Night Vision Questions about beginner NV setup

[PapaJB]

Have been reading and learning a lot about NV and would appreciate some feedback on some questions that I still have and overall thought process. I recently got a PVS-14 and initial uses are:
1. seeing critters (of all types) on my property
2. shooting coons and coyotes and stuff
3. eventually hog hunting
My property is in north Georgia so between the terrain and the vegetation 200 yards is probably the longest distance I will need. At this point I only have the PVS-14 so I am thinking of getting:
A) Crye Nightcap with a used RHNO II. Thinking this combination would be inexpensive, small, light, and sufficient for my needs.
B) TOR-Mini 'target designator' for my rifle. Again, this is inexpensive, small, light, and sufficient at short distance.
C) IR illuminator that can be removed from the weapon mount to be handheld or possibly mounted on the Nightcap. At first I planned to get either a Surefire V1 Vampire or M640V IR as a white/IR combo flashlight but have read that these are not great weapon lights because they have too much spill (in IR). Should I plan to have a light with a narrower beam like BE Meyers KIJI K1 3 degree or something else?

Why am I planning to have separate laser and illuminator rather than an all-in-one unit? 2 reasons. 1. Want to be able to take the illuminator off and use by itself when I am just walking around and leave the laser sighted in. 2. I don't need a visible laser and the IR laser/illuminator devices that I have seen are more expensive, heavier, and the illuminator is often underpowered compared to the separate components.

Any feedback and advice would be appreciated.

 

[Old Man with Gun]

You might want to consider a dual visable and IR laser that are slaved to each other. It is a lot easier to zero a visable laser to your scope than zero an IR laser to it.

 

[fanninland]

Perhaps a NV capable weapon sight like an Eotech EXPS3-0 would be worth considering - transitioning NOD from helmet to weapon…

 

[Old Man with Gun]

Perhaps a NV capable weapon sight like an Eotech EXPS3-0 would be worth considering - transitioning NOD from helmet to weapon…

I don't like the PVS--14 weapons mounted and you can damage the PVS-14 under recoil depending on quality of unit and amount of recoil, so be cautious.

 

[fanninland]

Yep good catch Old Man - I forgot about that caveat. Way back before I went to thermal, I used it without any issues shooting 5.56 and 6.8, but this is certainly true....

 

[TxWelder35]

I ended up with a dbal d2 attached to my rifle. Just walking around I have not needed an Illuminator yet unless I was trying to shooting something. Having a slaved visible laser to the IR laser makes zeroing easy peasy. The LED Illuminator on the d2 is a bright as frig and you won’t need anything brighter than that. It will light up anything you could ever see with your naked eye in a pvs14. I bet it would even make a great Illuminator on a long range gun. Seriously it’s plenty bright.

 

[Lowdown3]

With Steiner discontinuing several models it's going to be hard to find an IR laser that does not have a visible laser also here soon.

Both the A3 and the D2 have visible lasers "slaved" together with the IR laser so you can go out during the day zero the vis laser and the IR laser is automatically zeroed.

The OTAL-C (cheapest option) is an IR laser only. Advantages- very simple, you won't "accidentally" turn on a vis laser (see students do that all the time at class), cheap, single AA battery. Disadvantages- totally reliant on the remote pressure pad switch- no fire button on the unit itself. So if (eventually when) your pressure pad goes down, you better have a spare handy or you'll have to lock on the laser with the power button.

 

[WhereNow&How]

The Dbal A3 slaved to a Luna ELIR-3 gives you all of the advantages of a full powered unit and one very important advantage over even a full powered Dbal A3 or any other full powered MFAL and it is this.

You can run a rechargeable RCR 123 battery in the Luna ELIR-3 and use just the IR Point on the DBAL A3 and the battery will last forever in the Dbal A3. The Illuminator is what burns up a lot of the battery juice.

To me, even the civi version of the Dbal A3 is still one of the best MFAL a person can buy. Many reasons why, the Override to Vis Point being just one of them.

