The Holosun Thermal/Red Dot Hybrid | A Revolutionary Optic?

good morning

YouTube today we have exciting news

coming at you from the 2A Community from

hollow sun offering their latest

innovation in thermal

technology this bad Manama Jama is

capable of being both a red dot and a

thermalite boy howdy is it confused like

the teens of America

today but that does not mean that you

yourself have to be confused as much

Mayfield will be explaining to you how

this thing works and if it is worth your

cold Hard Cash [ __ ] up as we get into a

deep dive into this exciting Innovation

from hoson Technologies once known for

bat soup China is now known for hybrid

Red Dot thermals that are going to take

the market by storm so without further

Ado folks

let's get into the

news

[Music]

welcome to the new mic and Mayfield

YouTube studio uh I put a lot of work

into this cameraman Dan actually helped

me put in uh work into this and he

doesn't get the recog recognition he

deserves right cameraman Dan yeah

whatever speaking of this new studio the

studios like this are expensive but we

could do something like this for your

viewing experience thank to our sponsors

sponsors like Optics Planet who are

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products in the biz ammo all the ammo in

today video was provided by last shot

coupon code plug um I'm going to break

this video up into Parts if uh there's

so much information that's going to be

here if you need to find the information

you specifically care about look in the

timeline below to find Which chapter

that you're specifically looking for

we're going to break it down into how to

use it Pros cons and comparison between

the Optics we have

here uh I was very lucky to be one of

the few people to get an early sample of

one of these new highly anticipated I

mean this thing was probably one of the

most talked about items at Shot Show

without a doubt I have the hollow sun

DRS NV that is the night vision optic

this one retails for

$999 you heard that right you can see in

the dark for

$999 and then we have the hollow sun

probably the most anticipated one that

anybody is here for the hollow sun DRS

th okay this that NV stands for night

vision th stands for thermal alas I

could have had a video on these things

done a long time ago but on this channel

I'll never do something that I really

don't know anything about so what did I

do I went out and killed a whole bunch

of pigs uh and hunted out of a

helicopter and went coyote hunting rat

hunting varmit hunting and other hunting

with the night vision optic with the IRA

Rico Alpha a dedicated thermal the AGM

sting ir clipon and lastly the DRS th

okay so the only one here that's not a

thermal is the DRS NV so we'll kind of

save that segment for the end but the

three main focuses of today will be

dedicated versus clipon versus its own

class of optic the hollon drst I was

relatively new to the thermal space that

is why I went ahead and really I mean I

went all the way down to Texas and went

hog hunting I went all the way out in

the hills of Idaho I used all three

systems extensively I could have been

the first person on YouTube if I wanted

to to just pop out a video on this but I

didn't want to do it I wanted to get a

real opinion on whether or not this guy

was worth it okay um now we're going to

work our way up so we're going to go

ahead and talk about a six this is

$1,600

$4,500 and lastly

$7,000 at the very very far end of the

spectrum we have a

$1,000 right off the rip when I turn

this thing on

I didn't really know exactly what I

thought of it uh like I said it was one

of my first thermal

experiences and the manual is

extremely extremely overwhelming when

you do get your hall on thermal open the

manual read it front to

back you still won't understand how to

use your optic so go out start clicking

the buttons and do all that kind of

stuff so let me just go over a brief

summary of actually how to use this

optic okay guys we are now punched in on

the optic and we are going to explain

explain how to use it um while doing so

I will also overlay what's happening on

the screen as I'm clicking the buttons

so to turn your optic on we're going to

go ahead and start by just using it as a

red dot we're going to hold the plus

button on this side and boom we now have

a red dot reticle turned on cool now

we're going to flip the front cap up and

tap the power button right here and

we're get a hollow sun

logo and boom we now have our thermal

optic turned on as well as our Red Dot

switching over to a little bit more of

the intricate controls I think hollow

sun did a pretty good job of making this

userfriendly if this is going to be your

first user experience this video might

actually get you understanding the optic

a little quicker than the instructions

at least me messing around with the

optic did I'm not much of a reader

myself so we have five buttons on the

back of the optic we have a

magnification glass icon we have a

brightness icon an okay button an up

arrow and a down arrow okay now hollow

sun has done a really good job of making

all the controls kind of the same where

uh you can tap or you can hold each one

of those buttons and it will do a

different function each time so if I tap

the magnifying glass I will go from 1X

tap now I should be at 3x I will tap

again and I should now be at 5x another

tap will return us back to 1x

magnification holding the magnification

button you'll hear a little click and

what that's going to do is going to

refresh that sensor okay we'll get into

thermal refresh rates and and and delay

and latency all that later then we have

the brightness button you can tap the

brightness boom and now it's so dim I

cannot see the screen we'll tap it again

brightness 2 3 4 5 and six we have six

brightness settings you'll see a little

OLED icon in the bottom right so again

tapping that brightness button adjust

