Top 3 NV

[hso]

If money were not a factor, what are the top 3 civilian purchasable night vision optics?

 

[JCooperfan1911]

Mk 1 eyeball.

 

[Citadel99]

Seems like most say Pulsar Trail 2 or Thermion 2.

 

[rabid wombat]

@Double Naught Spy thoughts?

I would throw out: FLIR, Trijicon, ?

https://www.flir.com/ots/hunting/
https://www.trijicon.com/products/category/thermal

 

[SharpDog]

You can call these guys up and they will honestly recommend a good rig for you. They have many comparison videos on their youtube channel and some very in-depth comparisons. I believe they are generally a fan of Pulsar. Pulsar will generally have the best reputation, customer service, etc, but they will be a bit behind in features and have a high price. I myself went with Sightmark Wraith but that was for price (and it works well, cost $500 or so) because without a low price I could not get it. Best upgrade is to upgrade your illuminator!

If price is really no problem then you're likely in the five figures.

(40544) NightVisionGuys - YouTube



Inexpensive Night Vision: Sightmark, ATN, Pulsar or Other | The High Road

Sightmark wraith opinions | The High Road

 

[Double Naught Spy]

If money were not a factor, what are the top 3 civilian purchasable night vision optics?

Are you asking about night vision, thermal, or both? NV and thermal perform different jobs and excel in different areas. There is also fusion optics that combine both, but are in their commercial civilian infancy and not really a significant player right now. Are you talking about spotting scopes or weapon sights? By 'top 3' are you asking about units sold, gross sales, or quality of product? Not being pedantic, but I assume you want a specific type of answer, but you asked a vague sort of question that isn't apt to give you the result you want.

You can call these guys up and they will honestly recommend a good rig for you.

Here is my take on calling vendors for help buying night vision. They are in the game to make money and stand to benefit from what they sell you. Therefore, they have, depending on how you look at it, a conflict of interest and/or inherent biases. They are going to try to sell you from the product lines they carry. If they don't carry N-Vision, they are about 0% to suggest an N-Vision product even if it is the best choice for you. Similar logic, when was the last time you were at a Ford dealership looking for a truck and the sales staff told you that what you need is a Chevy? There is one vendor here in Texas that has a podcast and the owner and chief field tester regularly review optics. I have yet to see one of their videos where they do not strongly recommend whatever product they are reviewing. They provide a lot of information, but when you watch carefully, you will notice a lot more cheerleading than anything else. They aren't wrong for doing this. They have a business to run and make sales.

With that said, getting suggestions from individuals is also fraught with biases. I cannot begin to tell you how many first time owners of entry level gear will tell you how what they have is a "game changer" and will "kill just as dead the same ______ (insert desired critter here) as high end gear, and it all the nv/thermal you will ever need. Then you have the gear snobs who think anything less than top end is a compromise. Then you have the military guys who only think mil-spec gear, like they used overseas, is the only way to go. Very few NV and thermal consumers have a broad level of experience across multiple platforms and can objectively (because they don't stand to benefit in any way beyond their ego of helping you find a good match) make actual well thought suggestions and even then those experienced users will have their biases.

When it comes to thermal, it is really important to balance your wants, needs, with brand capabilities and budgets. Sometimes the best optic isn't the most cost effective choice.

@Double Naught Spy thoughts?

I would throw out: FLIR, Trijicon, ?

https://www.flir.com/ots/hunting/
https://www.trijicon.com/products/category/thermal

FLIR? My personal bias is to tell you to avoid them like the plague for 2 reasons. First, their customer service is only better than that of ATN (and ATN has an awful CS reputation) and the VP in charge of civilian sales is anti-gun and largely responsible for pulling their line of weapons sights from the civilian market. But also, FLIR, a top manufacturer of thermal, simply failed in bringing to market a 12 micron 640 resolution thermal and their 320 resolution PTS line (AKA PTSD) scopes were very problematic.

Here is some thermal history regarding FLIR and is fall from the civilian weapon sight market...

