TRIJICON REAP-IR 35MM MINI THERMAL RIFLESCOPE

A RIFLEMAN’S OPTICS

- Patrick Meitin

My annual December trips to South Texas consist of a daily routine: bowhunting whitetailed deer from blinds in mornings, and then the day is spent spot-and-stalk hunting wild boars. Early afternoons are spent “corning” roads. Corning is a uniquely Texas verb involving sitting on pickup tailgates trickling bags of shelled corn atop ranch roads in areas wild hogs frequent. Enough time is reserved to comfortably slip into evening deer blinds. Daytime belongs to bows and pure sport. Nights are dominated by ARs, thermal-imaging optics and hog-culling operations.

All bow-killed meat makes the 30-hour journey back to Idaho (usually a white-tailed buck or two and multiple hogs), while the nighttime shooting becomes decidedly more venal. As an occasional Texas tourist, wild hogs still fascinate me mightily. For my Lone Star State host and long-time hunting chum Steven Tisdale, not so much. Only deceased hogs fascinate him. Time spent recovering meat, shooting photos and trailing runners is time that could be better spent shooting additional hogs. Average nights – sundown to, say, midnight, when we decide we should get a few hours sleep for the morrow’s deer visual – result in 10 to 15 dead hogs. This volume allows truly wringing out nighttime optic systems.

I’ve used a menagerie of thermal optics ranging from adequate “budget” models and acceptable midpriced units, to phenomenal military-grade wares. The phenomenal label goes to Trijicon; an IR Hunter MK3 60mm immediately following launch while working on a hog-hunting chapter of The Predator and Varmint Hunter’s Guidebook; and more recently a REAP-IR 35mm Mini Thermal Riflescope.