Alright, I'm closing in on a competent setup. I have a critical question, and hopefully JoshNC is still following this thread and can offer some input:

Visible laser in an illuminator - is it important enough to go ahead and go for this?

Reason I ask is I'm considering a DIR-V or a DIR-ONE V. I don't see myself using a vis laser for just about anything other than maybe checking my zero with my dot during the daytime, and honestly, that's still depending on the thing staying coaligned with the IR laser, and I'd see myself checking that the IR laser was coaligned with the dot under NV anyways. I have a PERST 3 clone that has a surprisingly good IR laser, but the green laser doesn't coalign, and I don't find myself caring about that, because I can't see a need for it. I find myself wishing that I could fire an IR laser and IR illuminator with one button press.

Is it worth spending the extra $500 for vis laser? I'm leaning towards "no," but I also don't want to eventually feel like an idiot for not just going ahead and springing for the full featured unit right off the bat. Then again, that difference in cash outlay could be an EXPS 3-0 and I'd still have all the capability I think I'd reasonably want with the DIR-ONE V and a Malkoff scout on the left side.

I've looked at a lot of different illuminators, and while the ACAL and IRIS would be nice as more budget options, I don't want to wait another six months or a year for that when I could just be shooting with a really good IR illuminator the whole time.

I have used the visible laser in my PEQ15 to point things out to people. It comes in handy for that, as well as the zeroing and zero confirmation perks you already noted.

If you have it, you'll use it for something sometimes. If you don't have it, you probably won't wish you did. I have never used mine to actually shoot, and the times it's come in handy for the things mentioned above certainly don't add up to $500 worth.

I think they used to be more relevant for use with gas masks and such. We've embraced the tall mounts now, so that's kind of a wash. I do see some "high speed" folks on youtube using visible lasers in shoot house scenarios. They could be inadvertently triggering it though (but then they arguably wouldn't be high speed).

Like you said, hopefully others will chime in with more experience-based input.

Despite my observations of splash signature, when using my ersatz diving board mock-up, I am still curious. The ability to remove and re-install the "suite" of NV-related aiming tools all at once is appealing to me. I am considering some tweaks to the current rifle setup, and it would likely work out well.

There's this alternative to the GBRS Hydra...

https://jagerwerks.com/shop/optic-mounts/

Less money, but it doesn't seem to get everything up as high. The modifications I am considering have me with a .5" riser on the top of the receiver anyway though, so it could work out.

Along those lines, there was a guy at GBRS named Slade who had a falling out with the other guys. They supposedly stole his idea and turned it into the Hydra. He started his own company and produces his own. It looks like basically the same thing as the Jagerworks setup you linked. I haven't looked closely enough, and they may not play well together, but this is another option to at least look into. A little pricier, but hey, tatted beardbrovet SEAL drip, amirite?

https://www.scirregulars.com/c...-optic-mount-modular

Well. Earlier tonight, I was thinking about the whole thermal thing, and reading discussion of the Jerry CE5, trying to come to terms with the idea of that whole thing for $4,500. Then a friend asks my NV chat group if we'd seen this stuff yet. Apparently Rix uploaded their website earlier tonight and there's no further info yet, but they're selling thermal fusion units now. Not only that, they're selling a fusion dual tube in the housing-only configuration for $5,500.

Some random specs:

800x600 and the thermal sensor is 640x512
Runs on two 18650's in an external battery pack.
Enhanced Display ≥ 8 hours, I² up to 100 hours.

https://www.rixtactical.com/pr...t-vision-binoculars/

I need more info, and it's still a massive pill to swallow. It's basically the Jerry-FB housing, but for a hell of a lot cheaper than I'm seeing it in other places. The idea of pulling the tubes from my housing and dropping them into this for full thermal integration plus nav stuff is honestly pretty tempting. The only thing that gives me pause is committing to a setup that isn't 100% analog, and the possible failure points that come with that, but I really want to get thermal into my setup and this may be the best overall way to do that.

quote:

Originally posted by KSGM:
Another thing I happened across not long ago, in a YT video, was a reinforcement in an opinion I have. Aiming passively through a dot sight with your unaided eye, and superimposing that red dot into your night vision image of your aided eye is not viable.