As best as I can tell, FLIR really messed up with their initial introduction of the RS series (rubber coated square box) line of rifle scopes that were not a hit with the consumer market (circa 2014). The RS scopes were for the consumer market. As I recall, these were FLIR's first sub $10K weapon scopes, the rest being military or military intended scopes that trickled into the civilian market that ranged in price around $12-20K for the ones I was seeing. FLIR was attempting to compete with ATN that was still making a good thermal scope at the time and Armasight, the latter doing a lot of sales and using FLIR Tau 1 cores. IR Defense had just previously come out with their 320 resolution IR Hunter and within months of working out some bugs had a 640 resolution version that was pricey, but gaining in popularity.

Somewhere in here Armasight changed over to the FLIR Tau 2 cores and got an upgraded and more complicated firmware package that allowed users not to adjust the image by brightness and contrast, but by 3 other variables. It was somewhat ridiculous. Most users don't fully understand the extra adjustments and hence don't even mess with them.

Pulsar entered the picture with weapon sights and the civilian consumer market was getting really interesting. I actually got the first US hog kills with a prototype Apex 384 resolution scope in 2015 thanks to a buddy who was my contact at Pulsar at the time. The Apex line of scopes were downright inexpensive and functioned well. I think they were $3900 or $3500 and the were of a quality that seemed to be punching well above their class.

IR Defense was bought out by Trijicon.

The FLIR RS line continued to flounder for years and then FLIR had this great idea of buying Armasight in 2016 for $41 million. Armasight had just had their own fiasco product launch with their pathetic Zeus Pro line of high dollar scopes that were apparently supposed to compete with IR Defense/Trijicon scopes, but were too big, used too many batteries, and had a crappy image much of the time. So Armasight was ripe for the picking. FLIR kept on Armasight employees for a couple of years, still making the Zeus and Predator line of weapon sights along with other Armasight offerings (but not the Zeus Pro, IIRC), upgrading and further complicating the firmware along the way and then giving birth to the new PTS line of weapon sights for the consumer market, only in 320 resolution, but with a 12 micron core that was an improvement over the 17 micron core. Two key players FLIR got rid of or lost were the Tarakanov brothers who had been with ATN, then moved to Armasight before being sucked into FLIR. This was a large part of the creative genius behind both lines of scopes and their loss from FLIR was not a good thing, but then again, the new PTS line of scopes were nothing particularly new or interesting. They were just an upgraded version of the original Armasight Zeus models with bigger lenses, more magnification, and unnecessarily complicated firmware. There were promises of a 640 resolution 12 micron core to come soon. This was to compete with the Trijicon scopes that were already running 640 resolution 12 micron BAE cores that were better than the FLIR's Tau 2 640 17 micron cores. Well apparently, FLIR had troubles making the 640 12 micron cores work properly. Pulsar had upgraded to also having 640 resolution scopes along the way, but ULIS (maker of the core) was not able to turn out a 12 micron version either. On top of that, ATN had moved a lot of their sourcing to China and had a new line of Thor scopes that had a bunch of features and were much less expensive overall. To compound matters, FLIR's PTS line of scopes was not hugely successful. It was doing okay in sales, but they had a lot of returns (problems) and the PTS line was doomed to die without having a 640 resolution version. Never mind that N-Vision also entered the market with BAE cores that were kicking butt on anything FLIR could put out.

So in terms of weapon sights, FLIR was getting beat on pricing and market acceptance of their products

Since then, the Tarakanov brothers helped form AGM which makes budget optics and Bering Optics has entered the market with their Hogster line of weapon sights that are low end, functional thermals.

 

[SharpDog]

These are the best rated on OpticsPlanet. I read the first 2 reviews and they were pure BS

 

[rabid wombat]

FLIR? My personal bias is to tell you to avoid them like the plague for 2 reasons.

Thanks! The reason for the @Double Naught Spy as the lead!

 

[BigBL87]

My only NV is a Sightmark Wraith picked for the price and a monocular I picked up cheap for scanning without the rifle, so can't speak to higher end stuff.

That being said, if price were not a factor, for my dollar I'd go with thermal over traditional NV since I'd be using it for hunting.