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Thread: long distance night shoots

  1. #21
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    wow, now that is cool! i was warned off of buying thermal unless i got a cooled one and there don't appear to be many handhelds.

    my dream device would be 6x bino that combine cooled thermal and night vision that also integrate the laser-based IR illum and IR designator and terrapin-quality LRF.

  2. #22
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    something weird happened with my iphone and i couldn't get it sorted out, plus i had the gain set much lower than usual so this pic is kinda bad, but shows a bit of what i'm seeing with colors at night. My friend painted the black IPSC seen in the other photos with neon green ground marking paint because it shows hits really well in the daytime. (see my shooting stick thread for a pic of it). as you can see, it's practically invisible. there are black, white and tan cows in the pic, roughly 150 yards away. The IPSC is 530 yards and the black headhunter is 604 yards.


  3. #23
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    The half-minute right impact at 600 is caused by the drift imparted on your bullet by right-hand twist rifling. Null it out (dial, set, or hold a quarter- to half-minute left on the target) and you'll be back to center.

  4. #24
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    Thumbs up

    That looks like great fun, and yes black contrasts very well with the NV gear and IR lasers, just like a black hog stands out.

    I recently picked up a FLIR T-60 to augment my T-50, although it is not a bolt gun, the longest I have shot it so far is 225 yards at night sighting it in with my Eotech. However, I just ordered an ACOG TA02 LED to specifically interface with the T-60 out to 600 yards or so. I use gallon milk jugs filled with hot water, the massive white explosion when impacted is pretty impressive on the video stream output.

    I ordered a picitanny rail to fit on top of my Ruger #1 7mm Rem Mag with Leopold 4-12 scope so I can shoot handloaded 165 grain SMKs using the FLIR T-60 at much longer ranges at night, should have it all setup by the end of this month.


    Last edited by SkyPup; 07-09-12 at 11:01.

  5. #25
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    that is a very cool setup, skypup!


    TRIDENT, short notice, but if you want to come up this weekend, i'll be out fri/sat/sun nights for sure. email me tom@taliv.net


    everyone else,

    as I mentioned earlier I'm still considering a multigun NV event that would look something like this. Limit 15-20 people. It would run like a match but we wouldn't keep score. Starting at maybe noon. attendees would use their own equipment and there would be 4-6 short stages similar to what we shoot in our precision field 'sniper' type matches (for examples see www.precisionmultigun.com). From maybe 3 hrs before sunset til 1 hour after, we would have an informal class / familiarization session with lots of different NV products. Attendees would be able to put their hands on various accessories (helmets, mounts, etc) during the day and then view targets etc through the optics in varying light conditions as the sun sets.

    After dark, attendees would shoot the same stages with provided rifles and NV. Again, we wouldn't keep score, and attendees would be able to reshoot stages as much as they want, and with their own equipment*, time and ammo permitting. Stages would involve shots from 10-1100 yards with suppressed pistol, carbine, and bolt guns. We'd probably secure the range sometime around midnight.

    Unfortunately cost would be about $300 (due to need to provide suppressed guns and ammo, and to defray cost of NV gear)

    I think the event would be fun, and a good learning opportunity, especially for anyone interested in purchasing NV that wants to try before buying. If attendees already have gear and are just looking for something fun to do with it, this would be a good opportunity, as the stages will be designed to highlight some challenges around using NV.

    I'm trying to get an idea for the level of interest in this type of event. Any feedback is welcome. thanks

  6. #26
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    CNVD-LR review

    so... unlike the first post where i waited over a year to post a review, this is more like a typical internet review where I take a new product out of the box the first day, shoot some bragging groups with it and blather on a while. so take the following with a grain of salt. particularly, the parts where i complain are likely because i just don't know how to properly set it up yet.

    First some pics of the device next to the 27s... Note the spiffy case that doesn't have molle webbing, but is otherwise pretty nice.






    First impressions...
    1. wow, it's lightweight!! (more than a pound less than the 27)
    2. it's much longer, which was almost a problem with my EFR/scope setup
    3. the rubber guard seems intended for 44mm objectives or smaller, and particularly seems useful only when centered. though i didn't stretch too hard, i couldn't get it around my 50 or 56mm objectives. i suppose my new 58mm USO is right out!
    4. nice QD like the 27s, but is on opposite side from the 27s, which is slightly annoying due to having to swap the illum/laser to the other side when switching between clip ons.
    5. being able to use 123 or AA batteries is a very cool feature
    6. despite a much smaller objective lens it sits much higher than the 27s. note rifle pics later. I think this might be part of my problem described later.
    7. the focus control is much better design than the pointy knob on the 27s, but in use, both have the same very narrow band where it's in focus; a little to either side and you're noticeably out of focus.
    8. you'd think for what these things cost, you'd get a tube without black spots all over it, but both devices have many black spots. if my pvs14s had these blemishes, i'd send them back. but with these clip ons, i'm guessing it's the magnification that makes them so noticeable

    Some pics of the clip ons on rifles. note that for the shooting below all through-scope pics and rounds fired were from the rifle on the right with the S&B PMII.