your brightness pretty easy holding the

brightness

button cool so we are now in highlight

mode holding it again we are now in

outline

mode holding it again we are now in

white hot also my preferred method of

running the optic moving over to the

middle okay button we can click okay and

that will bring up our menu we have

image calibration and set now what I

think most of you will be using is the

calibration menu you'll go click the

down

button click okay and then click

reticle now what you're going to do in

this screen is you'll have an X and A Y

as you'll see on the screen right here

you will then use the up Arrow I'll

click it right now and you can see the

value is changing and then I can click

now the goal here is that you will

already have maybe zero the Red Dot and

you can kind of slave that reticle over

to the Red Dot so your zeros match up

between the thermal reticle and the Red

Dot I would confirm zero independently

just to make sure that everything's good

to go but to move over to the other axis

the uh you simply tap the okay button

again and now you can use these up and

down arrows to move that reticle

whichever direction you need now to get

out of the menus you long press the okay

button and now we're back on the reticle

screen long press it again we're back on

that main menu long press it again and

we are now out of the menus entirely so

for the menus a recap okay is to move

forward by simply tapping it to move

backwards you hold okay moving over to

the last two buttons it is an up arrow

and a down AR arrow and just like the

theme with the rest of the buttons there

is a single tap as well as a press and

hold feature for both of them we'll

start with the up arrow with the up

Arrow you can press it once and you'll

notice the blue

light will light up right there and we

just snap the photo now with the up

Arrow we can long press it boom that

blue light is now activated again and we

are now recording so tapping once

picture pressing and holding you are now

recording uh these do record to a 32 GB

internal storage that you can transfer

your computer with the supplied USB

cable now moving on to the last button

we have the down arrow if I press the

down arrow once it will turn on the

thermal reticle that is a reticle

independent of the actual Red Dot now

you'll notice pressing that button you

have three settings you can press down

three different times for three

different uh brightnesses of that red to

change the reticle you simply hold the

down

arrow holding the down arrow again we

get to that third

reticle and we're back to the default

reticle uh typically I kind of just have

it off uh so press it again and it will

disappear that's kind so that's kind of

The Beginner's crash course on how to

use the hollow sun thermal uh the last

segment of how to use your hollow sun

thermal would be uh how to install your

batteries you

simply twist

this boom and you have your rechargeable

batteries that it comes with mine came

with four of the batteries and they last

a long time uh we'll we'll delve into

that when we start getting into the pros

and cons boom nice and easy to install

batteries without further Ado let's move

on to the next chapter in this

[Music]

video now we are going to move on to the

pros and cons of the hollon thermal the

pros of the holos sun thermal over per

se any of the rifles that we have on the

table you do not have to dedicate a

rifle to be a thermal gun you can have a

red dot and simply pop your cap down and

now I can see just my Red Dot reticle

and then when it's night time you can

flip this up which is when you'll start

using the thermal lens you don't need to

take light in there and you can still

use that red dot that you had zeroed

earlier as your zero I think that's the

most convenient thing of this whole

system uh I put down a whole bunch of

pigs I didn't record all of them I

actually only recorded one but uh I

wasn't missing it it's it's dead on uh

it it it works extremely well I think

another Pro of this thermal optic is it

is significantly easier to learn how to

operate and understand what the settings

are over say one of these Ira Rico

Alphas or even one of these AGM stings

it is actually um this was my first

thermal optic that I actually really had

experience with and I pretty easily

started to figure out how to zero in

what modes did what the brightness

settings how to record it it was a

pretty userfriendly experience I think

the guys over at Hollow Cy understood

their customer base really well and I

have to give them hats off on how easy

this thing was to learn the manual was

made it sound more difficult than it

really was I think another Pro of this

thing and maybe the biggest Pro of all

is simply the cost of this unit

$1,600 is insane to not have a dedicated

thermal setup this is also not dedicated

thermal setup and this is $4,500 plus

the cost of the EOTech Voodoo and mount

you're almost near that $6,000 range uh

to achieve a non-dedicated thermal setup

another Pro of this optic that uh I

think is worth noting is the internal

recording storage felt like it never ran

out 32 gab of storage I I kept St and

stopping uh when I was in Texas

recording but then I started to realized

wait a minute I still have 99% of my

storage available and I've recorded like

20 Clips already so then I just let it

run for minutes and minutes and minutes

like I have probably have over an hour

is worth of footage in here I've only

used uh 7% of the internal storage so

you don't have to use an SD card or

anything like that to transfer the

footage the to the uh computer you

simply pop the thing right here and use

the included cable once again I don't

know how they fit all that into a super

small thermal we have the list of Pros

out of the way let's go to the list of

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computers getting into the cons I want

