Night Vision Perst 4?

If they ever come in from Russia (been 30 days now) I will be using the Zenitco white/IR light with their dual switch setup.

I don't think anyone else makes a switch that uses the same connector as the Perst4.
 
Not just easy zero, but quick checks. Stick a zero target on the farthest safe wall you can find near your rack/safe and check it periodically. Now, this thing seems rock solid, but some lasers do like to drift, so checking before every use is good practice... when you have a slaved viz laser at least!
 
I have a Perst 3 with the +green laser. Very powerful illuminator & IR/visible lasers. I've had it for a bit over a year now, i just replaced the battery it came with last week. I've hunted boar at night, a few night shoots,, and a nighttime class with it. Illuminator width adjustment and centering the laser in the illuminator beam are a pain, but everything else is great in my opinion.

I ordered mine from the zenitco seller on ebay and later found out Zenitco doesn't have an ebay account and never has. It took about 3 weeks to receive it from Russia, but that was pre covid. They have an English YouTube channel "Zenitco in English", they have great videos on all their lights/lasers/switches.
 
Might have been higher in this thread, might have been elsewhere but not the first time I have heard this exact phrase.

1) How are you determining that they don't have an eBay account?

2) As I said in my reviewing, the mailing address is an office on the Zenitco campus.

The seller says he's just the poor, neglected overseas consumer sales guy, doing it all himself (online, packaging, everything) that no one else at the office there there really cares about and the evidence I have seen seems to indicate this is true.
 

Hello Shoobe01,

I have attached a snapshot of the comment Zenitco made on their "Zenitco in English" YouTube channel in response to someone asking about their eBay page. I have also embedded the Perst 4 update video where the comment is posted.



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Just placed an order for a Perst 4M direct from Ivan, looking forward to working it & hopefully it lands CONUS before Xmas w/ all the beer flu stupidity
 
Bought a 3 from Ivan back in September. Transaction was straight up/straight forward, was supplied with a tracking number promptly upon shipment (within 24hours of order placement). It looks like Russia Post accumulates/consolidates US orders to ship once a week. Sat in Moscow for 5'ish days, got to ORD in 2'ish days and on to SFO in 1 day. Took 11 days to get from SFO to SEA......No fault of Ivan/Zenitco. Happy with Ivan, not so much the respective postal services, but what are you gonna do ? Total transit time was about 18, maybe 20 days. Not bad, all things considered. Can't bitch.....
 
I ordered a perst 4 from ebay the same day as another hide member, he got his before Halloween, mine is still in Russia according to tracking. I think it took his 12 days to get in from his order, mine is still counting.
 

As a bit of potential comfort about your situation, my stepdad recently ordered a Perst 4 and the tracking showed it in Russia until about 3 days before it was delivered. Right as he was contemplating reaching out to the vendor, the tracking updated and he had it a couple of days later. Another factor is which shipping option you chose. I paid extra for the fast shipping while my stepdad did not. It did seem to make a difference in our sample size of two.
 

Quoting myself to add I received the 4M back on 25 Nov. so roughly 14+ days from my order to del. from Ivan but damn if I've had it to the range to zero it or even give some feedback, that will change.
 
I believe that Russia Post accumulates foreign shipments in Moscow and ships once a week to Conus. My shipment took 7 to 10 days to get to San Francisco. Then, it took about the same amount of time to get to me in the suburbs of Seattle. So, it took the same amount of time to get from Moscow to Conus as did from Conus to my Door :rolleyes:
In that regard, Russia Post wasn’t so bad.....
 
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For another rifle, I got the kit off ebay of Perst 3 Green +, Klesch-2 dual band light, and the KV-4/2U dual control switch. The switch just arrived, because they forgot it originally so I have used the light and laser, only just started playing with the switch.

Went with this setup to get a bright white light. If they had a dual band bright white light in the Perst 4 I'd have done that. Also, this is still cheaper!

They include several spare mounting bits, and their weird picatinny canteliever ended up being very useful for my strange gun. Photo with wires and switches not in final position:


White light is as bright and clean as any other bright lights I have, but seems a bit dimmer as it's a much wider beam. Feels on par with the 500 lumen X300s at the target, but lights up the whole back yard, not just 25% at a time.

IR illum is similar: crazy bright, and very wide spread. This is a CQB or nearby surveillance light, not for illuminating targets hundreds of yards away.

The dual switch has:
  • A rotary dial up top with three positions. Left, right, both. Left and right control whatever you plugged into them. Same controls, same plug, your choice.
  • Button works as usual for remotes. Power dial works as usual just can be for whichever or both.
  • Lockout cross-bolt at bottom is weird. Turns off everything, and also locks out ALL the light controls even on the light itself. It doesn't lock out the on-laser controls. Fine, but weirdly inconsistent.
  • Button is a little too small for me. Too fussy a control set so hard to find, I might rely on the lockout and add a big protruding button (adhesive rubber bumper, etc) to make sure I can push it when I want.

This is set to lockout, and controlling the left hand device. Up is both. There are icons but they aren't meaningful until you already know what they mean.
 

Interesting hanging it way out there. I guess it's not a problem with it being on top like that, shouldn't be contacting anything when you shoot. Is that the 556 or 308 M17? I had a 308 for a while, it was dogshit and would not function with a can. How do you like yours?

