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

providing you with the coupon code Micah

7 if you want to go get yourself uh one

of these bad lares yourself and other

bad lares if you want to go get one of

these pups yourself then you hit up

shooting Surplus and you also use the

coupon code Micah 7

both those guys uh if I were in a room

with them I would uh the third sponsor

for this video Americana of pipe dream

apparel M Sy knives flect tar Omani DPM

all your good stuff and 100 Concepts

guys the scope caps if you're into them

uh I actually highly recommend checking

them out the kill flash on these are

amazing scope caps uh you don't break

them bungee anyway love those guys best

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

cons guys I am beyond stoked to talk

about a new sponsor for this channel

that is zida computers now the reason I

am so excited to talk about zida

computers is because I have actually

been editing on zida computers for four

years uh whenever I've been like

legitimately as soon as I got on with

grandthum the first computer that I got

was a

computer um even when I have issues that

I think is zaida's fault and it ends up

just being me doing something dumb

they've always been there to to help me

fix it um and their computers have

always had my back through countless

hours of editing so it is a product that

I can trust that I can tell you you

should trust and they're a company that

I think you should absolutely give your

business to they are strong Advocates of

the Second Amendment big gun guys can't

appreciate that enough in today's

society so guys I'll have a coupon code

and a link in my description where you

can check out zida PCS because those

dudes are Mega based and so are their

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