    On to some shooting...
    first a gratuitous pic of my target from previous afternoon... 2 rounds from 530 yards


    after which I painted the target thusly, as an experiment. Since there seemed to be some interest previously in the thread about target color, i painted the top black, the middle white and the bottom in ground-marking neon green paint. We'll see how easy it is to distinguish between the colors through NV.



    But first, while it was still daylight, I wanted to confirm my dope again, even though it looked pretty good from previous afternoon. (ok I admit i was just bored waiting for sun to set...)
    before and after, with closeups:



    and in fact, it wasn't exactly where i expected on my 1st round so i kept same POA and put a total of 3 rounds in a small group on the head of the ipsc silhouette from 580 yards, then 1 round on the head of the 653 yard target. that's good enough to test the NV though... so finally the sun set. It was partly cloudy and there was a full moon, but it was only about 15* above the horizon and behind a large stand of trees so not directly visible from my shooting position, though it was visible from the targets.

    For whatever reason, I'm having a great deal of difficulty taking decent through-scope pics of the NV with my iphone 4. To be sure, I wasn't impressed with the image i was seeing with either the 27s or CNVD-LR tonight. Both were fuzzy. I played with the gain as best I could, since the light from higher gain settings was washing out the camera. The following pics were taken with relatively lower gain settings on both optics as that was the only way the camera would take a reasonable pic that wasn't just a bright green blur.

    Even so, imho, all the images were poor in person tonight, and all the pics are even worse. I'm sure i will get different conditions later this week and post more comparison pics. For now...

    The 27s at 12x and 20x:



    and the CNVD-LR at 12x and 20x:



    note the black shape in the last picture is the southwest end of a northeast-bound cow about halfway to the target.

    note the blemish on the 27s about a mil and a half left of the ipsc silhouette. there are actually many more visible in person, and the CNVD-LR is even worse, but the camera isn't picking them up very well.

    And I took one shot at each target using the CNVD-LR...


    Now, I wouldn't normally complain too much about those, particularly the center hit on the ipsc, but I have to confess I was aiming for the heads! Granted, as you can see from the pics, my ability to aim small isn't nearly what it was in the daytime, but my impact is clearly a couple minutes lower. so since both shots were quite a bit low I'm thinking I have some sort of bore sight problem and the CNVD-LR is affecting my zero in ways the 27 never did. I guess I will make a few phone calls and continue my education tomorrow.

  7. #27
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    I'm looking forward to your continued posts on this. I've been eyeballing the CNVD HEAVILY since they came out.

    The black spots and 2moa shift in zero is very disappointing. Please update when you get some answers on those issues.

    I too have never really been able to get a camera to take good night vision pictures.
    Greg Dykstra
    Primal Rights, Inc.

  8. #28
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    Interesting. I'm curious to see how it performs on a better night. I hope you get the pictures figured out. NV and pictures are hard enough as it is when conditions are good.

    I have a hard time getting upset about blemishes as long as they aren't dead center, and they're actually useful depending on the type of black spot when it comes to a PVS-14, although I can see how they'd be annoying in a clip-on. You just have to remember that blemish free tubes don't exist, and it's easier to come to terms with. I'm sure you could get an av-spec tube put in by L3 but it would cost you another couple grand. The aviation tubes are the closest I've ever seen to be blem-free and I bet they'd be fantastic in a clip-on provided the recoil mitigation system works well. A low halo aviation tube would probably have a hard time on a heavy weight AR, let alone a .308 even if it's a heavy gun.
    I'm not cool. I just do this stuff for fun.

  9. #29
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    Thx for the AAR
    Interesting & keep us posted

  10. #30
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    Quote Originally Posted by taliv View Post
    Now, I wouldn't normally complain too much about those, particularly the center hit on the ipsc, but I have to confess I was aiming for the heads! Granted, as you can see from the pics, my ability to aim small isn't nearly what it was in the daytime, but my impact is clearly a couple minutes lower. so since both shots were quite a bit low I'm thinking I have some sort of bore sight problem and the CNVD-LR is affecting my zero in ways the 27 never did. I guess I will make a few phone calls and continue my education tomorrow.
    Did it cool down considerably from when you checked zero before dark?
    Is it possible that some of that elevation shift is air density related or did you dial for the change?
    Randall Rausch
    AR15 Barrel Guru
    California Precision Rifle Club founding member

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