Only the ones who don't know how to hide from NV. Find some thermal and and you will see there is no place to HIDE. LOL
Night Vision KAC-Refurbished AN/PVS-30 from USNV
- Thread starter TheGerman
- Start date
Only the ones who don't know how to hide from NV. Find some thermal and and you will see there is no place to HIDE. LOL
From my experience, if you shoot the ones you can see through NV, the ones hiding usually start running around.
My FOM looks to be 2041 but the exterior looks like it flopped around in a dumptruck for a month or two... Will get it out to the range and see what we see...
Got to run mine over the weekend, used it on my Tikka CTR in a KRG chassis and a AMG scope as well as my MK12 Mod 0 w/ the NF 2.5-10X32. The NF setup shifted my POI down 2-3 inches but the 6.5creedmore was spot on. I did have to move my NF scope back to accept the NV so that is probably the reason for the shift. Other than being heavy as hell its a great tool, hoping to be able to find a place to use it this summer. My old Marine roomate has property access in OK (5000 acres) so it should be fun.
Just received mine today. Just played with it in the back yard. I'm very impressed. Get it to the range Sunday evening.
I have this weird theory (and maybe somewhere its already made obvious, but I've never heard of it) that the more off center the center of the optic is to the center of the clip on is what shifts your zero.
I'm saying this because with my Mk12Mod1 that has a 2.5-10x24 on it in the issue ARMS rings, it did the same thing and you can tell it sits a bit high for the clip on. For my MRAD where the scope is almost perfectly in line with it, no offset.
Like you I have the ARMS rings (they are the newer style with the numbs but MED height with the NS2.5-10X32 so we are certainly in the same class of rifle. The tikka is running a 20moa 1.5inch spuhr mount. I assumed moving the NF back 2 positions caused the shift but I will try and take it out without the PVS and verify my dope soon. Snowed again last night and the wind has picked up in typical NM fashion so it might be awhile before I can get a good day for it.
One thing I did notice was focusing the NV was not a do it once and forget about it, the anvis6 I used when I was active duty flight crew were focused before takeoff and I never needed to adjust them for distance changes but I guess because this unit is magnified it needs to be adjusted. We were on top of a mesa that has a lot of open area and one side over looks the town of Los Alamos and I was playing around with finding a nice picture and found it isnt possible to adjust on the lights and then use at 100Y which is where our target was et at. Of course the Tikka has a scope that does have adjustments unlike the NF scope so you would need to adjust the reticle for distance/parallax unlike the NF which I have had a lot more time in front of the PVS.
I am trying to get as much time as I can behind the device so when the opportunity to use it comes up I understand it well enough to hunt pigs. Trying to talk my buddies into getting a setup right now. Need a thermal and a PVS14 setup and I still havent purchased a light, we are using a old ATN one that came on a buddies Gen1 scope. Either way we are having fun.
One thing I did notice was focusing the NV was not a do it once and forget about it, the anvis6 I used when I was active duty flight crew were focused before takeoff and I never needed to adjust them for distance changes but I guess because this unit is magnified it needs to be adjusted. We were on top of a mesa that has a lot of open area and one side over looks the town of Los Alamos and I was playing around with finding a nice picture and found it isnt possible to adjust on the lights and then use at 100Y which is where our target was et at. Of course the Tikka has a scope that does have adjustments unlike the NF scope so you would need to adjust the reticle for distance/parallax unlike the NF which I have had a lot more time in front of the PVS.
I am trying to get as much time as I can behind the device so when the opportunity to use it comes up I understand it well enough to hunt pigs. Trying to talk my buddies into getting a setup right now. Need a thermal and a PVS14 setup and I still havent purchased a light, we are using a old ATN one that came on a buddies Gen1 scope. Either way we are having fun.
Took the new toy out tonight. Cloudy a few stars. No IR illumination. Had it on a MK-12 Mod 1 with a loopy 2.5-8 . Shooting at 2/3 IPSC steel targets. 200 yard head shots no problem. Shot a nice centered sub moa 5-shot group at 400. No change in poa poi. Put it on a AR-10 260 and it shot as well but shot about .7 MIL high. Have a Bushnell DMR on the AR-10 and turned power up to 18 and it was usable but a little grainy.
