Observations on Some Night Hunting Gear Options

[Double Naught Spy]

Three of us got together to pool gear and see what we could see at what range (out to 100 yards) for the primary purpose of night hunting hogs and to just get a feel for what might work in what sort of context. This was all very informal and not terribly scientific. The opinions expressed below are generally what all three of us agreed upon at the time of testing.

We were set up by 8:30 PM while there was still plenty of ambient light. Any of the NV scopes could be used at that time, but offered no real benefit over the unaided eye. As it got darker, the white painted targets at 100 yards disappeared first from unaided view, then the target at 50. The targets were steel silhouettes: a full sized one at 50 and full, ¾, and ½ sized at 100 yards. Since the white targets stood out well against their darker backstops (sand, tires, and foliage), we used a dark green shirt as a substitute for a dark target to simulate a dark colored hog against a dark background. Tests are discussed here listed by category, not by order of testing. Everything was being tested as the evening progressed.

First the use of the red flashlight alone. The red flashlight provided more benefit as things got progressively darker. While not a flood light, splash from the red LED illuminated a fairly large area, providing illumination similar to what one would expect from comparable two battery celled (cr123) tactical white lights.

We did notice an interesting problem and one that could be problematic with various types of mounted lights. With the red light mounted on the rifle far enough back and at the 10:30 position on the handguard there was some LED splash onto the front sight tower (AR15) that created some light pollution/glare within the Zeiss scope and greatly hindered the ability to see objects downrange. When the light was moved to a position where there was no splash on the front sight, it worked to its fullest potential. I have mounted this light at the 9:00 o'clock position and not had this problem with the Aimpoint T-1, but then again, I also do not have a front sight tower on my rifles. So either the light needs to be positioned where it won't have splash on the front sight tower or be it will be best used with a long gun that has no front sight tower or other structure near the muzzle to cause light to be reflected back into the optics.

The red LED light worked with the NV gear about as well as the IR flashlights, the difference being the red LED flashlight emits BRIGHT visible red light. So even if the light itself doesn't provide great illumination beyond 50 yards, inside of 50 yards, things were well illuminated (once it got dark). Looking back toward the light from 100 yards, it is still extremely bright, maybe 2/3 the brightness of the white flashlights which illuminated the targets fairly well at 100 yards. With the unmagnified Aimpoint and Eotech optics, 50 yards seemed to be about the longest distance that the light was useful where we felt we could identify targets properly. Using the red light in combination with the Zeiss 3-9x scope, this distance was pushed another 20-25 yards for dark targets on a dark background, though the white targets could be seen at 100 yards. Suffice it to say that the Zeiss scope had good light gathering ability and during initial testing as the night progressed we found it could be used to see the targets at 100 yards with no artificial illumination long after we could not even see the targets at 50 yards with the unaided eye.

Second are the white lights. Light and dark targets could be seen to 100 yards, but experience in using white lights with hogs has shown that the lights produce a startle response and the hogs immediately took off when lit up. It's not possible to say for certain that all hogs will run, but with our small sampling 3 out of 3 have run as soon as the hogs were illuminated. These lights could be used at distance with the NV scopes, but did not seem to offer any illumination advantage over the IR flashlights. Note that at distance and not using night vision, the functional range of the white lights decreases when trying to spot and identify dark objects on a dark background. Previously I have been able to identify dark hogs at 70 yards with a 200 lumen white LED light (advertised lumen value), but when coupled with the Aimpoint T-1 at that distance the hogs were more difficult to pick out readily. The Aimpoint (and most red-dot type sights) provide slightly darker optics than typical scoped because of the reflective coating inside the front lens.

Third are the IR flashlights. Various companies make IR illuminators, ranging in price from $80 to $400, that are nothing more than IR flashlights. Because of the expense of these lights, I wanted to find something more cost effective and weapon mountable. Jimdo came through with IR modules for his Solarforce L2 lights. The modules are P60 compatible and so we tested one in a Surefire light as well since the Surefire M952 was a weapon light I already had. Given the same lamp modules, there was no difference in performance between the Solarforce and Surefire lights.