-Dan
 
Yup, that weird cantilever rail works great. If longer, I'd try sticking the PVS30 on there. Totally solid, and at least on this gun with the elongated receiver (barrel is quite low, so far away from the top) it's no where near even the suppressor.

VERY long writeup on the M17S 308 to come in the proper thread but: works well. Took a bit to tune in, finally figured out that it hates some ammo; almost like a .22 LR in that way. But for the ammo it likes, it works great. Around 1 moa with match stuff, and I can hit steel reliably to at least 475 yds with 150 gr ball. So good it needs more scope than 4x, to stretch the legs a bit.


Also: The Zenitco free gift for not sending the switch the first time was their aluminum VFG and... I switched to it. Nice, simple, smooth, non-folding grip with no pokey bits, and I didn't weigh it but maybe not even heavier than the plastic Ergo one I had on there.

A little longer as well, so the switch fits neatly, and totally flat sides almost like it was designed to fit (it was not). Wireties are temporary, if I like it here after a few range visits I am going to drill holes and bolt it on.

Wires need a few more onewraps and wire ties when done, but as with the VFG, doing it slowly in case I want to move things around, to encourage me to fix stuff instead of just committing.
 
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Stumbled across some other info on these that may be of use. For the Green + at least

Green laser:
Min power, 0.56 mW
Max power, 18 mW

850 nm IR laser:
Min Power, 0.015 mW
Max Power 20 mW
Level 3 is 0.7 mW (or a bit under) so... first three settings are eye safe. Still no lockout, but if careful you can leave it to eyesafe modes for FoF stuff.

I also was just playing with a Perst 1 I slaved to a thermal for data transfer (i.e. you find something on thermal, fire the laser and everyone on NODs can see where the thing you saw is, look for it or shoot it). It is 3 mW, and I'd swear the third (4th?) from top on the 4 is the same. So, WAG with a little data and my eyeballs... so far:

1) 0.015
2) .25?
3) 0.7
4) 2?
5) 3?
6) 7?
7) 10?
8) 20
 
Those don't weigh hardly anything, can't notice the difference with them on. For example, the light at 3-o'clock? No rotational moment I can detect.

I also normally run with a suppressor, much more weight forward which... makes it better. It is SO center balanced as a bullpup out of the box that a little forward weight helps.

I had that on the last day walk at your place, and it wasn't as heavy to carry as it initially seems when you pick it up. If anything, the center balance means it tries to rotate to horizontal which is annoying when I am trying to keep it vertical and sneak instead of crash through the brush.
 
No, I personally have no tools to measure the output. But to me the lowest settings appear very, very dim even off various surfaces so the stated power is believable.

Still wish it had a lockout but Russians apparently. Blinded by laser make you stronger!
 
Imperfect conditions because I live in the suburbs, so I killed all my outside lights and it's "dark" to the normal eye but lots of ambient light. Shining at a Keter plastic storage box, and a bit of the driveway, base of a portable basketball hoop, etc /maybe/ 10 yards away. Filmed with a D500 with Astroscope set to f2 1/25 ISO1250 HDR... I think. I am a little unclear how much it inherits these settings for video because I mostly shoot stills with it.

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If you have sound off, starts at lowest power and goes up in steps reasonably slowly, then back down waving it about to see it on slightly different surfaces. While not an absolute ideal, by comparison I hope it's useful in that the lower powers are clearly MUCH lower power than the high power, and you can see the jumps at the top couple settings, and the weird higher-power flash between power levels as well.
 
Bringing this one back…

Getting the itch to get the Perst 4 on eBay. What did you guys pay? Showing around $150ish. And shipping from China. Thoughts? Still legit zentico and maybe they are shipping from China to get around sanctions?

Very tempting cause I could outfit half my safe for under $1k.
 
Hey man a guy can hope. I kinda assumed it was a Chinese knockoff (like everything out of China). But wondering if the clone is decent/robust enough to give a try.

Now, talk to me about this bridge you speak of…
 
Yes, there are chinese knockoffs of the PERST series. Careful.

No. Not especially good. Remember these are not reverse engineered, not like say the early days of PCs when the clones were pretty much just as good as an IBM for half the price. These just look like the thing they copied, and emit laser and... that's it. They are utterly different inside.

Now if you must go with knockoffs, SomoGear is the only one. They are trying to be proper, get better from customer feedback and testing with each version, several times a year. Potted ones are better (stronger). Since they have no version numbers on the laser that I know of, be sure to buy a new one, not used or from someone's inventory. I have none, know a few who have tried with varying results.

IF you need power over Class 1 that is.
 
Knock offs can be ok but you have to do your research and check reviews. AliExpress is probably cheaper for sourcing knock off LAMs than ebay.

I picked up a PEQ-15 clone off AliExpress recently for testing that was $250 that had good reviews and the seller for it seems to actually test their shit. So far it seems to work but I'll have to give it a shake down on a rifle first.

There's SOMOGEAR, INVISIBLESIGHT and a 3rd I'm forgetting that people have had some luck with for knock off LAMs. Part of the issue with the Perst's clone or no is that they use their own switch system which some people like and some people hate.
 
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No where new/currently imported because sanctions. All will be purchased in the past, likely used. Prices rise slowly every month as availability is fixed or diminishing from attrition. I sold one last year for 3x what I paid for it.

DO as pointed out be aware they became popular enough there are Chinese knockoffs. They might be fine but not $800 fine so be careful.