Night Vision Questions

[DalFort]

Hello everyone,

I'm looking to get into some night vision optics. I've never used anything NV so please excuse my newbiness.

What I was originally looking at is a decent cheaper (under $1K, preferably $300-600) day/night rifle scope. I know that this limits me to Gen 1, and they can be hit or miss. I am not wanting a night only scope. 90% of any of my shooting would be day.

Would I be better off getting a wearable set of NV binoculars so I can use it with different guns and having dedicated day scopes for certain rifles?

Is it feasible to shoot with the cheaper pair of binoculars considering recoil and viewing the scope through the NV?

Thanks everyone!

 

[rushthezeppelin]

If you are going to mostly be shooting during the day you cannot use traditional magnifier tube type optics, the tubes will burn out with too much light exposure and you are left with several bills of junk. If you want something that can be used day or night you need to look at some prebuilt professional digital setups like Nite-Tek - Home or Drone Pro Digital Night Vision Rifle Scope. Conversely you can build your own digital setup for fairly cheap (well within your budget if not below). I highly suggest you check out www.nightvisionforumuk.com ? View forum - DIY Nightvision if you want to go this route.

 

[DalFort]

Awesome info!
I'll be researching the sites you provided.
Thanks for your help!

 

[rushthezeppelin]

Anytime man. IMO digital NV is the way of the future.


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[Kaos]

look into Night Vision clipons. You would use this with a regular day scope. Might be outve your price range, but regular night vision will be a paper weight if you use it during the day. Digital you will still need to have an illuminator. Another question you need to ask is how far out do you wanna be able to see. There are quite a few articles on the difference of Gen 1, Gen 2 and Gen 3 Night Vision out on the internet.

 

[rushthezeppelin]

look into Night Vision clipons. You would use this with a regular day scope. Might be outve your price range, but regular night vision will be a paper weight if you use it during the day. Digital you will still need to have an illuminator. Another question you need to ask is how far out do you wanna be able to see. There are quite a few articles on the difference of Gen 1, Gen 2 and Gen 3 Night Vision out on the internet.

True enough you have to use IR illumination with digital but I really don't see it as a big deal. My T20IR (840nm) will last 2 hours at max brightness with a 2600mah 18650 and I only have to use that setting at 70+ yds with no moon out with my E700 setup. Carry an extra battery or two and it will last you plenty long enough for some night hunting. You can build one of these for around $50-$70 or do what I did and pay a nice bloke out in England to build you one for about a bill. The nice thing about my setup (ran me about $275ish) is I get very clear image out to 140/150 yds and can see good enough to probably ID targets out to 200, well past what I would ever need it for (hog hunting). Some people have even made rigs with nicer cameras (watechs) that can go out to 500+ but they will run a fair amount more. Also with a digital setup you can use a backup cam monitor so that you can literally setup your rig in your lap and sit in a lawn chair instead of having to get eye relief behind a scope. My setup can also go scope to scope in less than a minute (it places the cam right behind the scope at eye relief). Also I can use mine during the day by simply changing one setting in the cam.

One thing you have to keep in mind with digital (and I'd imagine even clipons) is that you can't use it with a scope that has super high quality coatings that actually filter out alot of IR. Basically you need something that is just good enough quality to hold zero for your chosen caliber and doesn't have the fanciest glass ever. Alternatively you can build a standalone setup and create a digi crosshair with privacy mask settings.

BTW here's the thread on my setup if you want to look into it more http://www.texasguntalk.com/forums/optics/55606-diy-ir-night-vision.html

Not saying you should go this way but digi definitely has it's advantages (as well as some disadvantages) and IMO is much more cost effective for image quality but you do pay for it with some loss of ease of use compared to traditional NV and my setup probably isn't the most rugged thing in the world (can take recoil fine but I can't drop it in mud puddles all day or on rocks).

 

[Kaos]

i have the Flir RS64 35mm....more than happy with the end results...

 

[rushthezeppelin]

Thermal is definitely a great option but aren't most of those out of his budget?


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[Kaos]

some are in the low 1000s

 

[Kaos]

goto TNVC.com or ultimatenightvision.com. On the ultimatenightvision site you can you sort by low to high price. There are some Gen 2 night vision devices out there for less than 1k.
Again there are numerous sites out there that will explain the difference between gen1, gen2 and gen3. More questions to ask yourself, how long do you expect this device to last for? Customer Svc?
Use those two sites I listed, and then google the ones your interested in for reviews.

 

[theblakester]

In that price range, with day and night capabilities, look up the sightmark photon. Comes in 3x and 5x. Or you could probably find a digisight N750 used for $1000 if u stay on it and are patient. The atn x-sight is gonna retail at about $700 but it isn't out yet. Atn pre released a couple crappy demo vids that don't really show it's capabilities but if it ends up being as good as it claims on the spec sheet it will be the best value out. But for now it's still nothing. Also, pulsar is working on an updated release of the digisight with a built in laser rangefinder. This might further reduce the cost of the digisight n750. All of these digital nv scopes have recording capabilities (search on YouTube) and can be used day or night.


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[Delta4-3]

I don't generally sell gen 1 devices. My market is usually high end gen 2 and up. I did however do a lot of T&E early on for the Armasight Vampire. It is a huge improvement over traditional gen 1, but it is not a blow-your-mind scope like a nice gen 3 device. It seems you probably have realistic expectations. If you had a good illuminator you could ring steel plates with the Vampire out to 300 or so. With a typical gen 1, I would say that distance is more like 80-100 with a good illuminator.