The tested IR lights all run on 2 CR123A batteries. Like the white lights, the IR lights have good throw and considerable splash to illuminate at least out to 100 yards when used on notably contrasting targets and less aptly illuminating objects to the periphery of the target. The splash isn't the same as using a floodlight, but it does cover a large area with distance and can be useful for spotting movement even at the edges of the beam.

None of use had any problems with spotting white targets contrasted with a mottled sand, tires, and foliage background at 100 yards. The dark green shirt test indicated that the shirt was difficult to see because of the lack of contrast with the background, though movement made it easier to pick up. At about 75 yards, the green shirt could be spotted just fine even without movement. So the teste IR flashlights in combination with Gen II+ and III NV scopes have a good useful range of 75 yards on non-constrasting targets that quickly diminishes in capability out to 100 yards where constrasting targets can be seen. With that said, I have been able to spot eyeshine out beyond 200 yards with this combination although the type of animal spotted could not be determined at that distance.

Next are the Laser Illuminators. We used Luna Optics' ELIR. As far as laser illuminators go, these are fairly inexpensive ($350). Laser illuminators employ a focusable laser (adjustable size spot) and variable power output. Without measuring the spot size I would estimate that with the aperture opened the widest, the spot illuminated downrange is a perfect circle about 15 feet across at 30 yards. The spot can also be focused down to a near pinpoint laser beam like a laser pointer. This laser is powerful enough that the higher settings can be too powerful for short range targets, over illuminating them in the NV scopes. On other occasions I have tested this illuminator out to 300 yards to spot and shoot my white silhouette targets at that distance using an Aimpoint T-1, NV capable, non-magnifying optic. Jager Pro reports distances of 800 meters when using 6x Gen III night vision equipment. When used without magnification for night vision, suffice it to say that this little laser will illuminate anything you want to hunt out to the distance that you can see and identify targets. It will also, when used with magnified night vision, allow you to see and engage targets well beyond ranges most hunters would be willing to take a shot at night.

The ELIR can be zeroed if you wish to use it as an aiming device or to compensate for a slight lack of alignment between your sights and how the optic is mounted on your rails. It has both vertical and horizontal adjustment (via allen wrench screws). It runs on one CR123 battery and has a fairly long run time, reported as being over 5 hours.

There are two downsides to this illuminator, however. Since it has a beam that can be focused and produces a perfect circle, there is a near absolute demarcation between beam and non-beam. In other words, there is no splash and so unless there is a goodly amount of ambient natural light, that which is not inside the beam/spot will not be seen. The other aspect is that the area illuminated within the circle is not uniform. Both units tested had a cat's-eye pattern within the beam where the ovate central portion was better illumated than the rest of the beam. This isn't a terrible drawback, but is most noticeable when the unit's aperture is largest and the beam is widest. As the beam is focused to a smaller size, the cat's eye effect appears to go away.

The last form of illumination used was an IR floodlight hooked up to an emergency jumpstart battery. I have been using this light for the better part of a year to attempt to hunt hogs although I have spent most of my time just watching raccoons and deer. I could have probably gone with a smaller battery source than the one shown in the picture as it will provide well over 20 hours of run time for the IR floodlight between charges. If you want a portable and inexpensive floodlight for IR work, I find that this is a fairly good solution. From an elevation of about 14 feet (tree stand), I can illuminate an area roughly 45-50 yards wide and 70 yards distant and can readily identify larger animals within the area flooded. We found that it would also illuminate the white targets at 100 yards well enough to shoot accurately.

And Now The Night Vision Scopes

When it comes to night vision, there are several things that may influence how useful it is to the user. There is ambient natural light, artificial light, and the amount of dark/light contrast between that which is being observed and the background. All three scopes needed the benefit of additional artificial light in order to see any sort of distance given the lack of ambient natural lighting. I have spent considerable time with the Night Optics and the ATN Night Spirit in the stand during nights with a more full moon scanning my feeders without the benefit of artificial lighting because ambient natural lighting from the moonlight was sufficient. In other words, having supplemental artificial lighting is necessary if you want to always be able to see at night, but it won't be required for all conditions.

