The mini thermal market is an interesting one. Who hasn’t seen a thermal on a pistol and thought, oh hey, that’s neat. Of course, they mount to rifles and give you a mini thermal reflex sight. It seems great, but then you start using one, and it’s odd. If you’ve ever trained with a red dot, you know you’re target-focused, but with a thermal you aren’t.
Thermals are basically cameras with a screen you’re looking at. You have to look at the screen, not the target. It becomes a bit slower, less intuitive for a 1X reflex sight. It just feels odd, especially on a pistol. Factor in the lower battery life, due to thermals sucking battery power like I eat donuts, and then what?
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What’s the real use case for a mini-thermal? Outside of suppressed rabbit hunting on a Taurus TX 22? Well, after playing around with the Mars Mini from OneLeaf Tactical, I’ve come to consider that the best place for a mini thermal sight for practical applications is as an offset piggyback optic to a standard day optic.
The Mini Thermal Mounted Up
Using a mini-nonmagnified thermal as your primary optic can be mostly fine, but again, we can’t use it as a true reflex sight. Without magnification, we don’t get the long-range capability that could make the optic worth it on a rifle.
However, with their small size, they can mount in a 12 o’clock position or on an offset mount to back up an LPVO, fixed power prism, or even a red dot if you really want a low-light option.
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In this configuration, we get the benefits of a standard optic, namely better battery life or a platform that’s not battery dependent as a whole. With the thermal offset, it can be turned off, saving battery, and only used when absolutely necessary.
Advantages in Low Light and Dense Environments
Thermals are often associated with low light usage to identify targets without relying on a white light. They work quite well for low-light hunting and offer some serious benefits for tactical applications.
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In thick environments, like dense brush or urban environments, they can highlight targets that aren’t visible to the naked eye. It’s tough to hide a thermal signature outside a total enclosure. All without having to reveal your position with a white light.
The good thing about thermals is that they work well in daylight situations too. You aren’t restricted to low light use, and with modern screens they tend to be bright enough to use regardless of how bright it is outside.
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Since most of the thermals rely on digital magnification, we can’t always clearly see the target when we’ve increased magnification. However, you can use the piggybacked or offset thermal to identify a heat source and potentially use your day optic to confirm, or then check with white light to identify.
Going Live
Of course, when necessary, you can still use the mini thermal to engage as a quasi reflex optic. While it might not be perfect, it offers a fast transition to a 1X optic option. The caveat is the training it requires to look at the screen and not past it instinctively like it was a red dot.
The question is offset or piggyback. The differences are the same as it would be for a red dot. The mini thermals weigh more, so the offset weight might make it feel off-balanced depending on the optic. I didn’t notice a big issue with the Mars Mini.
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The good news is that there are no parallax issues with these optics. When you cant or raise your head, you won’t notice any problems with parallax when you start shooting. There are some benefits to shooting through a camera screen.
With that said, is this a must-have? No, obviously not. I just think these mini thermals are neat and wanted to try and find a purpose that makes sense beyond shooting rabbits and having fun. I do think there is some legitimate utility to having both a day-use optic and a lightweight low-light optic. The fact that it can be used during the day for particular environments is quite nice.
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