Looking for opinions on night vision binos. Planning to buy for nighttime hunting, and recreational use. Not going to be used for any LEO/military or professional activities. Most of the shooting is done under thermal but for navigating the woods it would be nice.

I am thinking to go with L3 filmless tubes but the multitude of housing options has me scratching my head. Would love to hear different thoughts and experiences of the outdoors board.

Pick the features you want. Lightweight or rugged, manual gain or not, what battery it takes, whether you can use an external battery pack, etc.

For a thermal hunter wanting NV to navigate, independently articulating pods would be a priority for me so you dont have to raise the whole device off your face to use thermal.

How much are you willing to spend?

Thanks for the advice. Are there any features that you've noticed improve quality of life more than others? When wearing them for 6-8 hours at a time does 3-4 oz of weight start to make a noticeable difference?

From what I have read before it sounds like articulating pods for hunting are a must, so I appreciate that validation.

I am in the buy once cry once mentality for this purchase and have saved well for it. The desire for L3 tubes and articulating pods as mentioned by Bender seems to put me in the $10k range off the bat from what I have seen.

I don't want to insult your intelligence, but have you used NV and thermal before in these woods? Are they thick? If so, my guess is that you may find NV almost useless in thick, poorly lit brush. Keep in mind, any moon light will cast shadows in the trees and render NV useless unless you have a good IR flood. You may consider a thermal monocular for your needs or just dim, red headlamps, as they will not impact thermal image.

If you've already vetted those issues, sorry, I don't have any model recs aside getting something with integrated IR. Just wanted to share that POV. Good luck.

3rdGenAg05 said:

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I don't want to insult your intelligence, but have you used NV and thermal before in these woods? Are they thick? If so, my guess is that you may find NV almost useless in thick, poorly lit brush. Keep in mind, any moon light will cast shadows in the trees and render NV useless unless you have a good IR flood. You may consider a thermal monocular for your needs or just dim, red headlamps, as they will not impact thermal image.

If you've already vetted those issues, sorry, I don't have any model recs aside getting something with integrated IR. Just wanted to share that POV. Good luck.

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No insult taken, I am open to all suggestions and feedback. I have not personally run NV on these properties but one of my buddies does and it works well for him. The idea of a thermal monocular is interesting and I will look into it. As far as the red headlamp, we have done that previously but a couple of the guys I hunt with have already made moves ahead of me in the direction of NV.

Onboard illuminator sounds like it may be beneficial.

L3 filmless will offer the best performance for the money. For someone who has never used NV I recommend starting with a PVS-14 and bump helmet setup. This will provide a good starting point on learning how to navigate at night and how to judge terrain, etc. I recommend walking around your house or in your back yard to get used to the 40* FOV. Once you're comfortable find a park and or somewhere that has some elevation changes to get used to depth perception changes.



A good clean L3 pvs14 will run you around $4-4300. Opscore, MTEK, and Team Wendy make the best helmets with lots of options for accessories. For NVG mounts I recommend Wilcox, Norotos, and Cadex. Avoid the chinese stuff like Argus because the QC is spotty at best.

NV is very much a buy once cry once type of purchase. If you're near BCS and would like a demo I'd be happy to help. Shoot me an email to my username at gmail, please.

Edit: If you're set on binos and articulation and have the budget set aside I recommend ARNVG, DTNVS, or PVS31As.

MediAg13 said:

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Thanks for the advice. Are there any features that you've noticed improve quality of life more than others? When wearing them for 6-8 hours at a time does 3-4 oz of weight start to make a noticeable difference?

From what I have read before it sounds like articulating pods for hunting are a must, so I appreciate that validation.

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The weight of binos can be mitigated by a well balanced and padded helmet. Most battery packs will offer a degree of balance and there are weights you can use to get it just right. I dont mind 3-4oz

For NV navigation I use a PVS14 as it doesnt get in the way of getting behind my thermal. Using a Noisefighters j-arm you can quickly flip it to one side. Binos can articulate but I've found they still bump if I have to make a quick shot.

Some additional thoughts:

Ounces can matter especially when wearing them for hours but like neal said, invest in a quality helmet, good padding, counterweight if needed etc goes a very long way towards making it more manageable.

A single pvs14 is more than enough to navigate terrain at night. There are some advantages to duals but for your stated use case I'd also consider something like a single pvs14 with a coti. That way you dont have to scan through the rifle scope constantly, just stalk using the nv/thermal on your head and you only have to use rifle mounted thermal for positive id and taking the shot instead of constantly scanning with it.

Nealthedestroyer said:

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L3 filmless will offer the best performance for the money. For someone who has never used NV I recommend starting with a PVS-14 and bump helmet setup. This will provide a good starting point on learning how to navigate at night and how to judge terrain, etc. I recommend walking around your house or in your back yard to get used to the 40* FOV. Once you're comfortable find a park and or somewhere that has some elevation changes to get used to depth perception changes.



A good clean L3 pvs14 will run you around $4-4300. Opscore, MTEK, and Team Wendy make the best helmets with lots of options for accessories. For NVG mounts I recommend Wilcox, Norotos, and Cadex. Avoid the chinese stuff like Argus because the QC is spotty at best.

NV is very much a buy once cry once type of purchase. If you're near BCS and would like a demo I'd be happy to help. Shoot me an email to my username at gmail, please.

Edit: If you're set on binos and articulation and have the budget set aside I recommend ARNVG, DTNVS, or PVS31As.

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This is really helpful, and I appreciate the well thought out response. I will definitely take your advice on acclimating on easy terrain prior to falling into a ravine.

I will do some more digging into all of the options that you have suggested. I haven't even gone down the helmet rabbit hole yet. I wish that I was closer to BCS and I would take you up on that but unfortunately, I am a few hours away.

MediAg13 said:

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3rdGenAg05 said:

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I don't want to insult your intelligence, but have you used NV and thermal before in these woods? Are they thick? If so, my guess is that you may find NV almost useless in thick, poorly lit brush. Keep in mind, any moon light will cast shadows in the trees and render NV useless unless you have a good IR flood. You may consider a thermal monocular for your needs or just dim, red headlamps, as they will not impact thermal image.

If you've already vetted those issues, sorry, I don't have any model recs aside getting something with integrated IR. Just wanted to share that POV. Good luck.

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No insult taken, I am open to all suggestions and feedback. I have not personally run NV on these properties but one of my buddies does and it works well for him. The idea of a thermal monocular is interesting and I will look into it. As far as the red headlamp, we have done that previously but a couple of the guys I hunt with have already made moves ahead of me in the direction of NV.

Onboard illuminator sounds like it may be beneficial.

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I'll throw out this offer: If you want to facetime or setup a brief zoom call I'd be happy to help. Username at gmail. Holler any time.