I'm going to go demo some of these this week. I've shot the PVS-30 before and it was amazing. I fell in love with it but since I have a budget I've been holding off, this may be coming home sooner than I had thought,
i bought one from surgeon shooter had it for 3 month's or so the fom on it is 1790 don't know if that's good or not but it sure is bright and clear. i bought it as a as new unit and it looked new out of the box. i took it out to test it one night and it was a fairly dark night with lots of cloud cover i was using a actar set on 12 power on a ga 308. i started at 100 yards then 200,300,400 two shots each on steel never missed and all dead center. what was really cool you could see the hits on steel as they looked like little fireballs. i used it 3 times on yote hunts but never seen one to try it on. i did order a surefire with ir and white light but it hasn't came in yet to try it out. i just bought a military grade peq 15 with ir light ir pointer and visible lazer and mounted it on my m4. looking forward to trying it with the 30 but i need a partner to help with that one. i am very impressed and happy with mine and would highly recomend surgeon shooter as a source. the only thing i don't like about it is i cant reach the focus knob while looking through the scope its a 2 person deal unless you really have long arms but i guess you cant have everything.
depends on what you want it for. I have used it on papertargets, I dont have access to varmint infested property so I cant say if it will work well for that. It is pretty heavy but works as expected. I kinda wished I had picked up a PVS14 and a thermal. The reason I say that is pointing a rifle at something you want to see can be iffy on someones property with pets or livestock. As far as the optic goes, it works great but even on a semi-bright night you need a IR light to see well. I used the aircrew PVN set while I was active duty, I notice this rig is a little bit grainy compared but that probably has to do with the nightforce and S&B scope thats in front of the clipon.
If you have the $$ I say go for it, but seems like thermal might be the way to go if you are hunting with at night. I did get to look through a sightmark thermal last weekend, it was like looking at a TV camera and it was difficult to get a good sight picture with the tiny screen. Right now I am looking at backing this PVS up with a thermal monocular...pulsar or eotech maybe.
I find mine works really well for fixed position bipod or tripod shooting. Due to its weight and the need to constantly focus, I find it cumbersome and it significantly changes the balance of my rifles . As previously mentioned, reaching the focus ring is a PITA.
So many to try and make a decision. It all comes down to the budget. Thermal was my first choice and I will some day own the IR SNIPE. Wig is the man who set me straight. Good dude.
So bottom line would you buy it again or look at something else? If you ran it on an ar10or 15 platform (collapsable stock) would the focus issue be less of a pita?
I currently have a 14 and a couple good illuminators but would kind of like to try something to increase the range.
Thanks for the replies so far.
I am planing on swapping out my fixed stock for a adjustable for the main reason of being able to reach the focus ring. It is a stiff one and my arms aren't long enough to deal with it unless I break sight alignment. The bad thing is you cant really set it up for long distance and expect it to be focused at 50 or 100y.
i use thermal alot. that said theres plenty that thermal cannot do. it just cannot replace a good night vision device especially a clip on. it has shortcomings that nv doesnt have. there are short comings for nv as well but i feel they out weigh thermal if you can only own one device.
the pvs30 is a robust unit and my experience with it has been fantastic.
the pvs30 is a robust unit and my experience with it has been fantastic.
For its intended use yes I would buy again. Keep in mind the weapon system and use cases it was designed for - a medium to long range observation and sniping system. If you want to be fast, mobile and address targets up close, there are probably better options. I don't have practical hunting experience with this device as I found out they are not allowed for use in Arizona! The other guys here can provide better feedback along those lines.
I paid a little extra for mine and got a really high fom but I don't have any way of comparing mine. My unit looks like new, but all of them are re-done at knigts so lenses are new, etc. At least thats what I was told when I bought mine from USNV. killswitch engaged might be able to help with that question.
i have had a handful in hand with fom from 1850 -1980 and really cannot tell enough difference in the field in practical use to say one over the other. up in that fom area its splitting hairs in my experience.
Killswitch is right, I've had several of these on hand and a 1800 vs 2000 FOM are so close that you can't tell them apart. If you were to hand someone the 1800 and tell them it were the 2000 and then hand them the 2000 they wouldn't ever know without looking at the top of it lol
Is there a optimal distance for the space between the PVS and the Optic? Close as you can get or 1 inch? I haven't played around with this but wondering if the .mil had any instructions for PVS use? Mine didn't come with any info on mounting it. I have used it on 2 rifles but I am modifying another file right now and was wondering if I needed to as close as possible or does it even matter.
myself and numerous buddies have purchased from rmr. everyone has been perfectly happy an rmr is great to deal with.
