Night Vision A little bit silly, quite possibly just dumb idea but go with me here

[spamassassin]

I had the idea that it might be really quite interesting and handy to be able to flip something like a PVS-30 clip-on NV to the side. I'm thinking of something kind of like red dot magnifiers but with a lock and latch sort of setup that one could adjust all of the lash out of. It might also be really super cooler to be able to do it with a thermal clip-on.

Scenario 1: Think of this, thermal is badass at detection but kind of crap at the resolution game so recognition & identification aren't very great. What if you run a scope with say 5-25x behind a thermal that allows you to fold it away. You detect the pig/coyote/etc... and then flick on your SureFire vampire or PEQ-Something or Kiji and then flip your thermal out of the way and flip down your PVS-14 for final identification and engagement. Ignoring for the time being all the issues of eye relief and cheek weld and such, you just use your flip down NODs to look through the scope. This is not my particular use case.

Scenario 2: You're out doing depredation against an absolute army of hogs or some other task that has you holed up in a hide/blind/etc... through daylight hours and into night time. During the daytime you put a couple hogs down and those are handled. When dusk came about it was too bright to use your NV so you break out the handheld thermal scanner and glass the bush for a while watching as the pigs slowly move from heavy cover (where they went when you started gunning down their friends in broad daylight) back into your killing field. You're ready to start sending rounds downrange but it's nighttime now. Instead of reaching into your backpack to pull out your PVS-30 you just flip it up from the side of your rifle to the top and you go to town on the pigs. This is very much like a use case that I personally have.

I know it's kinda silly, that's in the title but, short of a fusion clip-on it's an easy way to get maximum return from a reasonable expenditure. A $3k PVS-14 and a $5k Steiner C35 or equivalent or a $3000 handheld thermal and a $5000 PVS-30. It's not exactly opening things up to the poors (because fuck them ) but it would go a little way toward resolving the kind of split capability that NV and thermal have.

So who's up to making a flip-to-side mount for my PVS-30?

 

[rlsmith1]

I like the out of the box thinking, but if you have a handguard with a pic rail at the 3 o clock on your rifle you should just mount your PVS30 there and start swinging your rifle around. This would replicate the 3 lb unit in the flip to the side mode and I think it would not be as fun as you think.

I don't know that I totally understand your scenario 1 so I can't call that a dumb idea...

 

[spamassassin]

I'll definitely be dragging the rifle and PVS-30 out tonight and testing what it's like to have 3lbs hanging off the side of the rifle. I know that that's a horrible carrying configuration but for being in a fixed location while transitioning from day to night with a rest/bipod/tripod in play I don't think it'd bother me much. Get to hide site, hook up PVS-30, flip PVS-30 out of the way of the day optic, crawl inside hide and get to scoping. When dark comes flip the 30 into line with the day optic and just keep going. No fiddling with picatinny mounts in confined spaces at least. Yeah, it doesn't save a lot of hassle but just a little is enough to get me to spend whatever the mount might cost.

All of that does, of course, stipulate that the (arguably) bad practice of spotting through your weapon sight is being not just done but planned in to the very core of the evening.

 

[TheHebrewHammer]

If you think the C35 mount is beefy, imagine the industrial mount required to minimize POI shift.

 

[camocorvette]

While it may work. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. I don't really have experience past AN/PVS10, pvs14's and peq2's and 15's.

But I think just a solid QD mount and a large padded dump pouch would work.

That's alot of weight off the side.

 

[EWS6]

maybe a better solution is to have a 1x thermal mounted like the red dots are at 45*. that way the 30 does not have to move

something like this

 

[rlsmith1]

maybe a better solution is to have a 1x thermal mounted like the red dots are at 45*. that way the 30 does not have to move

something like this

View attachment 7924408

A friend of mine who did some time over there said they ran this setup sometimes except they had a red dot on top for city work

 

[CTM1]

Many years ago a picture and vid of the FLIR ADUNS was posted by SMGLEE and a light went off in my head. The ADUNS was on a mount which as I recall was a custom mount from Geissele that allowed the device to flip to the side. I wonder if my PVS-26 could be made to flip to the side. I was told it was not practical and there was no way Geissele would sell me the mount and even if they would/could I could not afford it.

