SOMOGEAR(Chyna) PEQ 15 Day Vis Laser/IR Laser & Illuminator, First Impressions

[xounlistedxox]

Haven't seen much about these other than on youtube.

I snagged two of their potted versions. Ran them both with a couple hundred rounds each and so far no shift in zero and no problems.

Initially I noticed they would turn off after each shot, so it's apparently incredibly important that you tighten the battery cap ALL the way down. One of them came with an o-ring below the battery and the other did not. this o-ring will help stop it from shutting off under recoil as well.

Shot out to around 100 yards on steel from a 25/100 yard zero without problems at night.

Lasers are extremely bright under night vision as well as the illuminator. We had good moon light the entire trip, so I didn't get to test outside under ultra dark conditions.

I was easily able to make out persons at 300+ yards under these good moonlight conditions with the illuminator & NVG's. IR Laser is visible easily beyond 1k yards, not sure how useful it would be out that far, day vis laser is quite bright and can be seen in the bright sun light.

Overall initial impressions are impressed, especially for the $239. I would like to get an L3 version, but for the price I can get 6-10 of the SOMOGEAR PEQ 15, or 4-6 of their aluminum housing NGAL. I keep my eyes peeled for a good price L3 either way.

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[Munny$hot]

IMHO you'd be better off with 1 L3 PEQ vs 20 knock offs. Not trying to flex on knock offs but the Chinese stuff is generally look good on the outside and skimp on the inside. While a lot of people will argue the Holosun is a decent quality optic which I would agree, it's designed for firearms and not airsoft. Sure the potted version may encapsulates the board, the components used are not the greatest. I've seen a few start to lose zero and adjusters fail. While you can have several back ups swapping them out on the fly maybe not be an option. IMHO if you can afford NODs get a quality MFAL or passively aim until you can afford one.

[xounlistedxox]

IMHO you'd be better off with 1 L3 PEQ vs 20 knock offs. Not trying to flex on knock offs but the Chinese stuff is generally look good on the outside and skimp on the inside. While a lot of people will argue the Holosun is a decent quality optic which I would agree, it's designed for firearms and not airsoft. Sure the potted version may encapsulates the board, the components used are not the greatest. I've seen a few start to lose zero and adjusters fail. While you can have several back ups swapping them out on the fly maybe not be an option. IMHO if you can afford NODs get a quality MFAL or passively aim until you can afford one.

I appreciate the feedback, and have read a bunch of posts just like this one while I was considering buying these. We had a camping trip planned for April and I knew I had to get something before the trip. The L3 Full Power unit that I was working on a deal for fell through and these popped back up in stock on paragon for $239 each just in time to make it before, so it was an impulse buy to ensure I had something to take camping. They arrived 2 days before the trip!

Passively aiming I find is a poor solution at best. I've ran drills with my T1s, T2s, Comps, Pros, & EoTech etc. IR lasers are much easier to work with in the dark. I am setup for passive aiming on most of my builds for worst case scenario though. The plan is to get a real Full Power PEQ, NGAL or similar at some point(as mentioned above), but two of these SG's afforded me the ability to have hours of nods adjustment/practice time/running drills and the ability to shoot hundreds of rounds without any problems. Not only that, but for two it was the cost of about 1/4 of what a used full power PEQ 15 typically sells for, more likely even less. Plus L3 won't service those from us civi's if they fail. If the SGs fail, I'm fairly competent with electronics repair, and if I can't figure it out I know someone else locally that can. These are doing exactly what they are used for in most cases which is to fill in until I get the real deal, or act as backups to the real deal.

Make no mistake, the target market for these are real firearms. Otherwise they wouldn't be constantly improving their design to make it more robust. They just can't say that, or even hint to it being that they're full power lasers. Do I expect them to be as good as the genuine article? Absolutely not. I doubt they would take a solid hit for example to the housing. I won't be tossing them on the ground to find out however haha.

Even after I obtain a "real" one, I will keep these around to keep testing. As with most things I see out there, I attribute a good bit of the failures to the end user. Will this be the same? Ultimately I don't know, but I'm willing to test them myself rather than listen to folks on the internet that may not own one or have ever seen one.

Funny you mention holosun though, I don't own a single one and have stayed away from them. With aimpoint and eotechs being only a couple hundred more $ it's very easy to skip over holosun. The price disparity between somogear and L3 is thousands. That's not an easy pill to swallow. I bought my nods when they were considerably less expensive. Gen 3 white phos RNVG with elbit tubes. Getting my helmet setup took longer than expected though and now everything shot way up in price, and work has slowed, so toys budget has decreased substantially.

I do have a ton of guitars and amps for trade towards an L3 if you're interested

[Munny$hot]

I appreciate the feedback, and have read a bunch of posts just like this one while I was considering buying these. We had a camping trip planned for April and I knew I had to get something before the trip. The L3 Full Power unit that I was working on a deal for fell through and these popped back up in stock on paragon for $239 each just in time to make it before, so it was an impulse buy to ensure I had something to take camping. They arrived 2 days before the trip!

Passively aiming I find is a poor solution at best. I've ran drills with my T1s, T2s, Comps, Pros, & EoTech etc. IR lasers are much easier to work with in the dark. I am setup for passive aiming on most of my builds for worst case scenario though. The plan is to get a real Full Power PEQ, NGAL or similar at some point(as mentioned above), but two of these SG's afforded me the ability to have hours of nods adjustment/practice time/running drills and the ability to shoot hundreds of rounds without any problems. Not only that, but for two it was the cost of about 1/4 of what a used full power PEQ 15 typically sells for, more likely even less. Plus L3 won't service those from us civi's if they fail. If the SGs fail, I'm fairly competent with electronics repair, and if I can't figure it out I know someone else locally that can. These are doing exactly what they are used for in most cases which is to fill in until I get the real deal, or act as backups to the real deal.