Ok then. Here we go! Thanks to all the OP and all the others who posted.
i didnt wait at all from rmr. they have them instock. i would surely think you should have long had them by now from usnv.
RMR was not bad to deal with. Their estimates were a little off, but that didn't bother me.
What did annoy the shit out of me though, was that they called me and left 2 voicemails about 'needing to talk to me' and when I called back, thinking it had to do with the PVS30 unit, they tried to sell me a Trijicon scope they had marked down on their site.
lolWTF
i would ask what the fom is. the external conditions have been very close across all that i have seen
RMR unit arrived today (ordered 7/18) as promised. A couple of very minor scuffs and handling marks on it- a little visible rubbing on the bottom of the objective. If the number above the p/n on the topplate is the Figure of Merit, this unit appears to be 1792. Hope to test it tomorrow pm. Will report back
Interested to read your thoughts about it, there isn't enough feedback on these out there. I've been on the fence for months. Please don't forget to post what day optic you are using as well.
I have had mine for about 2 months now. Mine is mounted behind a S&B 5-25 as well
as a 3-20.
So far making hits at 300 yards on a 6" x 8" plate with no extrenal illuminator was really easy. Rifle is a 6.5 Creed gasser. It was very overcast that night. I was able to identify targets out to about 500 but it is desert out here and they will blend in with the background.
I started loosing resolution at about 20x and the field of view starts getting narrow just before that. The illuminated reticle on the Schmidt made things easier. I kept the gain really low as there was light coming from my 6 from the city. On my rifle with the 5-25 the pvs-30 sits about 3/4" above center of my scope. It doesn't seem to hurt my point of aim but I'm sure that is why my field of view shrinks dramatically as I go up in mag.
I mounted it up in front of my mk4 spotter and took some pics. The resolution was really good and my alignment is pretty much centered.
if anyone is looking to buy one let me know and I will get you a smoking deal!
as a 3-20.
So far making hits at 300 yards on a 6" x 8" plate with no extrenal illuminator was really easy. Rifle is a 6.5 Creed gasser. It was very overcast that night. I was able to identify targets out to about 500 but it is desert out here and they will blend in with the background.
I started loosing resolution at about 20x and the field of view starts getting narrow just before that. The illuminated reticle on the Schmidt made things easier. I kept the gain really low as there was light coming from my 6 from the city. On my rifle with the 5-25 the pvs-30 sits about 3/4" above center of my scope. It doesn't seem to hurt my point of aim but I'm sure that is why my field of view shrinks dramatically as I go up in mag.
I mounted it up in front of my mk4 spotter and took some pics. The resolution was really good and my alignment is pretty much centered.
if anyone is looking to buy one let me know and I will get you a smoking deal!
Very happy with mine also. I have been running it for about 8-10 months with no problems. For the price it doesn't get better.....
Boy you guys are really tempting me with these...Any issues with running glass with larger objectives?
That doesnt have any impact on the use or performance of a clip on. it will need to be in rings around 1.5" height to co align perfectly. you can have some offset with no real issues though.
I got a question. How would it do looking through glass right in front of you out to about 500 yards? I am concerned if IR illumination is needed to make it perform on overcast nights that it would just reflect off the window making it unusable.
Depends on the ambient light but under most conditions with a good day optic 500yd is pretty easy. Not sure why you would wanna be behind glass and blast an ir illuminator but it will reflect some for sure causing issue.
Yeah I knew blasting IR behind a window was not going to work well. I was just concerned about seeing through another layer of glass on anything but bright conditions. The biggest reason I'm interested in this over a thermal is ability to see through glass and shooting out to 500ish.
For those of you that have these or have used them at medium to long range, will this work well enough to be able to shoot standard silhouettes out to ~600 yd? I was able to get time today to go out to one of our farms that allows for safe shooting out to a little over 600 yd. My Aero 6.5 Creedmoor is like the "easy button" at that range so I would like to be able to night shoot out that far. I have illuminators that have that kind of range, I'm just worried my PVS-14 behind the scope is going to run out of gas at a couple hundred yards. It is soggy as shit out there after hours of light rain, so can't get out to test right now.
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