So some years later I wonder could you take a KAC UNS SR and remove the mount and add the WILCOX dovetail so it can work with the WIlcox FTS mount. Well it was just a idea for years as I did not have an UNS SR as the prices for what it is were ridiculous. Last year I finally acquired one as prices finally came down into what I deemed reasonable.

I approached a buddy who is a master machinist to see if he could take a crack at it, unfortunately I knew going in he is not only backlogged but only moves at one speed, that of super slo-mo. So here I sit months later and still no movement from him.

 

[rlsmith1]

Many years ago a picture of the FLIR ADUNS was posted and a light went off in my head. Could you take a KAC UNS SR and remove the mount and add the WILCOX dovetail so it can work with the WIlcox FTS mount. Well it was just a idea for years as I did not have an UNS SR as the prices for what it is were ridiculous. Last year I finally acquired one as prices finally came down into what I deemed reasonable.

I approached a buddy who is a master machinist to see if he could take a crack at it, unfortunately I knew going in he is not only backlogged but only moves at one speed, that of super slo-mo. So here I sit months later and still no movement from him.

I want ADUNS badly.

Also, I've thought about a new mount for a PVS30 that would have a rail and allow an illuminator be mounted on the mount. That would allow the PVS to have a Luna or illuminator as one unit

 

[CTM1]

Another thing I had tried in an effort to make a one stop shop short range predator gun equipped with both NV and thermal was to mount a UTM on the Wilcox FTS mount in front of an Eotech 3-0 with a PVS-14 with 3x magnifier mounted behind it on a LaRue PVS14 flip mount. Like a nut I was also trying to squeeze in a Vortex 3x micro magnifier in front of the 14 with 3x magnifier which was needed to make the UTM work. Unfortunately there was really not enough room for the Vortex to get in there due to the diameter of the 3x PVS14 magnifier and the limited range of the Vortex flip mount.

It worked ok but the UTM left a lot to be desired.

I also tried it by removing the 3x lens on the 14 and just putting the Vortex Micro behind the 14 but I did not care for it and when the 14 was flipped out of the way and the UTM was swung in the magnifier was to far back from the Eotech.

Now what if you had thermal clip-on on a FTS mount and a KAC UNS SR on a FTS mount in front of a 1-6 LPVO and you could flip whatever device you wanted in depending on conditions. I think with the right machining the IRAY RH25 mount can work with the Wilcox FTS mount but not sure if it would suffer from POA shift like the UTM and SKEET did.

To bad they did not take the concept of the PVS-10 and expand upon it with a thermal channel as well and miniaturize it.

 

[CrazyDoc]

Now what if you had thermal clip-on on a FTS mount and a KAC UNS SR on a FTS mount in front of a 1-6 LPVO and you could flip whatever device you wanted in depending on conditions. I think with the right machining the IRAY RH25 mount can work with the Wilcox FTS mount but not sure if it would suffer from POA shift like the UTM and SKEET did.

To bad they did not take the concept of the PVS-10 and expand upon it with a thermal channel as well and miniaturize it.

The Rh25 would 100% suffer from POA/POI shift if it's not mounted down SOLID.

 

[Conqueror]

I kinda get the idea but the whole point of clip-ons is they are easy to just remove entirely. If I don’t need to use the clip-on then I’d much rather just remove it and have the rifle be 2lb lighter.

 

[spamassassin]

I kinda get the idea but the whole point of clip-ons is they are easy to just remove entirely. If I don’t need to use the clip-on then I’d much rather just remove it and have the rifle be 2lb lighter.

Ok, Mr. Rational. Stomp on my fun. How are we supposed to operate operationally without things that do stuff we don't need?