A guntuber described the exact experience I have had: your POI is off by 4-8 inches at CQB distances. Not every shot, but more of them than not. I suspect it has something to do with either the distance between your eyes, the NVG tube not being perfectly parallel to the weapon/sight, or a combination of both.

That is essentially a higher tech version of the old technique of shooting with an occluded red dot sight.

Apparent zero shift in that situation has to do with a phenomenon called phoria, and it depends on each individuals eyes will determine how much phoria induced zero shift you will have.

I personally cannot shoot that way as I get a massive zero shift.

https://eye-select.com.au/phoria-eye/

Organized a night shoot a couple weekends back. It was good timing, because fire restrictions are now in place for the duration of the summer. We got to our spot around sunset and had a variety of targets. Three steels, and maybe four or five paper targets, plus a pile of tires someone left there. Lighting conditions were fun. It was a 95% moon if I remember right, but it didn't peek up over the mountain until a little after 11:00, so we had several hours of shooting in super dark conditions, and then about an hour of shooting in incredibly bright conditions. We ran a handful of different drills, but mostly it was pretty casual and a good social occasion. Lots of laughs.

I got to try my LH2 on the Bren, suppressed. It's on the verge of usable with just the lens cap over it and a small hole drilled. With that cap open, it's a hot spot that throws further than anything anyone brought out, and tons of spill that gates tubes. The TLR VIR II with the EFL on it provides a usable light out to maybe a hundred yards. If someone wanted a bottom-dollar LAM for a PCC, this is about as cheap as I would go. I had it on the Scorpion, but I've since pulled it and mounted it on my G45. Kind of up in the air on whether I'll keep the EFL on it for pistol use. It's super floody, but on a pistol, I don't see that as a bad thing.

A friend lent me his PVS14 and phone mount. It's got a super crispy Photonis Echo + and I set out to record muzzle flash and compare suppressors. I got a fair bit of footage in different lighting and it was really educational. If you're looking for a low flash signature can and don't want to pay Surefire prices, the full size Otter Creek Polonium performs really, really well in this department. Up against a Griffin Explorr 224 and a YHM R2, there was next to nothing. The stills I've pulled look a lot like what I've seen for RC2's. Pretty amazing for right at $500, and HUB compatible.

Something that stands out to me is the flash from the gas port on the Bren, and the amazing amount of flash out of the ejection port on the Scorpion. I had to say, with subsonic ammo, the Scorpion sounds like a paintball gun. The PS90 suppressed and shooting Fiocchi 62gr subsonic is hilariously quiet and has almost no muzzle flash, even out of the Griffin, but the ejected casings are so hot that they emit a bright IR light and it looks like the gun is shitting chem lights. It's pretty funny.

I think I’m pretty well set on finishing out my 11.5 URGI as my main rifle for everything, including NV. It’s just such a smooth shooter. I need to move some things, but I’m just going to get the DIR-V later this year, maybe Independence Day sales, and bundle it with a good white light. My Surefire Millenium just isn’t gonna cut it.

This last weekend, we got together for a slightly different event. I won't go super deep into the details, but it was a ten on one game of hide and seek over several square miles of desert trails with zero moon. I was one of the hunters and the only one to actually encounter the target out on the trails early on, but he's a lot younger and not busted up and I wasn't about to chase his ass through the desert. We did have comms, and we did converge on him about forty five minutes later, after eliminating where he couldn't be. My buddy with the Rix ST6 spotted him. I wasn't sure thermal would be super helpful on a day where it was 108 degrees and only cooled down to 98 while we were out there, but with everything around him being hotter, he was a big glowing white spot on a black hot display.

On that note, where I'm going next is a drone. We have both a DIY thermal and DIY I² FPV drone project running, and I'm not talking a five grand budget. It's looking like it'll be doable for under five hundred apiece, maybe under $750 for someone to have one of each. While it sounds like shit performance, the video I’m seeing for the NV cam is shockingly good. Can’t speak much to the thermal end of things yet. All the incidentals are getting worked out and I should have more to share later this year. My goal is to be able to launch from my back yard and have a look around the neighborhood, day or night.