The Dbal A3's are an extremely rugged MFAL. Recent reports about the ports coming out of Dbals is only because Unity Tactical/TNVC Taps Sync's etc had some Crane Plugs that were overly tight in the units. It was a problem on Unity/TNVC's end for making the Crane male plug too tight. They have made some revisions to their plugs.

However, I run even the tight ones in the Dbal A3's and just take a thin knife to gently pry the Crane male end out of the Dbal female socket and I don't have any issues. The people jerking on the cables improperly are the ones pulling the socket guts out.

 

[WhereNow&How]

The new B.E. Myers Kiiji cant hold a candle to the Luna. Here is the Luna at 1,000 yards exactly at the tree line. The Rheostat also allows you to instantly adjust the power being emitted so you can dial in the perfect power and beam width for your environment.

The ability to adjust the bezel and corresponding beam width is critical for a properly performing IR Illuminator. The Kiiji beam is so wide it will illuminate the ground in front of you and make your tubes autogate and downrate because of excessive light bouncing back into them from the Kiiji.

 

[SGT Fish @ChevTec Group]

A handheld IR illuminator can be had for cheap. The Amazon "fandyfire IR flashlights" are under 30 bucks last time I checked. Possibly less than 20. But you'll need to provide you own batteries. Definitely not a streamlight or surefire but they work for messing around. They are pretty bright too.

Even the pvs14 Illuminator is usually enough to light up animal's eye shine

 

[WhereNow&How]

Yep, I run the cheap Chinese Evolva T20's or (whatever name they choose for that month) on my helmets with a 950 Pass filter on them to kill all the red glow. They are excellent helmet lights.

 

[TxWelder35]

Yep, I run the cheap Chinese Evolva T20's or (whatever name they choose for that month) on my helmets with a 950 Pass filter on them to kill all the red glow. They are excellent helmet lights.

What is this filter you speak of, I’m assuming I could use it to kill the red glow on my d2

 

[WhereNow&How]

This is what I run. Zomei make a ton of different sizes and also band widths. However, be advised it will cut the powah of your D2 significantly as it will only let 950nm IR waves pass through it. I have my very powerful Evolva T20 LED IR helmet lights where I can easily take the IR 950 Pass filter off if I want to.

But even with the IR950 Pass filter on, it gets me out to 250- 300 yards depending on the particular photonics environment I am in.

In dark rural setting 250 to 300 yards with IR 950 Pass filter on, it performs very well to those ranges. When I take the IR 950 Pass Filter off I can stretch on out to 1,000 yards or better.

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[TxWelder35]

This is what I run. Zomei make a ton of different sizes and also band widths. However, be advised it will cut the powah of your D2 significantly as it will only let 950nm IR waves pass through it. I have my very powerful Evolva T20 LED IR helmet lights where I can easily take the IR 950 Pass filter off if I want to.

But even with the IR950 Pass filter on, it gets me out to 250- 300 yards depending on the particular photonics environment I am in.

In dark rural setting 250 to 300 yards with IR 950 Pass filter on, it performs very well to those ranges. When I take the IR 950 Pass Filter off I can stretch on out to 1,000 yards or better.

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Hmmm I wonder if it would cut out most of the light. Iirc doesn’t the d2 have a pretty narrow window of the wavelength of light it emits being LED? Or do I have that backwards and the laser illums are a narrow wavelength and LED emits a broader spectrum of light?

 

[WhereNow&How]

You have it backwards. LED IR is like a shotgun. Has IR nm from all over the spectrum.

Laser based diodes are much narrower in the IR spectrum.

 

[PapaJB]

Thanks for the suggestions, especially about getting a slaved dual laser since it would be good to have the option to move it between guns and sight it in quickly.

It looks like I can get a Holosun LS221R dual slaved laser for about $520 and if I want to add an IR illuminator the LN-ELIR would be a good choice. That combination would suit my needs for under $900.

The other option would be to get a CQBL-1 and LN-ELIR but I'm not sure the CQBL-1 is $400 better than the LS221R.

Either way, I don't see myself spending $1500 on an A3 or D2 when these combinations are available.