Looking for Night Vision recommendations

[hermosabeach]

Honestly, in your shoes I would just set the money you have aside and keep squireling more away as needed. If not you will discover you hate what your purchased and will want to sell it (likely for less than you paid) and get something better. I did what you want to do...and regretted it. Quickly upgraded to something actually usable.

Price range is pretty tough to get around when it comes to usable night vision. You really do get what you pay for. The ideal "beginner" setup really is a Gen 3 PVS-14 with auto-gated tubes. That will run you $2500-$3K. There are just too many drawbacks to anything cheaper. Lots of videos on youtube that will explain this better than I can.

The fewer imperfections the more it costs. Mine has two very tiny specs in the tube. Surprised me you can't get them perfect for that price. But considering how expensive they could have been, makes sense. Clarity, battery life, and lack of inclusions are what you are paying for. I paid something like $2800 shipped after tax for mine. It is an OPMOD model from Optics Planet that is no longer made.

You will need a mount. I am running a NOROTOS RHNO II BAYONET surplus mount that was like new. Cost me under $100 off eBay. What I really want a Wilcox mount that runs well north of $500. Which also uses it's own JARM which runs close to $200. Odds are your PVS14 will come with a bayonet style JARM that will work with a NOROTOS RHNO II BAYONET mount.

You'll need a good bump helmet. Skip the ballistic helmet. They are too heavy to enjoy running them. Unless somebody is realistically shooting back, a bump helmet will do. The best fitting (only one that properly fits my huge head) is Team Wendy. Their least expensive bump helmet runs $400 shipped after tax. Some haters out there for this brand because they owner donated money to Clinton back in the day. But the product really can't be beat when it comes to adjustability and quality for the money. If you have a normal size head you'll have a lot more options than I do. You can get something in the $200-$300 range that will actually work properly. Hard head veterans makes an inexpensive one. Never tried it though. Did try their ballistic helmet, which did not have enough adjustment in the chin straps neck to work for my giant head.

An IR/White light is a good addition to your helmet. Night vision needs an IR illuminator to work. You don't want to rely on ambient light alone. While you will likely have an IR illuminator on your weapon having one on the helmet itself is really useful. For example, you may want to use the NODs for something other than shooting. Or you may want to see something really clearly and not point a gun at it. Most decent IR lights offer a white light mode as well. Having a white light on your helmet that you can switch too is helpful for obvious reasons. But remember to flip-up your NODs (which in my case also turns them off) first. White light can damage the tubes. Hence also needing to pony up for a PVS14 that is auto-gated (shuts off to protect the tubes from light). Good IR/White lights are not cheap. But INFORCE mays one that runs about $125-$140 last I checked. Surefire Vampire lights are more like $350-400.

You will also want to look into what lights, optics, lasers you will need to mount to your rifles and pistols to use them effectively with night vision and the laws here in California that apply. Like most CA laws, they are annoying and confusing.

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I agree.... Either buy a solid used TMVC set up or save up...

If you have ever used a poor spotting scope, then you know how frustrating it is with a shaking image, clarity where you cant make out details, cant read the printing on a target.... its just horrific.


NV - you need to clarify how you will use the device... What quality of image do you need? If you buy someones used safe queen, you can sometimes get it with the mounts, helmet, counter weights, etc and spend 2/3rds of the money

until you can define what you need, the budget is not relevant....

[tacticalcity]

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I agree.... Either buy a solid used TMVC set up or save up...

If you have ever used a poor spotting scope, then you know how frustrating it is with a shaking image, clarity where you cant make out details, cant read the printing on a target.... its just horrific.


NV - you need to clarify how you will use the device... What quality of image do you need? If you buy someones used safe queen, you can sometimes get it with the mounts, helmet, counter weights, etc and spend 2/3rds of the money

until you can define what you need, the budget is not relevant....

Holding out for TNVC might be tough for a lot of folks. Their stuff is great but pretty pricey. There are some good quality Gen 3 PVS14s out there. There are also a lot of really poor-quality imitations. It would be really easy to buy something that sucks and not realize it until you try and use it. The truly terrible stuff is easy to realize. Gen 1 for example is unusable. Digital is going to have really short battery life and if the refresh rate is too high be completely unusable for maneuvering. Those are two things to avoid right away. It is important to make sure they list what generation and who made the tubes. Also that they show pics of what image the tubes are getting so you can look for blems, specs, and dark splotches. There are different quality tubes out there. Some brands are almost always excellent while some can be hit and miss. Additionally, the number of hours these things have on them matters. As they all get darker and darker over time/use. The main advantage of Gen 3 being it will have a longer lifespan than a Gen 2 tube. Not sure if that reduced life associated with Gen 2 tubes still applies to the newer Chinese tubes or not. Those tend to have the slightly reduced light transmission/image quality associated with Gen 2 tubes. Like Gen 2 tubes they will need the aid of an IR illuminator sooner than a good Gen 3 tube. But that is not to say that Gen 2+ and the Chinese equivalent suck. They are actually pretty impressive and very tempting. Some sellers will list spec sheets. In truth that is all a little beyond my knowledge set. What little I know about this stuff is from reading about it online and watching videos online. My only real-world experience is with a really crappy Gen1 Monocular I quickly sold because it sucked and my PVS14 which is Gen 3 and really great. So, take my comments with a huge grain of salt. My Gen 3 PVS14 is truly impressive. Great clarity. Does well in very low to no light situations. I like it a lot. If I could afford this quality in binos that would be awesome. I have not tried Gen 2 personally. But like I said I am really tempted to pick up a set of Gen 2+ (with newer Chinese tubes rather than actual Gen 2 tubes). It helps that my supplier which gives me wholesale pricing has been sold out of them for as long as I have been interested. Well, in truth they got them in stock briefly, but it was bad timing financially. Sadly, they don't carry Gen 3 binos. Even if they did, I could not afford them anyway. This stuff is crazy expensive.