Another consideration is that supplemental lighting is often very useful to identify targets located in the shadows at night. Have you ever noticed how much darker it is in the forest at night than out in an open field? We often do not think of there being shadows at night, but there are. If your ambient light is coming from the sky and your target is underneath a large shade tree located back inside the tree line, it may be completely hidden in the shadow. In that situation you would need supplemental illumination.

Given the moon was low in the sky and 34% full, there wasn't much ambient light for the NV gear to draw upon and so none of the scopes performed well without the benefit of IR illumination. All three NV scopes have their own IR emitters, but they were fairly weak (useful to 10 yards at most). In addition, since these IR emitters are short range flood lights, when they are mounted on a rifle they will light up anything forward of the NV scope including red dot sights and front sight towers. The light reflected back into the NV scope will ruin sight pictures. In short, these emitters aren't terribly useful when the scope is weapon mounted.

The worst scope of the three was the Gen II+ Night Optics. It had more imperfections on the viewing screen than the other two scopes. It is the one that I have owned the longest and have used for hunting hogs quite successfully. Aside form the imperfections, I have also noticed that the front objective tends to drift out of focus. I believe that it needs a thicker grease on the threads of the focus ring to better hold the ring in position against incidental contact or vibration.

Next was the ATN Night Spirit and ATN NVM14. Both had considerably fewer impections and had better resolution than the Night Optics scope with the NVM14 (the only Gen III NV scope tested) being the best of the three.

The downside of the NVM14 was its cost. None of us felt that the better resolution of the Gen III NVM14 was significant enough to warrant the additional expense. It also gives the impression of magnification, though it was supposed to only be a 1x scope. It was also slightly smaller and lighter than the other two scopes which were comparable in size. It also had slightly better resolution than the other two scopes, but nothing dramatic. Out to 100 yards, all three scopes could be used nearly equally well. The NVM14 was the best scope and it's possible that the marginally better resolution might have made a difference at ranges beyond the 100 yard distances tested.

Given cost and function, of the three, the Gen II+ ATN Night Spirit was the best value.

The picatinny rail adapter and mount on the Night Optics scope was rock solid. Both ATN mounts allowed for some wiggle between the rail adapter and the part that mounts the scope on the rail adapter. I fixed this on my scope by installing a spacer/shim to provide a tighter fight. Note that this play is between the parts that allow the scope to be quick-released from the gun or quick-installed on it. The amount of wiggle is minimal, but I found it annoying. It does not affect performance.

The Night Optics scope does not quick release. Either the scope must be unscrewed from the the rail adapter or the rail adapter must be unscrewed to remove the entire assembly from the rail.

A Quick Note on the Aimpoint T-1 and Eotech M552
Both optics have their place. The Aimpoint however had more IR settings, but had the much larger 4 MOA dot reticle. The Eotech had fewer settings, but had the smaller 1 MOA center dot. Compared to the Eotech, the Aimpoint is a darker optic and does not transmit quite as much light. However, the Eotech's reticle brightness setting was overpowering, even on the lowest level. Both optics were more than sufficient for work with NV scopes out to 100 yards.

Summation and Thoughts
For hunting out to 100 yards at night, we really did not see any real advantage of the Gen III scope over the Gen II+ scopes, given the difference in cost. The Luna Optics laser illuminators were very cool and certainly could light up anything at 100 yards and even over illuminate it, but are fairly pricey compared to other options that work reasonably well out to 100 yards. On the other hand, you want to hunt at longer distances than 100 yards and use magnified optics, these laser illuminators are inexpensive compared to some with comparable abilities that sell for a grand and more. The IR flashlights with inexpensive scope rings seem to be a great way to have a weapon portable IR light with a 70 yard or so range for non-constrasting targets and they have a good splash to cover a fairly sizable area. The IR floodlight is better for a portable setup (non-mounted light) as it floods more area with more light. The red LED flashlight shows the greatest promise for shorter range hunting without NV gear. In fact, you don't need optics at all although magnified optics will extend its useful range. At less than $20 for the light and a scope ring mount, this is the least expensive weapon mountable solution that ideally should not bother the animals who are not red-sensitive. Hopefully, we will have some field testing in the near future to verify the usefulness of this inexpensive option for hunting.