Make no mistake, the target market for these are real firearms. Otherwise they wouldn't be constantly improving their design to make it more robust. They just can't say that, or even hint to it being that they're full power lasers. Do I expect them to be as good as the genuine article? Absolutely not. I doubt they would take a solid hit for example to the housing. I won't be tossing them on the ground to find out however haha.

Even after I obtain a "real" one, I will keep these around to keep testing. As with most things I see out there, I attribute a good bit of the failures to the end user. Will this be the same? Ultimately I don't know, but I'm willing to test them myself rather than listen to folks on the internet that may not own one or have ever seen one.

Funny you mention holosun though, I don't own a single one and have stayed away from them. With aimpoint and eotechs being only a couple hundred more $ it's very easy to skip over holosun. The price disparity between somogear and L3 is thousands. That's not an easy pill to swallow. I bought my nods when they were considerably less expensive. Gen 3 white phos RNVG with elbit tubes. Getting my helmet setup took longer than expected though and now everything shot way up in price, and work has slowed, so toys budget has decreased substantially.

I do have a ton of guitars and amps for trade towards an L3 if you're interested

I'm still waiting for Holosun's latest MFAL to drop which is supposedly @ the 900 range. It's a lot smaller than a lot of the current offerings from Steiner, L3, BE etc. It uses VSCEL LED diodes so the power could be up there with the MAWL C1+/D2. The good thing is prices are coming down on MFALs so it's a buyers market when they do pop up for sale. With so many more NV out there it's almost a must to be able to passively aim. Pair it with a SureFire Vampire light and you're good out to @ 70-100 yards

[xounlistedxox]

I'm still waiting for Holosun's latest MFAL to drop which is supposedly @ the 900 range. It's a lot smaller than a lot of the current offerings from Steiner, L3, BE etc. It uses VSCEL LED diodes so the power could be up there with the MAWL C1+/D2. The good thing is prices are coming down on MFALs so it's a buyers market when they do pop up for sale. With so many more NV out there it's almost a must to be able to passively aim. Pair it with a SureFire Vampire light and you're good out to @ 70-100 yards

Yeah, we'll see how it goes for the LAM market goes, especially with so many "airsoft" companies starting to develop stuff like these the market has no choice but to adjust.

As for passive aiming, I have made sure to buy NV capable optics even long before I had NVG's so they're all ready to go, and I did get some practice in like this. So far I like the aimpoint comp 3 better than any of my other optics which include Aimpoint T1 & T2, & Eotech. I even put my eotech on a FAST riser and don't like it as much as the aimpoint at lower 1/3rd co-witness. Somehow, some way the aimpoint just is much easier to find the dot. I have a good varieny of WML's from surefire, inforce, cloud defense, and streamlight. It's always interesting to take this stuff out where you have more than 1,000 yards of darkness to see how they perform vs in the city. Some results are not what you would expect.

[Munny$hot]

Yeah, we'll see how it goes for the LAM market goes, especially with so many "airsoft" companies starting to develop stuff like these the market has no choice but to adjust.

As for passive aiming, I have made sure to buy NV capable optics even long before I had NVG's so they're all ready to go, and I did get some practice in like this. So far I like the aimpoint comp 3 better than any of my other optics which include Aimpoint T1 & T2, & Eotech. I even put my eotech on a FAST riser and don't like it as much as the aimpoint at lower 1/3rd co-witness. Somehow, some way the aimpoint just is much easier to find the dot. I have a good varieny of WML's from surefire, inforce, cloud defense, and streamlight. It's always interesting to take this stuff out where you have more than 1,000 yards of darkness to see how they perform vs in the city. Some results are not what you would expect.

No doubt the amount of light transmission through an optic can vary greatly. The difference from a T1/Pro/M2/CompM2/Duty are not bad but for me the T2/CompM3/M4 are much better in darker environments especially when used with a monocular/PVS7.

[xounlistedxox]

No doubt the amount of light transmission through an optic can vary greatly. The difference from a T1/Pro/M2/CompM2/Duty are not bad but for me the T2/CompM3/M4 are much better in darker environments especially when used with a monocular/PVS7.

Absolutely! LPVO's even with a 1x on the bottom seem to not work well unfortunately. Definitely found out why folks have been moving to the 2.26" height though. I just hate giving up the lower 1/3rd co-witness. Everything is a give and take.

[karsk]

i believe the laser output, even in eye safe mode, is beyond the normal safe ranges. this is the benefit of chinese lasers, they are very powerful. potted versions are fine to run 5.56, anything heavier recoil, and it'll eventually break.

[xounlistedxox]

i believe the laser output, even in eye safe mode, is beyond the normal safe ranges. this is the benefit of chinese lasers, they are very powerful. potted versions are fine to run 5.56, anything heavier recoil, and it'll eventually break.

Yes, both day vis lasers are incredibly bright, even the splash from walls inside the house are insanely bright. I absolutely wouldn't want one shined directly in my eye for any reason.

[Blu808]

I have a real peq15 if you want to do a comparison or a night shoot out at my property. Cool review!

[xounlistedxox]

I have a real peq15 if you want to do a comparison or a night shoot out at my property. Cool review!

Much appreciated! Where are you located?

I'm out in Northern Sacramento

[Blu808]

About an hour south of Hollister, but I live in San Jose area.

[xounlistedxox]

About an hour south of Hollister, but I live in San Jose area.

That may be a little far, but we may be able to work something out if I don't snag one on my own before too long!

[Blu808]

Sounds good. Have 240 acres. So we can do lots of shooting