Pulsar APEX XD50 field report

You could very easily have a bad battery in the bunch. I've gotten several of the chinese batteries and often find one that just won't hold a charge. I meter all of mine to check them now. One bad battery is like a bad apple in the barrel, pulls the rest down fast. China products do not seem to enjoy good quality control program, unless they consider the customer the quality check point. I understand that the scope or the charge pack comes with a dual cable. One part of the cable serves a dvr and the other the battery pack. I'll let you know what I get with mine.
 
I got my xd50a today from Predator Hunters Outdoors. Paul was great to deal with and sold me a really nice scope. It met every expectation except one. I expected to have a lot of adjustment sighting it in. I did not. First time I had shot anything through this upper and I was in the 10 ring for both shots. I adjusted x 2 points and I was zeroed. The scope has good contrast and excellent focus. I don't believe I'll have any issue seeing coyotes with this scope. I am really impressed with it. I sighted it in on a hot nut. I took a 1/4 20 nut ran a wood screw through it, heated the nut with a torch and poked the screw into the target. It gave me an instant hot target that stayed hot for a good bit. Worked fine till I shot away the nut. I've never had a rifle and scope combination that matched up so well. Always have had to shim, or adjust a lot. This is the first upper that I had from Daytona tactical and it proved to be a really high quality unit. I am one happy camper with this outfit.
 
David glad to hear your happy! They have always been a great company to deal with And Pulsar has done a great job with the Apex line.
 
I had really good fortune with Pulsar with their digital scopes, so I was expecting similar quality with their thermal and got it. Now I wish I had their HD38A for spotting. Somehow the old PS32 seems less than adequate after using that XD50A thermal scope. I will be looking for that tailbone, ha! Just before I shoot the other end. Went hunting last night, didn't see anything but several deer and one skunk which died.
 
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I wish I could try one out. It would be great to see first hand how good they are. If they are as good relative to the video links as the XD50A is then there is no question about the HD38A being superior to the FLIR PS32. Wonder why FLIR hasn't been keeping pace with the competition. Are they focused too much on military contracts or some such? They started out strong in the civilian market and then kinda stalled out. I'm getting off track on the XD50 thread. Sorry about that. Sometimes, not often, I wish I had a video recorder so I could show how good this XD50A is. It has a lot of options to play with, but once you have it setup the way you want it, it is quite simple to use. I will probably spend more of my time hunting than I had been just because it's so much fun to use. Like a kid with a new toy I reckon. Pulsar sure did well with this product.
 
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I am headed back out at 7 and figure on a long night of hunting. Come Monday we can't use rifles at night until December 1st.

Last night ended early...for the 1st time in 45 years of hunting I ran into my first case of hunter harassment. Our State police took care of the issue but it took a total of 2 hours after they investigated and I was able to prove where the shots were taken from and the dead opossum to prove which way I shot.
 
Sounds like the jerks accomplished their mission. Kept you from hunting and ruined your night. Hope they paid a penalty for it. Other than that, how was your xd50 experience.
 
I scored on a small female coyote tonight with the xd50a mounted on my 300blk. Looks like a first year coyote. Scope did a great job. Guess I'll not be using my photon XT as much now.
 
I killed a nice red tonight with the cold bore shot. 2 came in and 1 left. I also saw 1 coyote at long range and another fox on that stand. Second stand I managed to miss a 150yd or less shot on a coyote. I'm pretty sure the scope chose the exact second i was squeezing to calibrate the screen because the gun went boom and the coyote didn't move, then all of a sudden he was 100 yds away and hauling the mail.

I think I'm going to switch from auto to manual calibration next time out.

I also got a little over an hour out of a battery change. Still not great but getting better.
 
stupidnewbie, are you using the black screen feature to save battery power until you actually need to shoot?

I'm assuming you have a button where you could make the scope auto-calibrate right before taking the shot as well as just turning it to manual as you suggested?

