I am late to this thread. During the COVID sales panic, I suddenly had quite a bit of cash in my gun shop account (that is no longer the case). There were no cool guns to be bought because nothing is legal in this state that I don't already have for the most part. Then I realized I do not have body armor and I do not have NVGs. I did buy an ATN thermal scope back in 2012 or so that has been a lot of fun, but it was time to go full LARP. So I got a PVS-14 Elbit Aviation Spec Gated Gen 3 Thin-FilmedWhite Phosphor Monocular with a TeamWendy Bump Helmet and all of the cool Wilcox mounts from NightOps Tactical. I did order a second, one step lower white phosphor PVS-14 and a relatively cheap ATN green tube that I was planning on selling. Of course I went DBAL3 as well.
Every year we do a steel night match and I use it during the night match. I always bring the other two devices so the other competitors can see I am hitting all five steel in the dark because the SO cannot see what I am shooting at. Plus nothing gets dudes more excited about buying NVGs than playing with them in person. I did shoot a night rifle class with it, but I did not bring my second and third device for the class guys to watch out of while I shot. The instructor was having fun running the timer behind me and he could not see what I was doing, but could definitely hear the hits on the steel in the dark (plus I have to shoot suppressed too when I can).
I forgot I made this sales video.
Shooting the Polish plate rack at our 3F match.
LARPing with a good customer that would end up buying the ATN green tube from me finally so it is gone.
However, the most fun I have probably had with the night vision is just hiking around in the dark with it to find Geocaches. There for a while I was toting around my 9mm carbine with me, but I have since switched back to the .223. Or I might not take a rifle at all.
I drove all through Arizona to find some Geocaches and quite often early in the morning or at night. Now driving with NVGs is tough if you have daylight running lights and too much light from other traffic. You really need really dark conditions and no internal lights as well. So that part is lacking, but I did hike out to Arizona's oldest Geocache in the pre-dawn darkness and that was really cool.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/0qwe...7597.MOV?rlkey=u6atz4m14haqsths6o6lkj4m2&dl=0 and
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/2dph...7607.MOV?rlkey=hlwb7c8a0wr71pffetq4265jw&dl=0 and
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/t6gl...7610.MOV?rlkey=2h88lzzam7y27ast1vypn5j2a&dl=0
On this trip the moon was pretty bright so most of the time I just walked in the dark and would use the NVG just to plot out which route to take then go back to just walking in the dark. That was fun!
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3wtw...8689.MOV?rlkey=mxymdu947c7cb8hjml70douhn&dl=0
There was a night Geocache that required you to use your bright flashlight to find these firetacks pinned to trees in this residential area to find the Geocache. Well instead of wandering around behind peoples yards in this park area with a bright flashlight, I could see the firetacks just fine with my Surefire Vampire set to IR with the PVS-14. That was cool too.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/k5od...2620.MOV?rlkey=18i6hlfyh2bgfu1sskhnjgs5r&dl=0
I have since figured out that DBAL is a whole lot of money when the Holosun laser pointers seem to work pretty well. For my handguns and a couple of carbines I just use the Streamlight 69192 TLR-VIR II. Holy crap, those things used to be like $200 my cost and now they are $341!
So bad news is I went to use my set up in Nevada the other day and despite my PVS-14 just working, it stopped. I opened up the battery compartment and it had leaked! I need to send it back for a yearly check up and see if they can finish cleaning that up. I got it working again after some white vinegar and acetone and now I no longer store it with a battery in it.