Glad to hear about the Polo's flash performance. I am not surprised. The Polonium strikes me as a refined classic-style build. It seems that cans built the old fashioned way are good performers in every aspect but back pressure (and weight). The recent flash comparison I performed resulted in a top three consisting of the OCM5, RC2, and older "golf ball" Vortex HALO. That HALO was neck-and-neck with the RC2, in flash, and was quieter. Downside is it weighs 24oz. A friend bought a Polo on my recommendation, and I am confident I did right by him.

Flash signature is a great example of one of the facets of performance that night vision puts under scrutiny. The fact that flash happens at different spots on different weapons is a funny thing. Your silencer could have excellent flash performance, but it's only as good as your ejection port or gas vent signature, depending on the gun you're using it on. "DI" AR15s are awesome for a lot of reasons, and that's definitely one of them: they don't fall victim to those extra flash locations. I wonder, when it comes to the 9mm, if guns like the MP5 or MPX would do any better. Presumably the MPX will have the gas vent flash. Maybe the MP5 delays things enough to calm port flash.

I am down with the 11.5" for everything. I am down for one gun for everything in general, regardless of chosen barrel length; though 11.5 is probably as short as is practically effective across a broader spectrum of applications. I know I am the controversial weirdo here, but I still play the optic swap game. You can get a lot of performance out of the one gun, if you're willing to swap optics around. I maximize night performance (or CQB) with a high-mount Eotech, and get all-around day performance with the SpecterDR.

Yeah, the Polonium is just a really solid performer. It's very quiet, the flash reduction is very good, it isn't as heavy as a lot of other cans in it's class, and for $500, I just don't see how you can go wrong. Solid recommend for anyone looking for just a good all-around 6.5mm can.

I think for the 9mm subgun thing, anything that works on a delayed action of any kind is going to help with that port flash. The MP5 is the king for a lot of reasons and it's starting to look like the inescapable answer to a lot of my issues with the Scorpion. The overall flash signature from the suppressed AR's at that shoot was minimal compared to absolutely everything else. Even pistols lit up the area. Just eye-opening how much flash we're putting out that we train ourselves not to see.

I think for magnification on the 11.5, I'm strongly considering a G33 on a Unity flip-to-center. Just seems to make the most sense for what I want to do with this rifle. I was scoring hits on a 24" steel gong at 300 yards with relative ease a few weeks ago, so a 3x ought to be plenty enough on an 11.5" gun.

Well, I'm happy to admit I was wrong. Starting to see some OGL's pop up here and there. Military dude on Reddit is bragging on his personally owned OGL he just got. $2,400 with tax and shipping. Full power. Both the green and IR laser are impressive, illuminator looks really good.

Still only available in the Mil/LE version, and it doesn't look like they've got quite the production capacity spun up to be anything other than pure luck if you manage to get ahold of one, but they aren't four grand or just under it. At least not now.

On another note, I'm contemplating picking up a Cadex mount. Guys keep raving about how they're the best parts of a Lo-Sto and a G24 without the downsides of either and more solid than both. Force-to-overcome, at that. 5.8oz vs the 5.2oz on my G24 Lite, but if it's as solid as everyone is saying, I may snag one and walk the G24 and come out reasonably even.

I recently cobbled together a PDW of sorts. 10" barrel, SF SOCOM Mini, iron sights. I wanted the low light and night vision performance, so I added an OTAL-IR and a Surefire Scout Mini Pro Vampire.

Learned two things, when zeroing the laser last night.

Thing one: the adjustment knobs on a Steiner device can just pop off in your hand. Luckily I didn't drop it. It seems the detent mechanism was compromised, when it came apart, as it no longer clicks. It still adjusts, and I tape the knobs after zeroing, so the lack of a detent doesn't bother me much. More evidence that Steiner IR stuff just isn't great.