Thanks for the reports. I'm thinking that is my next investment, so I really appreciate the info.
 
stupidnewbie, under the calibrate menu you can select H instead of A (auto) M (manual) and that lets you control the calibration so that it only happens when you want to and you don't have to close the lens cover. Manual is absolutely quiet, but H uses the auto function of the scope and has some sound associated with it. I personally can not hear it, but I am told it is there. When I ordered my scope, I ordered the power pack with it. It took two hours to charge the pack. I've had mine on for over five hours total time now and have had no need to recharge. I think I will just to keep a good reserve. I really questioned buying the power pak, but am very glad I spent the money for it now. I carry my rifle with the scope view screen powered down. One quick push on the on button and the screen powers up and you are good to go. I keep it powered down so the light coming out of the ocular does not give me away.

Doubleup I don't think you will be disappointed in the XD50A once you make the decision to buy one. I do not regret mine and now my Photon is gathering dust. I strongly recommend getting the external power pack. It mounts right on the left side of the scope and you hardly even know it is there. I stood outside my house at dusk this evening and watched three deer cross the field next door and played with the various power ratings. I could see and identify clearly each of the three deer at 2x trough 8x magnification. I picked them up at about 75 yds and watched them go across the field to about 450yds. Each was a buck and one had a decent rack. Somebody is going to score a nice one, I bet, when the season opens this Saturday. I could see details of the deer and had no difficulty identifying them. I turned my FLIR PS32 on and checked them with it for reference and the difference was startling to me. I could barely see the deer at distance and they were no where near as clear to see as they were in the xd50A. I am seriously thinking of selling my Flir and getting an hd38A from Pulsar.
 
I am using the screen saver feature as much as possible.

I talked to my rep (where I bought mine) and asked him about the battery life. He told me flat out that I (we) should never use rechargable batteries in these unit. When I asked why he said the output of the rechargables was significantly different than the non-rechargables?

Funny, I just looked at my owners manual and it specifically says rechargables are ok. Has anyone else heard of not using 16340 rechargables in the Apex? It also says we should get 5 hours out of a pair of CR123. Heck I'd be happy with half of that.

I'm hoping he was just having a bad day and got confused with a different unit.
 
The only issue I can see with rechargeable batteries is their quality. A lot of them are made in China do not seem to be consistent in their output. If you have one dud in a group, the whole group will fail more quickly. Don't see any reason why you couldn't use them as long as you check them with a meter first. Deereguy ran a test on his and got better results than what you are reporting. You might want to ask him about it.
 
Thought I'd bring this back up. Wish my shooting was better as there should have been 2 other animals in these pictures. I did end up buying the pulsar battery and finally figured out how to get the DVR working. Now I just need to figure out how to edit the video and post it.

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I just picked up an XD50A and am highly impressed with it also. I scan with an MTM and it doesn't compare to the image from the XD50A at all, almost to the point that I may have to "downgrade" to an HD38 or HD19 to scan. Last night I had picked up a target in the treeline at about 120 yards with the MTM. I put the XD50 on it and could tell right away it was a deer, especially when it turned and walked through the trees. It did end up coming out in the field and stood there at 100 yards and put my mind at ease about being able to ID a small deer vs. a coyote with it...it was a no brainer. When looking at it with the MTM it was a definite target, but no ID capability at all. With the scope it was was easily ID'd as a small doe.

I also just hooked up the UNV mini DVR and external battery pack. After a call to Tyler yesterday I got it figured out..except for 2 things I will probably call and bug him about again today. For some reason about 50% of the time I turn on the DVR to record it only shows the vertical axis of the crosshair on the DVR and records it like that. If I turn it off and then turn it on to record again, it will show the whole cross hair...do it again the next time and I get just half again. It's normal in the scope and everything works correctly and records fine, but for some reason it keeps doing that. I have turned off and on both units, unplugged and plugged back in the cables, etc. The other thing I can't figure out is how to get the DVR to quit vibrating when I turn it on with the trigger switch. I turned off the vibe alert on the menu option, but when I turn it on with the trigger switch that little sucker vibrates LOUD. I'll be able to post pics and video soon after I get a few more things ironed out.

Edit: the XD50A does have the PIP function also from a recent update. The only difference I can tell at this point are OLED vs LCD on the XD50 vs. XD50A.
 
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I read somewhere about a wire shielding issue that might be at play here. Not sure but wire position might have some effect. Changing cables might fix it.
 
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