Seeking advice on night vision

**arptsprt** · 07-09-20, 19:29

Another recommendation for JRH. His HP+ tubes have very decent base specs for the price point that takes a lot of the guess work out of the process.

Originally Posted by Nocaster

Will call JRH, thank you.

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**Renegade** · 07-09-20, 19:34

Originally Posted by Nocaster

Solid plan or am I missing some important information?

What is your intended use?

**taliv** · 07-09-20, 20:01

Originally Posted by jpmuscle

Thing to remember too though is generally you’re engagement distance is limited to your ability to PID at range so figure your zero distance in even the best of conditions. Will a civ dbal be sufficient? Eh. The difference between full power and civ powered units is brutal the first time you see it, even more so in mixed lighting conditions where the civ stuff just can’t penetrate. But first time buyer? Look at picking up a used A3. If one could get full power MAWLs then different story.

My experience is different. Have used both full power and civ power. Out to 200 yards or so I run the full power devices on the low power settings most of the time. Inside 25yd I strongly prefer low power.
My general observation is the civ illuminators have nicer light up close but tend to burn through batteries much faster.
Shooting bolt guns from 500-1100 yards with pvs27s yeah, civ power doesn’t cut it.

Originally Posted by jpmuscle

Also don’t get all wrapped up in FOM numbers when looking at tubes. A cleaner tube with less artifacts is the FOV is better than a higher FOM tube with defects.

Not sure what FOM stands for or which artifacts you mean but I would take a high performing tube (Snr >30 and good ebi and 72lp) with a few blemishes even spots in center zone over an average tube with no spots any day. If that has nothing to do with FOM and artifacts I apologize for the confusion.

**taliv** · 07-09-20, 20:09

To the OP

1 right
2 right
3 nope

Go get a decent set of 14s. One of two things will happen over the next year or two:

1 you will be like most people and put 3-4 hours on them. Show them off to your friends. Then put them in the safe and eventually sell them cause you never use them.

2 you are a shooter and will get addicted. You’ll shoot with them as often as you can and want others to go with you but that sucks when only one guy can see and everyone else is just hearing dings and holding their jimmy. So you’ll sell your bass boat or some other loser gear and buy the dual tube setup you really want. But you’ll still need the 14s for your buddy to borrow so you can both see to shoot. And you’ll justify it cause your wife will need to see too if you have to bug out lol

Of course these assume civilization doesn’t totally break down in nov.

**ScottsBad** · 07-09-20, 21:37

This would be a good time to buy at least one PVS14 and accessories for the coming CW. At least that's my plan.

**Dr. Bullseye** · 07-09-20, 22:32

I have never used night vision. All the Vietnam era guys say the enemy comes at night. Now we have great NV in the military and we own the night. So unless you are intending to fight a modern military at night, at 200 yards, why are you spending 2-3K for a NV set up? That is, if you are truly doing home defense, does your property extend 200 yards or more? And if you are not intending to fight a modern military at night, well then you are probably only going to encounter non-night vision bad guys or maybe Antifa types. Any night vision under those circumstances will make you king. Another thing, I can't even see 200 yards in the daylight because of the forest--not even half that. Fifty yards for NV would be great. Then there is the question of identification. You just can't shoot the wrong guy. Why wouldn't 50 yards at 1X, even with gen 0 or gen 1 or digital than 200 yards with gen 3 at 4X? What power are you intending to use?

You other NV guys, please tell me where I have gone off the rails here.

**jpmuscle** · 07-09-20, 22:44

Originally Posted by Dr. Bullseye

I have never used night vision.

You answered your own supposition before you even started.

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**Ironman8** · 07-09-20, 22:59

Regarding laser setup, I would skip the MAWL and either just go with the DBAL A3 if that works for your application or do a "Poor Man's MAWL" and set up something like a CQBL-1 with an IR light on a dual lead tapeswitch. I want to try the CQBL-1 with the Modlight 850 head and put a 940 pass filter on it to cut out the visible red glow...this should still pump out enough juice to illuminate nicely without the visible signature.

I'm in the process of setting up a NV rig of my own and aside from asking dudes here, look over at the SnipersHide NV section. Lots of good suggestions there as well. I started a thread titled "Poor Man's MAWL" and had the above suggestion by one of the members.

**Ironman8** · 07-09-20, 23:03

Hopefully the OP doesn't mind me asking a question for the guys here...what would you rather have:

1) Filmless WHITE Phosphor PVS-14

OR

2) Thin Film GREEN Phosphor BNVD

While I would love to have Filmless WP BNVD's, I'm not sure I can swing $10k...and the Thin Film GP BNVD's from JRH is only ~50% more than the Filmless WP PVS-14 and seems like a decent compromise to get into binos. Are binos worth the tradeoff vs having the best tube money can buy in a single tube?