To be honest, I’d never heard of the Vistaget brand before they approached me to test their thermal hunting scope. The Tarantula is a thermal scope with a heavy-duty body and recoil abosorbing integrated picatinny base. It provides day/night performance with an OLED display and a built-in laser rangefinder.
Build in rangefinders are the new must-have when hunting with night vision as determining the range to a target is critical when adjusting for ballistic drop. The Tarantula can also store up to 10 different ballistic profiles and adjust the reticle for point of impact. Unfortunately the laser ranging button is also the MENU activation and selection button which caused numerous mistaken function when I tested it.
Its controls and adjustments aren’t intuitive. The optical focus knob is at top of the scope insead of a side focus more commonly found in optical scopes. Instead the side knob is the digital zoom which would be better placed near the eye piece. Ergonomics overall are an area for improvement with this scope.
Despite its ergonomics, its thermal performance and resolution and were excelent under 50 yards and good enough to spot racoon at over 100 yards; you would be hard pressed to differentiate a dog from a coyote at that distance. It had a good variety of false color options. You can record video and photo still in its internal 32GB memory accessable via USB-C and wifi connectivity to phones.
Best of all, it has a dual-power system allowing it better than average endurance. Night vision and thermal optics are notrious for their short battery life. But the Tarantual has a built-in battery allowing its primary CR123A cells to be hot-swapped.
While not perfect, the Tarantala is a solid thermal optics for hunting and game observation.
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Coupon Code 8% Off: VGSCOPE8 (valid until Jan 31, 2027)
SPECS
TARANTULA LRF 25-256
Objective Lens: 25 mm
Glass: UHD
Thermal Resolution: 256 × 192 pixels
Thermal Sensitivity: ≤ 15 mK (25 °C)
Magnification: 3.49×
Close Focus: 3.5m
FOV: 281 fr. @ 1000 yrds
Display: 0.49-inch OLED 1440 × 1080
Laser Rangefinder: 1000m max
Recoil Rating: 1200G
Waterproof: IPX67
Dimensions: 6.5″ x 5.1″
Weight: 32 oz