Gear Used – Letter in bracket corresponds with photo. Prices are current to July 2010. Sorry, it is a cell phone image.

[A] IR floodlight ($16.00, 850 nm) plus 12v battery ($40.00)
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.15235
[B] Solarforce L2 white LED flashlight (available on TFL from Jimdo)
[C] Ultrafire flashlight with red LED lamp module ($9.90 total price after delivery from China) http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.20333

[D] Luna Optics ELIR Laser Illuminators (810 nm) ($350.00) with rail mounts from Jager Pro ($30)
http://www.nightvisionetc.com/58-lun...luminator.html
http://www.jagerpro.com/JPStore/prod...=117&catID=104
[E] Solarforce L2 lights with IR lamp modules (? nm) (~$32.00 from Jimdo here on TFL) along with NC Star RB33 scope rings for mounts ($12.00 per pair)
http://www.opticsplanet.net/nc-star-...ope-rings.html
[F] ATN Night Spirit Gen II+ monocular $1000 ($1250 with picatinny mount and 1x objectives lens for [but comes with a 3x lens)
[G] Night Optics D-300M-2MS Gen II+ $1500 (now $1650) with Picatinny mount ($99.00)
[H] ATN NVM14 Gen III 1x monocular $2500 ($2600 with picatinny mount)

Gear not shown:
1 Surefire M952with ($150 surplus) with Solarforce IR lamp module ($12.00) and not shown
At least 3 white flashlights including LED and Xenon modules (Solarforce, Surefire, Streamlight) 80-200 lumans and various prices
Aimpoint Micro T-1 ($~600, IR compatible, 4 MOA dot)
Eotech M552 (~$500, IR compatible, 1 MOA center dot, 65 MOA donut)
Zeiss 3-9x40 scope (the only non NV scope used)

[FrontSight]

That was an awesome analysis, thank you!

[waterboy68]

Thanks for the info. I've tried the IR filter for the streamlight (LED) flashlights with my ATN scope and it wasn't much better than the crappy illuminator that came with it. A friend of mine has mentioned reading something to the affect that using the IR filter on a xenon bulbed flashlight will produce a better beam than a LED light source. I'm not sure if that's true or not. Do you have any experience with IR filters on different light sources? I'd be interested in knowing if there's any differance myself.

Oh yeah, I'm diggin the spot light too! Nice and portable.

[Double Naught Spy]

Supposedly, IR filters don't work with standard LED lights because most standard LED lights don't emit much IR. Running Xenon bulbs with IR filters capped over the top (like some Streamlight and Surefire versions) means there is even more heat buildup than with an uncovered Xenon bulb. So the unit heats up faster and can eventually melt the filter. So if you run a Xenon bulb with an IR filter, then prudent use is for only short periods of time.

The IR lights from Solarforce do get warm. I don't think I have any lights that don't, but IR and other LED lights don't ever seem to get very hot. If you have ever had a Xenon light inadvertently get turned on in your pocket, then you know just how hot they can get. I have run the IR light for up to 20 minutes at a time and still been able to touch the lens and not be burned.

Also, the Solarforce IR light is priced so inexpensively that it is close to the price of the cheapest IR filters that fit on other lights and is 1/4-1/2 the price of Surefire filters.

[waterboy68]

Thanks for the info!

[hrt4me]

Thanks for the report, you've helped me with my shopping choices...

