July 2026 - Written by the HeatSight Optics Team
HeatSight TPM A7-384 25mm Review - The TPM A7-384 25mm is the gateway scope of the HeatSight catalog: $699, 570 grams, a wide 13.1° field of view, and every core feature a night hunter actually uses. Built for rimfire and light-recoil rifles, it's the scope we recommend when someone says 'I want to try thermal without betting a mortgage payment on it.'
The A7 is our lightest-duty, lowest-cost scope platform: 570 g without bracket, a 25 mm F1.0 manual-focus objective, an amorphous-silicon 384×288 core at 12 μm, and a 1024×768 OLED eyepiece. Recoil rating is 600G - which is the honest headline spec of this platform, and we'll come back to it.
At this price the A7 keeps the features that matter: 1-8x electronic zoom, six palettes, picture-in-picture, hotspot tracking, onboard photo/video to 16 GB, and USB-C charge/export. The trades are equally clear: an amorphous-silicon detector with <50 mK NETD (fine contrast in normal conditions, softer than VOx cores in thermally flat scenes), an 18500 battery (2,000 mAh, ~4 hours - the shortest runtime in our catalog), English/Chinese menus only, and that 600G recoil rating.
About 600G: this platform is rated for lower-recoil hosts - rimfire, .223-class ARs, air rifles, crossbow scanning duty - not magnum centerfire. Mounting an A7 on a .300 Win Mag is how warranties die. Match the scope to the rifle and it will serve for years.
Mine rides on a rimfire doing pest duty, and that is where this little scope makes its case. It weighs nothing, the wide view suits the inside-150-yards work a rimfire actually does, and raccoon and rabbit-size heat lights up at distances that cover the whole job. Four hours of battery matches a realistic pest session; carry one spare pair of 18350s and you will never think about it. Zero held through more rack-and-truck abuse than I should admit.
The lowest-cost path to a real thermal scope in our catalog: 12 μm pitch and a full feature set at a fraction of C-series money.
Light and compact: 570 g disappears on a rimfire or lightweight AR.
USB-C: Charge from the same cable as everything else you own.
For pest control, rimfire rats-and-rabbits work, and first-thermal curiosity, the A7 25mm delivers the experience honestly. When shots get longer, the A7 35mm buys reach for the same sale price - and the C-series is the durability upgrade path. 2-Year Limited Warranty.
Specifications: 384×288 a-Si, 12μm, NETD <50mK | 25mm F1.0, 13.1° × 9.9° | 1-8x e-zoom | OLED 1024×768 | 50Hz | 6 palettes, PiP, hot tracking | 16GB, JPG/MP4, USB-C | 18500 2,000mAh, ≤4h | -20°C~+60°C | 600G | IP66 | 200×68.9×62mm | 570g
The HeatSight Optics TPM A7-384 25mm is available at heatsightoptics.com for $699 (regularly $899). It's in stock and ships from our Michigan facility. Questions about which HeatSight scope fits your hunting or property-security setup? Call us at (313) 338-8168 - you'll talk to the people who actually build and flash these units, not a call center.
This review was written by the HeatSight Optics team based on our own design, bench, and field testing of production units. We build these scopes, so consider the source - and consider that we also publish the cons, because we'd rather you buy the right scope than return the wrong one.