best as in opinion or best as in repeatable or vest as in accurate?

opinion-use the motor thermistor and get better results without spending money
repeatable-I explained how to neutralize the error of each gun by using neutralizing the effects of color.
accurate-I explained how to use distance to find the focal length.

Its not all the opinion or facts but you quoted me and I didnt name a gun but i did name methods to make guns equal.
Personally I use the motor thermistor or a flir ax8. if I need a quick and dirty measurement I us the HBRFRT centron but I use all of them for something different and none of them are perfect.

Flir and Fluke make most of the best handheld instruments but I wouldnt spend the money because of the ROI. Im not avoiding your question or anyone else’s opinion or even facts,to me a tool is a tool and for what we are doing most of the time a cheap gun is fine. You can make a cheap gun better or you can use something very cheap that is better. its not easy to answer what is the best unless you define what you are doing. That’s ok, allot of people havent considered what kind of problem they need to solve and how to work around them so I elaborated. all guns will be effected to a greater or lesser degree to what I mentioned.

If you are looking for experiences then im sure more people can share with you. Im not the guy to poopoo someone’s experience or claim temp gun master status.