Thing two: you can cowitness your IR laser with your iron sights. If your irons are zeroed and unobstructed, and you have a reduced aperture flip cap on your NVG, you can use your IR illuminator to augment the light lost by using the reducer to enable you to see both your iron sights and the target. I was within a few inches of POA with my first shots at 50m, after adjusting the laser to match my irons.

quote:

Originally posted by KSGM:
Thing one: the adjustment knobs on a Steiner device can just pop off in your hand. [...] More evidence that Steiner IR stuff just isn't great.

Yeesh. Not good. I keep hearing these stories about all the fixtures and such coming loose or coming off of Steiner IR stuff. Any time I start thinking about a D2, I hear another one of these stories.

quote:

Originally posted by KSGM:
Thing two: you can cowitness your IR laser with your iron sights.

Yep! I went on a... thing a few weeks back. I put my TLR VIR II on my G45, adjusted my Safariland retention to fit, and then went in the back yard with it. Dialed the iris on my right tube all the way down, and cowitnessed the dot with my irons. Quicky, easy, worked great.

As an aside, the dominant eye tube with an iris dialed all the way down makes tritium night sights on a pistol usable. I ran the iris on the left tube all the way open and was able to make plenty of good shots on steel a few months back at that night shoot.

We did some driving at night with a blacked out vehicle a couple weeks ago. It was dark enough and sketchy enough that I actually used my Weltool LH2 as a spotlight, just held it out the passenger window and aimed where the driver should go, and we got in and out in the dark with no problems. It wasn't very stealthy if someone else had NV, but whatever. We did some exploring in a place where we expected to be alone, and at one point, it was made clear to me that we were not alone. My buddy with the thermal monocular checked and didn't get any thermal hits, but I know I wasn't hearing stuff, and it was definitely footsteps off on our flank. We got back to the vehicle and left. I'm going to list a whole bunch of stuff here real soon and try to angle for a housing swap to shave some weight to offset the newer Jerry C5 that's out. I want fusion.

quote:

We did some driving at night with a blacked out vehicle a couple weeks ago. It was dark enough and sketchy enough that I actually used my Weltool LH2 as a spotlight, just held it out the passenger window and aimed where the driver should go

I've used a TNVC torch the same way. It works well. I need to install a brake light defeat switch in the Jeep. Everything else can already be turned all the way off.

quote:

Originally posted by KSGM:
I need to install a brake light defeat switch in the Jeep. Everything else can already be turned all the way off.

Nice. Yeah, my friend was able to turn off just about everything, and we forgot about the brake light until he applied the brakes and lit up the whole area lol. Last I heard, he ordered what he needed and got a wiring diagram and is going after it this weekend. He said both the brake lights and the puddle lights on the rear view mirrors should be able to be wired to the same kill switch. He ordered some IR flood lights for his brush bar as well. Next time, we'll be able to pull off the road, hit two switches and fire up the IR headlights with my LH2 as a long range spotlight. Should be golden.

After my recent 11.5" OCM5 build heat failure, I assembled a 12" mid-length again. I opted to leave the OCM5 upper assembled, which uses one of my Steiner OTAL-C lasers; my 10" "PDW" also has an OTAL-C mounted. That being said, I was OTAL-less for the 12" gun. I opted to mount the PEQ15.

Historically, I have had the PEQ on a back-up rifle, or in storage. I suppose I have been hesitant to use it, as it's more-or-less irreplaceable. I have long been content with the OTAL and Vampire combo, so I was fine leaving the PEQ on the back burner.

I opted to install the safety lockout screw, for now. A recent event had me shine one of my OTAL lasers right into my damn eye. Not ideal. In the wake of the OCM5 rifle heat soak, I had tested the mounted OTAL, to ensure it still functioned. It thankfully did. I had switched it to constant-on. I then broke everything down and stored the upper in the safe as I do: muzzle up in a canvas sleeve. As I was sliding the upper into the sleeve, I thought "what is that red light?". It was the business end of the laser. Had that been a "full power" laser, I suspect it could have been bad for my eye(s).

I had zeroed my two optics and irons on the 12" upper. I then went out on an overcast morning, and co-witnessed the visible laser to the optic. I then did a rough illuminator alignment in the basement. Last night, I went out to confirm illuminator alignment.

