If your customers aren’t already asking about thermal optics, they certainly will be soon. This market (where legal) is booming among hunters as they discover how useful thermal imaging can be for scouting, game recovery and, of course, night hunting for predators like feral hogs and coyotes.

Thermal is an entirely new world of optics, and you’ve no doubt got plenty of customers who are curious but not quite convinced. They’ve got a lot of money and time invested in their current hunting rig, including the kind of traditional daytime optics that they’ve used for decades, and they’re not 100% sure that switching to digital optics is right for them. Digital optics are, after all, quite an adjustment when someone first makes the switch.

Fortunately, there’s an ideal solution that lets a shooter turn his favorite traditional riflescope into a thermal imaging unit: Armasight’s Jockey 640 Compact Thermal Clip-On.

This small, sleek device easily mounts in front of an existing day scope with no additional zeroing required. It is ideal for LVPO scopes and works flawlessly with most optics under 5X magnification. An adapter is included for larger objective lenses, and the Jockey is rated for up to .308 caliber.

The genius of this kind of add-on system is that a hunter doesn’t need to discard a scope he might have invested a lot of money in and really loves; he doesn’t even need to remove it in order to use the same gun for night hunting, and he certainly doesn’t have to set up an entirely new gun with a thermal optic just to have a dedicated night-hunting rig. He can simply clip on the Jockey and his old standby rifle is now equipped with thermal to let him “see in the dark.”

In addition, hunters will appreciate being able to keep the reticle they’ve been shooting with — the Jockey 640 allows them to use the reticle in their traditional scope overlaid on the thermal image, if they choose. It also has an internal reticle that can be turned on and off as needed.

One major benefit you might have to explain to shoppers is that the quality of the zoom will be better than they can get out of a regular thermal scope. In a thermal scope, when a hunter uses the digital zoom, the image degrades and becomes more and more pixelated (as when you zoom in on a digital photo). You get much less of this image degradation with a thermal clip-on, as it’s zooming in on a digital screen versus digitally increasing the zoom. It sounds weird, but trust me, it works.  

Of course, the Jockey 640 comes with all the features you’d expect in a quality thermal scope: Armasight’s high-performance ArmaCORE 640 thermal core, fast 60Hz frame rate for smooth operation and outstanding visual acuity, video and image capture, USB video streaming, USB-C interface for viewing photos and videos on external devices, and more. Like with other Armasight products, users can choose from multiple color palettes and enjoy intuitive, simple controls and long battery life.

It’s compact and lightweight, so it won’t slow your customers down on the hunt, and the quick-detach mount makes it easy to remove when they’re ready to use their traditional scope on its own again. Imagine the convenience of keeping a Jockey in your backpack while you hunt coyotes during the day, then being able to snap it on when the sun sets. The American Defense mount makes that possible, and it also allows for multi-functionality. Simply unclip the Jockey,— now you’ve got a handheld scanner that comes in extremely handy when you’re looking for game. We all know the problems with waving your gun around, using your scope to scan for game, don’t we?

Of course, this best-of-both-worlds technology in a high-quality, versatile package (designed and assembled in the USA, by the way) doesn’t come cheap — the Jockey 640 retails for $3,499. Still, in a world where quality thermal riflescopes easily cost that much and considerably more, the Jockey 640 offers versatility and value, especially considering that your customer might already have an expensive traditional scope that he’s not keen on abandoning.

Though it’s ideal for any hunter who wants to dip their toe into the thermal waters without having to abandon their traditional scope, the Armasight Jockey 640 is no entry-level bargain optic that they’ll need to upgrade later. It’s functional, fully featured and robust right from the jump and offers shooters the best of both worlds — sure to be a hot seller in the booming thermal market.

For more, visit www.armasight.com.