Night vision on precision rifle?

Arrik1

Newbie
Quantified Performance
My team (primarily suburban area) has some older clip on PVS-24 units they use for night vision on their precision rifles, but no illuminators or lasers. We're not going to get any money to replace the clip ons, but we might be able to swing some money for laser illuminators. My question is: How are you guys setting up your precision rigs for night vision shooting? Is it all passive aiming with dope corrections made for the clip on? What's a good option for an illuminator? We've looked at the modlite heads, but the red from the LED is pretty apparent to anyone looking.
 

pointblank4445

Established
If you expect to do much as far as ID and designation, laser illumination is going to make all the difference. Our old pvs22s with illumination will smoke a new cnvdlr WP without it.

Perhaps something like the Steiner SPIR might be worth a look.

Forge/Doc Spears has a class dedicated to this that I would recommend if you want to learn the ins and outs of getting the most out of your rig.
@Chris Sizelove was out with my guys last fall in this class. Perhaps he can weigh in.
 

tact

Regular Member
PVS-30 WP with Wilcox Raptar....passive aiming with dope corrections, but I’m sure there are other options to keep within the team’s budget.
 

Chris Sizelove

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Arrik1 - cobranding a long gun with a clip on, and with its own laser/illuminator will work in a pinch, but generally it's a suboptimal set up. Far more capability to be had with combining a spotting scope, clip on, and a laser/illuminator together in order for a spotter to Identify, mark, and then illuminate for the shooter. Even a few feet of offset between the long gun, and whatever is emitting the IR light being used to front/back/side light the target makes a huge difference. Not to mention negating the issue of IR splash coming off the sniper's own rifle when attempting to illuminate their own targets and the clip on just sucking as much of that up as it can. That can somewhat be solved via mounting solutions for the laser.

That's not to say that throwing an LA-5 or a PEQ15 on a side rail won't get you more capability than you have right now with nothing, but expect that set up to not deliver a magical result past 150ish. If you are working tight urban sniper support, it'd be doable for most situations in regards to distance/tgt size/lighting conditions. The biggest negative is just that your emitting light source, and the clip on, are basically on the same plane so it doesn't allow for creative use of the light to give the person in the optic the best results while keeping the primary gun on tgt.

I'm a fan of the LA5 UHP (or similar form factor/switchology type models) for this specific purpose, and mounted to the 9 o'clock rail so that the shooter can adjust his own laser output/flood dial settings until he gets the results he wants through the clip on without coming out of the gun too much. When the laser is mounted on the 3 o'clock rail (for a righty anyway) that is not going to happen efficiently.

The laser on the rifle doesn't necessarily even need to be zeroed, as its requirement isn't actual target engagement, it's tgt marking and IR illumination. Keeping that in mind can help drive better mounting solutions for you if you're gonna go down the road of the sniper needing to provide his own illumination with the same rifle he's shooting with at times.

And finally. Ain't nothing to be sad about running PVS-24's, but yeah - adding some IR illumination capability to the mix will give you more capability across all use situations.

V/R
Chris
 

Recondo2117

Amateur
I have zero experience with the PVS 24, so I am not sure how much of a step down it is from the PVS 27, which I have a whopping 2 nights worth of shooting precision rifles on...

A diving board with a 12 o'clock PEQ15 or personally owned DBAL C1 let us take M40's out to 600 yards with little difficulty over day time shooting. The rifle mounted laser also gives the shooter an added benefit of "trace" when the IR splashed off of the rear of the projectile going down range.

We experimented with PEQ16's mounted on the 3 o'clock and 9 o'clock rail, but the 16 is hot trash. You can not adjust the IR illuminator, so it ended up being a spotter positioning his IR illuminator so that the shooter could ID and engage the targets... We ended up roughly zeroing the PEQ16 laser to the bore and then the shooter could laze what he needed illuminated and the spotter on a tripod mounted spotting scope PVS27 combo with the PEQ15 could illuminate for the shooter.
 

Arrik1

Newbie
Quantified Performance
I bought one of the modlite 850nm IR heads to put on their handheld body. So far in training that's what we've been using for additional illumination when it's really dark but the downrange signature on the head is pretty obvious to anyone that's looking. Is the signature on the Steiner SPIR less noticeable?

I've been looking at the surfboard style mount / ring set ups. Would that set up negate the problems with IR splash if we got some LA-5?
 
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