... @wigwamitus has run a setup like that if I remember correctly. I believe he liked it ...
Yes, I have two breaches ... and generally run them side by side with pvs-14 on head. They are not skeets, patrols or nox-18s ... they don't have BAE cores !!!
Compared to COTI, they are a tiny bit fuzzier close up ... and can detect about 20% farther (cow at 600yds for breach vs cow at 500yds for coti).
I think both devices are rather "misunderstood" and hence there is a lot of "hate" for both. So if you are looking for a $2k skeet (or patrol or nox18 - keep looking !!!
...
The COTI is good for enhancing shooting with laser. It can produce a situation where you can see a (close up) target with the thermal and engage with the laser, even though the 14 cannot see the target. The "magic" of fusion.
The COTI is NOT a mini-skeet (or patrol or nox-18) ... it is a terrible long distance scanner. It is way better than nothing as a long distance detection device.
The breach has fixed focus at somewhere between 25yds and 50yds ... I made some focusing adjustment tools and adjusted the focus trying to push optimal distance out to say 150yds. The range of motion on the lens adjustment was tiny and I did not get the result I was hoping for. There is a tiny bit of improvement, but not as much as I hoped.
The strength of the breach is detection, not PID. As I said, cows in the open out to 600yds.
The hot spot is cow at 600yds with breach.
And here is the same scene a few seconds later with the Genesis A55.
Note the genesis was in dedicated TWS mode and hence had 3x on the front end.
But you can see, the Breach only clearly sees one cow, and these were "avg" conditions, hence I peg the limit of breach detection of cow at 600yds. But its still way better than nothing !!
Also, the breach can be a thermal clipon, in an emergency. This requires some work to get a decent mounting solution, but whowhatwherehownowbrowncow and I have been working on this idea for about 2 years and have continued to improve the solution. The current solution eliminates the wobble of prior solutions (which used various MUM weapon mounts).
PM if you want to know more about this use case.
The COTI could in theory be used behind an EOTECH, but a mounting solution that would work, would leave the COTI exposed to more recoil than I would want to expose it to.
I also find the breach very useful moving in woods, seeing various aspects of the terrain, like pools of water. Especially in DARK conditions where NV is coming up short.
Street prices for Breaches, averaging new and used are around $2k.
Street prices for used cotis, the vectronics ones Euro was selling at around $2.5k, are now $3k (the street price actually went up after Euro sold out).
If you shoot a lot with a laser, I would lean towards the COTI. If not, I would lean towards the breach. If you are often in open fields, I would lean towards the Breach.
I have two COTIs and two Breaches.
And its another plus for folks who are looking for non-chinese solutions, almost everything under $5,500 is chinese (or the parts are) ... these two critters are exceptions to that rule!
if you're ok with Chinese, the buy Chinese, you'll get a better image close up, at least until the unit breaks
(Ive have 7 chinese units 5 of them broke pretty quickly in field conditions).