As expected, the illuminator is not very strong, with the "full power" settings disabled. However, even a weak laser illuminator offers a diversifying utility to the rifle, so long as you have a Vampire light on it too. I have mentioned before that the wide spill of the Vampire lights can make illumination of even an only moderate-distance target difficult, if there's clutter between you and the target. The laser illuminator option, even when weak, allows you to precisely and (mostly)effectively illuminate, exclusively along your line-of-sight, out to about 100 meters.

The Vampire is brighter, "cleaner", and can illuminate further than the low power PEQ illuminator. So you need one of them, or something similar, to augment a civ-power laser illuminator. However, having that tightly-focused laser illuminator on tap, even if it's "weak", is value-added.

I suppose my bottom line is civ-power laser illuminators aren't "worthless", as many folks opine. A user with only civ laser illumination would certainly be on the struggle bus, without a Vampire, or other LED augmentation. A Vampire with an OTAL-C IR is a more capable setup than a lone civ-power DBAL or ATPIAL-C, IMO, but the civ MFAL with a Vampire to boot is more capable still. If someone could get into a civ DBAL or ATPIAL-C for under 1K (is that possible, Smudge?), and pair it with a Vampire Scout, I think they'd be doing pretty darn good, in a market that currently demands 2K for a VCSEL MFAL unit with visible laser.

The DIR-ONE V with the Vampire for $2,200 is a pretty nice package deal though. That is if the DIR units are as good as folks have been saying. Not to mention that, if you're thrifty and know where/how to look, you probably wouldn't spend that much.

No idea on those prices, those are two units I haven't paid much attention to. This, however, has me pretty excited:

https://www.ctfphotonics.com/products/

I've emailed the guy at Phantom Hill back and forth a bit since this time last year. He gave me a bunch of run-around about whether this was coming out, or whether he was ever going to make another run of CTF2's. The short version is, he got bought out, and another company is bringing out the CTF3 late next month. I'm hoping to move enough odds and ends to cover either a DIR-V, or one of these in the base unit flavor, whichever looks to be the better choice. Z-Bolt is supposed to have a VCSEL IR head coming out soon for a lot less than the Kiji which I would rather have, but in the meantime, I have the LH2 that will work on it juuuuust fine. Pair with any Surefire pattern white light head, and I'm off and running. Really looking forward to this.

Last week, I drove over two thousand miles home. The last day was at least fourteen hours on the road, and at the end of it, I was still a hundred and fifty miles from home when the sun set. By the time it got dark, I was deep in the desert south of Holbrook, AZ on a one lane road. I was struggling and had about three hours left to drive when it hit me that on my passenger seat was my NV helmet and rig, ready to go. I had brought it to show friends and family the night and star gaze, and never occurred to me to use it to drive. Well, I put it on, powered it up, and suddenly the whole desert night revealed itself around me, and I wasn't struggling to see anymore. It was easy. Glancing down at the instruments or over at the phone mount/GPS under my tubes was intuitive and easy, and I didn't have any problems keeping it between the lines.

I drove about 125 miles with NODs over three hours. Through the desert, through the forest, up and down winding mountain roads and switchbacks, and through a small town (caught some funny looks from some people at a crosswalk during a red light and just smiled at them) and then back out into the desert. There was no worry of elk or deer leaping out of the shadows in front of me because I could see the wood line clearly as far as there was line of sight. I had some amazing views of the night sky as well. Headlights didn't streak my tubes too badly, and when there was lots of oncoming traffic, I just dialed the irises down a bit. My OMNIs are pretty tough, and dark spots clear up very quickly, so by the time I was out on the road alone, everything was super clear again. And yes, I was using my headlights, and never needed high beams.

I was surprised at just how intuitive it was driving under NODs. I think the only time I ran into a challenge was making turns at stop signs way out in the desert. For whatever reason, it was a little disorienting, but I think with practice, it would be just fine. My biggest problem was keeping from speeding, honestly. What would have been a terrible struggle at the tail end of a four day drive and twelve hours on the road became some of the most fun I've had in recent memory. I want to do more of this.

One of my friends in the NV group has a truck he's wiring up IR flood lights on, and going to attempt a kill switch for all lights external and internal. Shoot be an absolute hoot.