you to realize cons are kind of relative

to price okay so just because something

on this table might be better or worse

it doesn't mean it's better or worse for

the money so keep that in mind now when

talking about the cons the first thing

I'm going to start with is one of the

biggest things people look for in a

thermal I don't know if I say the

biggest but one of the the biggest and

that is the core resolution then we can

come over to the dedicated thermal from

Ira the RICO Alpha and we have a 640x

512 okay that is more than double the

resolution coming out of this thermal

core what I find to be the most

impressive is we have a 640x

512 pumping out of this clip on okay

this tiny little unit also for four for

4,000 500 even less than the RICO Alpha

that all you simply do is swing in front

of your optic also as a 640 by

512 core now that being said neither of

these two Optics possess a red dot and a

zeroing mechanism and and it's a hybrid

site and all that kind of stuff so it's

understandable how hollow sun had to

jamack all that Tech into one unit why

it has a 200 56 core we'll get into my

opinions on that when we actually talk

about the application side when I was

hunting and all that and the comparisons

um for me I was able to kill pigs and

other things with this just fine so you

know it does punch down from dedicated

and clipon thermos and moving on to the

I'm going to say the last con cuz it's

the only La it's the last con I can

think of I'm sure others will find more

but we're going to talk about the

identification range guess I should have

put this in the pros but the detection

range so uh I feel like once this thing

was announced like a year ago at Shot

Show uh the big myth was well you know

since it's a red dot the identification

range is like 60 to 100 yards so it's as

good as useless right you you're really

not going to be uh seeing much through

it well when I went out there uh angel

from Sandy Creek Outfitters had been

hopping out of the uh the buggy gets out

his OpTic The Envision Halo or The

Envision Envision something uh sorry

Angel but uh he'd hop out his had a

rangefinder on it he was like those are

pigs 1,200 yard now a he's a master of

his craft so he's used to knowing what's

what that far out but B you know I I

look through his optic I could kind of

tell they were pigs if I knew it I was

doing more then you could either say

this is impressive or not impressive

when I took the hollow sun thermal I

humored myself and I went all right I'm

going to look into that field and by

golly I could see heat signatures out to

that 1200 yard Mark okay now to me this

was mindblowing considering all the

rumors from Shot Show and the internet

and all that were saying you know the

detection range there's a difference

between identification and detection ID

you know what it is detection you see a

heat signature and that's all you know

now when I saw those

little white dots on that s sensor I was

blown away if you did have this idea in

your head that you will only be able to

see something and this sensor turns

black and and falls off after 100 yards

incorrect you will be able to see heat

signatures very far now here's the con

will you be able to identify through

this 256x 192 sensor what you're looking

at at that range absolutely not uh even

when you start dialing in the

magnification to to three and and and so

forth it's still a blurry mess you will

not be able to be like that is a pig at

12200 yard you will be able to say that

is a heat signature at 1,200 yards and

decide if you want to pursue it or not

where I got impressed is most pigs in

Texas you're shooting 100 yards in in

I'm going to show you a pig at 50 yards

on the screen right now I'm also going

to end this Pig's

life so as we're watching this clip I do

want to note that the Plus on the center

of this clip is actually not my zero I

was using the Red Dot as my zero and so

it may look like I'm missing and you do

see a couple misses I probably should

have settled down on the trigger there

um but the pig does cease to exist in

this planet thank you to my hollow sun

thermal

so I don't know if the internal

recording is going to look the same but

as you can

see Charles is

completely there we go outlined Charlie

go ahead and jump so I can show latency

so you can see that ghosting do it

again jump really

fast so you see how the outline doesn't

quite catch up with the jumping uh I

think this is something that all

thermals kind of deal with this is a

little slower than than other higher end

ones jump as high as you

can at the far end of the spectrum here

we have the IRA Rico Alpha this is a 3X

dedicated thermal this does not work as

a as a optic uh Red Dot or anything it

only works as a thermal now this is

where you're going to start to see a

little bit of a a gap between thermal

technology so I'm going to hold the

record button and boom we are now

recording

so you can kind of already see let me

see if I can focus this a little

better oh man yeah the just the

sharpness in definition