[Loader9]

Not to conflict with yer post DNS but I've hunted at night almost every weekend since 1970 for hogs and coyotes. Our situation is maybe different than what you're conditions are but here's the best we've found that fits our needs. We hunt from an old 1959 Jeep wagon 4x4. The thing will go anywhere and it has covered room in the back for other equipment and gun racks on both sides of the vehicle including one that goes across the dash. In our situation, one person runs the light (passenger) and one is the shooter (driver). The light we use that works the best is a Brinkman 200,000 candle power spotlight. We've used bigger, brighter, smaller, red lens, yellow, etc but the 200,000 Brinkman works best-no lens. The light it throws is an oval shape which we have found to be ideal. We will pull into a field and run the light fast around it looking for eyes. If we find any, the shooter gets ready and the light will go back to and under the eyes as directed by the shooter. A lot of times the animals will run if the light is directly on them but won't run with reflected light off of the ground. When the shooter is ready, we raise the light, the gun goes off. So while the actual light is important, technique is just as much a part of night hunting as the light. The oval light from the Brinkman also lets the person running the light pin point an animal to the shooter who may not see it. You can run the light with the beam horizontal or vertical by holding it at 12 oclock and switching to 3 oclock. That makes the shooter look more towards the center of the light where the animal is at.

We've tried all kinds of battery types of lights that I'll call flashlights and none have been even close to acceptable. But it again goes back to the conditions you're hunting. Some of our night shots are 3-4-500 yds and it takes a good light to be able to see that far thru a scoped rifle and KNOW what the animal is before shooting. We prefer a good quality scope with most being Leupolds, Burris, or the old 50mm Weaver scopes. The bigger the octave the better the light gathering ability of the scope providing it has decent glass. So you have to match the conditions with the equipment as not all hunting conditions are the same.

Again, this was not to detract from your post but add to it for those that may hunt at night. Options and making them work for you is best for everybody.

[shortwave]

WOW!

What an impressive analysis!

Thanks DNS.

[Doc Intrepid]

Thanks, DNS.

There is no better data than actual experience under real-world conditions.

At the moment I do not hunt at night, but if I ever encountered a need to do so this information would be extremely useful.

[Double Naught Spy]

Y'all are welcome.

Right now I am working with an ATN MK390 Gen 1+ rifle scope that looks really promising in terms of performance given the cost ($500), but is something of a monster in terms of size and weight. Using an ELIR laser illuminator, I have had no trouble seeing T-posts at 250 yards, but the key is the illumination. At least up through Generation III, you aren't going to be seeing long distances with clarity unless your target is properly illuminated and light reflected back to the NV scope. In other words, dark animals on a dark background are going to show up nearly as good as light covered animals on a dark background, especially at distance.

I haven't gotten a chance to watch critters with the new scope yet, but when I have some useful information, I will pass it on.

[waterboy68]

I have been using the 390 also. It seems like a decent setup for the price. The IR illuminator that came with it definitely leaves a little to be desired, but with some better IR sources it performs quite nicely. I don't really intend on shooting anything more than 200 yds at night any way. So for my purposes (hogs and occasional coyotes) it will be just fine.

[Double Naught Spy]

You know, while the IR emitter on it isn't great, I have found that it is better than the built-in onboard units that come with many units that really aren't for illuminating anything much bigger than living room distances. They are really sort of short range flood lights.

The emitter that comes with it is their 450 mw "long range" emitter. It seems to illuminate things just fine out to about 50 yards and maybe as far as 75 if they are light colored. I have not problem seeing my painted white full size sihouettes at 50 yards with it, but at 100, they are more like ghost images.

There are a variety of IR flashlights that will get you another 25 yards or so that cost anywhere from $30-150. Aside from the Luna Optics ElIR focussable ir laser that I already use, I will be trying out Hyper Beam's Red Eye 2x10 focussable illuminator (but apparently a light and not a laser) that is supposedly good out to 1000 yards. The scope isn't good to 1000, so I will probably keep things inside 300 or 400 (400 being the length of my rifle range).

[hrt4me]

Based on your field report, I got the Luna Optics LN-ELIR, which I use in conjunction with my AN/PVS-7, AN/PVS-14, BNVD-Gs and custom "PS-22"-type ICONS (Improved Clip-On Night Sight).