when the good Wife lets me have my Bank Card back .The Pulsar Digi Sight is not Gen11+ or Gen 3 Quality but what I will say is you wont ever need to buy another set up again for Air rifle shooting.
With the added benefit of using the Pulsar in most daylight situations as well as night it can only add to the value of owning one .
Kit.
Theoben Rapid MK11 .177 http://www.theoben.co.uk/home.php
Pulsar Digi Sight http://www.bladesandbows.co.uk/
Weaver Rail conversion kit http://www.drbobsgunbits.com
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