Durability of Night Vision Scopes? Bolt and Semi-Auto guns?

J

Jamie Young

New member
I usually try to avoid scopes with too many doo dads and fancy shmancy dials and battery operated this and thats But I've been looking at some of the scopes in Cabela's lately. I have a Night Owl Monocular just for fun but I was wonder if any TFLers have experience with Night Vision scopes? Since they are all battery powered and have electronic parts I wouldn't expect them hold up to too much abuse.
 
What I've heard was that the actual shooting wasn't a `problem' with quite a few of the `so-called' night-vision optics but instead it was a problem of people `forgetting' that they *were* super-sensitive light gatherers and were firing them up when it wasn't dark. Usually just plain `popped' the main `tube'! Now, just recently, I've heard that the newer ones, Gen III (Read: *Expensive*!), are a lot more `forgiving' and the `problems' are a bit more infrequent. The basic electronics are pretty danged tough these days and for the most part I wouldn't worry about it *except* on the cheaper ones. (One can only go as `low' as a Gen I tube and after that the basic electronics are the next thing that gets `cut'. {WAN GRIN!})


Give me about a week or so of checking around with a few `sources' and I'll see if I can come up with both some more info and some URLs that might help. (I've been having some `varmint' problems at night recently and I've been meaning to see if I can get one or two of the `local gurus' to `lend' me one or two to try out. I'll most likely be shooting them off of a reasonably heavy .308 bolt action when or if I do. {GRIN!})
 
I wondered how difficult it was to see threw them during the day and sight them in. I notice a difference between the Russian Night Vision stuff and the American Optics. I assume they all have some kind of filter for daylight use?
I've been thinking about mounting one on my Marlin 22Mag for critters up the mountains. How far do they estimate you can see with NV scopes?
 
If you use the filter (cover with a ittle bitty hole in it) it is not difficult to sight them in in the day.

I had a Russian NV Scope on my AR that I tested. I was able to keep hits on an FBI Q target out to about 150 yards on a clear moonlit night. I didn't use the IR cause I didn't want to have a red light showing where I was.

On a rainy, overcast night, down in a "bottom" field (100 yards across by 300 long) surrounded by trees and hills I was only able to make out the targets to get "accurate" hits on them at about 30 yards w/out IR.

The biggest problem with the accuracy was the chevron ( inverted V ) reticle.... not conducive to precision shooting.

How far you can see depends on ambiant light (moon or no moon) and the use of the IR illuminator or not.
 
Schmit: Did you try that IR? Infra-red, to the best of my knowledge, is not visable to the human eye. It's not like a laser.
 
I just recieved a Gen III monocular. I am just in the process of getting it rigged up. I only had a few minutes to test it the other night and it worked great. My understanding is the i/r is used mainly for close quarters and map reading type duty. It is only suppossed to be good out to about 20 yards. You can buy up to a 1000000 candlepower i/r spotlight that is invisible to the naked eye. The other night was pretty dark but I had no problem seeing out to around 200 yards. I would think with some moon or starlight you could double that distance. I need to get a long weaver rail for my Remington suppressed .308 so that I can mount the monocular behind an aimpoint. The monocular came with a quick release mount so that you can use it for viewing and then attach it to your weapon and use the aimpoint lined up with the night vision device for shooting at night. Some night vision come with their own reticle but my research show that it is best to use an aimpoint in combination n/v device. Also I think it is best to use a suppressed gun to keep the flash from ruining the tube. I will post a report when I get a chance to really test drive this new toy .
 
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