uh I don't know if it's super fair to

compare a

$1,600 thermal versus a like 7 or $6,000

thermal but we're doing it just to show

you those tiers uh there's positives and

negatives to running that hollow sun the

hollow sun can be used and it you don't

have to have a dedicated rifle to the

thermal with this Alpha the IRA Alpha

you have to dedicate this

rifle I guess you some argue you could

put an offset Red Dot but it's not quite

as convenient as the hollow sun dude you

are looking stacked do me a favor ready

jump jump

there's not a whole lot difference

between latency and the hollow sun and

this it might even be the same to be

completely honest for how small of a

package that is the latency is

incredible uh I fully expected this to

look a lot better but dude it had just

the same amount of

lag you looked you looked a little

stronger with this one so we'll say this

one wins uh let me switch modes real

quick

so now we're in black

hot and you can see Charlie just looks

like a uh a black figure

um now Charlie just is basically a black

outline uh as if he were you know

standing in front of the Sun and we're

going to go to the other

mode boom red hot you can see his skin

lighting up and color so this is

highlight mode and white hot so white

hot once again is my preferred uh thing

of running this the other modes so so uh

that being said it is nice this does

come with those other modes you do not

get all that jam-packed into that tiny

little package all right so now we have

our lower dropped and bolt open again

and we have the AGM sting IR so this

kind of is the in between uh of the

three setups that we have okay with the

hollow sun you have a non-dedicated

rifle you can have a thermal or a red

dot same here you kind of have a lpvo or

EOTech whatever but you don't have to

dedicate your entire rifle to it you can

simply take your unit swing it in front

look through here and as long as you've

zeroed your image on this you can

continue to use the reticle that you've

already zeroed as your your main zero um

so we're going to try our absolute best

to get a recording there we go so Dan

would you go ahead and turn on the

EOTech it's that top button so boom uh

so there it is there's Charles and then

Dan go ahead and flick that thermal in

front boom now you have a thermal in

front of your lpvo so there is a winner

the winner would be the IRA Rico Alpha

as far as clarity as far as you know

magnification detection features

function

all that kind of stuff the battery life

is incredible it it wins it does win

that being said it doesn't win for

everybody if you don't want to dedicate

an entire rifle to your thermal cuz that

is just another expense that you have to

tack on then this is for you this

doesn't lose by a whole lot this AGM

sting IR is a very very impressive unit

it actually kind of blew my mind it it

probably is a setup that I'll be using

relatively often um this rifle really

impressed me this unit really impress me

now one thing I haven't talked about is

AGM when I told them I was going to be

doing this video if I could use their

product uh I didn't actually ask for

this but this is their uh side Winder so

whenever there was AGM footage it was

actually filmed through the side Winder

which I hope hopefully wasn't misleading

about the uh the sting it's just I

didn't really think that I wanted this

or had a use case for this but now that

I am actively hunting out here all my

boys are going out everybody's like yo

bring the monoc bring the monocular I

actually highly recommend I mean this is

like sub two grand um if you want to

really spot something at night I'm

telling you right now getting out there

and only using this and just scanning

and scanning and scanning and scanning

holding that rifle gets very tiring I

almost recommend running you know a

setup if you're going to if you are

under budget constraints and you want to

run the hollow sun DRS you're not making

a bad choice at all you're going to be

able to uh shoot and kill things at

night but unexpectedly enough yeah no

this is actually coming out with me like

every single time I hunt now just being

able to go like this not wear yourself

out it comes with a base 2x Zoom um it's

inexpensive

and you will absolutely be able to find

whatever you're trying to look for at

night for

$1,600 and not running a dedicated rifle

to your thermal at all

this is a great option I'm going to be

honest so obviously there's better

thermal offerings on the market whoa

shocker you know like triple the price

gets you a better product um but what

this allows uh the everyday man The

Working Man who doesn't want he wants to

buy one rifle because he worked hard for

that cash he wants to buy one optic have

a thermal he worked hard for that cash

and he doesn't want to be you know

building an entire rifle and then

slapping Seven Grand on it this makes a

ton of sense you're going to accomplish

what you need to accomplish with this if

you're a Rancher and you're dealing with

hog problems you're going to kill those

Hogs without a doubt you're going to be