Hunting All Day and Night With HIKMICRO ALPEX

A large serving of cutting-edge tech in the shape of the HIKMICRO ALPEX gets Airgun Shooter editor Phill Price and Shooting UK editor Rich Saunders excited about the future of digital optics. Today let's hear what they think of ALPEX!

Phill's First Impression

I've tested lots of night vision kit, and none of it ever made me put my hand in my pocket and part with the cash to own it. I've got by with a lamp for decades and it would take something special to get me excited, so when I saw the HIKMICRO ALPEX my interest was aroused.

The first thing we all notice is that it has the same form factor as a normal optical scope, so mounts in the usual way on its 30mm tube. This means that no adaptors or extra parts are needed. Further, it sits at the same height as a normal scope, so the handling of your rifle isn't negatively affected, which means a great deal. Instinctive gun handling saves time and helps us shoot more accurately.

The ALPEX is also guaranteed to be dustproof and waterproof to a high standard, so we have no worries about taking it out in bad weather.

24-hour Optics

The ALPEX comes in a very fancy carrying case which protects it in transit, but will serve little purpose once you've mounted the scope to your rifle. Inside the case there's a stack of extras to unpack, including an infrared illuminator (850nm) with a dedicated quick-release mount that looks really slick. 

A single CR123A battery that you need to supply sits inside the scope and you get two 18650 batteries and a charger to fit the illuminator. I was stunned to find that the scope will run for 12 hours continuously with a large internal battery backed up by the CR123A offering that much more run time. There's no excuse for running this one flat while you're out hunting.

l found the ALPEX sat well on his Air Arms S410 hunting rifle. Although this looks like a conventional scope, inside it's anything but. It offers a full-colour daylight image allied to night vision, making it truly 24-hour. On top of that, you can shoot video and take pictures to your heart's content.

The set-up and zeroing process is like nothing else I've tried, and it took me a while to get my head around the controls, but once I understood them, progress was swift and easy. Please don't think you're going to unscrew the windage and elevation adjuster caps and get your zeroing done, because this scope doesn't have any. The top cap uncovers the battery compartment, the right one hides the charging port and the left one is the control for the menus! You see it's nothing like any other scope you've seen before. 

Regarding This Matter, Rich Also Has An Opinion to Share......

I planned to take the combination on a night time rat-control field test. I arrived at the farm early so I could give myself a moment to properly zero the scope. But having also allowed plenty of time to grapple with the technology, I was actually all set in less than 10 minutes as the process is very simple. A long press on the left-hand turret brings up a menu. Within the reticle sub-menu you get a choice of five reticles in seven colours.

Critical Clarity

Once you've settled on a combination, zeroing is a case of taking a shot, freezing the screen image so you can move the crosshair to the point of impact and then hitting save.

The downside was I now had a couple of hours to kill before the sun went down. So I played with the ALPEX A50T, trying to find something I could criticise. However, the truth is that in daylight, the image from the 1440×1080 high-definition sensor combined with the 1024×768 resolution OLED display was crystal clear. 

The supplied 850nm IR illuminator clips on in seconds and provides ample illumination for airgun distances and beyond. After a few more shots to reassure myself the R-10 and ALPEX A50T combination was laser-accurate at 20m – and saving it to one of five different profiles available – I made my way up to the yard where I planned to test the scope on some nocturnal rats.

At last, the sun started going down and I could see the streetlights in the distance – the perfect opportunity to test the HIKMICRO ALPEX A50T's claimed party piece. According to the blurb it has three modes – colour and monochrome day and night modes, plus an intriguing colour 'twilight' mode.

I switched the scope on, sensing my cynicism welling up. It serves me right because as I looked through the scope – no IR torch – I was rewarded with a colour image that was a little grainier than the full day picture, but still very usable. There weren't any rabbits about, but having zoomed in on a few bunny-sized clumps of grass at varying distances the image was eminently good enough.

The only drawback was that back in the yard the twilight mode meant I couldn't see under pallets, machinery or anything covered by shadow. However, attaching the IR illuminator and switching to night mode was a different matter altogether. All of a sudden, in the crystal-clear image, there was nowhere for the rats to hide.

What Happens Throughout The Night?

Phill Price - No Drawbacks

At night I found the image quality truly impressive, delivering clean, crisp detail that made precise aiming perfectly possible, even in deep darkness. The supplied IR illuminator has lots of power and I found that I could turn it down quite a long way and still get a great image. 

In fact, I found the full-power setting was too much and running at lower power will extend the battery life while still giving top performance. This scope will be used by people shooting foxes at long range, which explains why the illuminator is so powerful, but at airgun ranges we can easily turn it down and save battery power.

In daylight I found the sight picture totally usable. Unsurprisingly it cannot compare with high-quality glass lens day scopes, but that's not any drawback. The idea of the ALPEX is that you can have one gun/scope combination that can do everything and allow you to transition from day to night with no drawbacks at all.

Rich Saunders - Worth the Cost

Operating anything with buttons in the dark is always tricky. The three on top of the ALPEX A50T's eye bell cover all the essentials. At the top, a power button also activates an instant wake up sleep mode. To the left is the control for photos and video (1440×1080) and the button to the right switches between day/twilight colour and black and white night modes as well as turning the picture-in-picture (PiP) on and off.

Operating the 3.5-14x (3.5x optical magnification augmented by 4x digital zoom), is achieved by rotating the left-hand turret. The operation on this is silky smooth and on its highest setting the image pixelated only slightly and remained highly usable.

By now the yard was fully dark. I scanned around for rats using a thermal spotter and with a target located, the BSA and HIKMICRO ALPEX A50T combination proved deadly, as rat after rat ended up in the bucket.

*Before purchasing any thermal or digital day & night vision device, please make sure you adhere to the local ledislation and only use it when it is allowed. Our ambassadors come from various countries and travel a lot, which allows them to test different devices. We do not encourage or support the illegal use of our devices in any events.