Night Vision Rifle Setup: Lights, Lasers, IR Illuminators, & Switches

Night time imaginative and prescient functionality is a strong benefit for any emergency preparedness plan. Final yr we devoted an entire print issue to the subject. An important lesson is that working successfully at nighttime is not so simple as shopping for a PVS-14 monocular or a pair of goggles and slapping them on your helmet. Notably if you wish to successfully pair defensive firearms with night time imaginative and prescient, there are some distinctive issues to account for. Integrating infrared lasers and illuminators onto your night time imaginative and prescient rifle setup of selection will make it extra versatile beneath NVGs.

Above: An infrared laser affords the power to “actively” purpose at a goal with out trying by means of the weapon sight. Even when you plan to “passively” purpose by means of a purple dot sight, an IR laser serves as a beneficial backup.

Including an IR illuminator and/or laser to your rifle can have a noticeable impact on its ergonomics and management suite. Not solely do these equipment take up a very good chunk of “rail-estate” however so do the buttons and switches required to function them. In the event that they’re configured in a complicated or inconvenient method, they might impede your potential to make use of the weapon or distract you from the duty at hand. Luckily, the aftermarket is flush with choices for working each white lights and IR lasers seamlessly, with minimal influence on how you’d usually deal with your weapon. Whereas there are additionally loads of choices for handguns, this text will concentrate on carbine and PDW switchology, because it tends to be somewhat extra equipment-intensive than configurations for handguns.

Night time Imaginative and prescient Rifle Configurations

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Above: Net Editor Patrick McCarthy’s 11.5-inch SBR options an ATPIAL IR laser / IR illuminator combo unit on the highest rail in addition to a Cloud Defensive REIN white gentle offset on the 2:00 place.

Step one in figuring out what your switching/management necessities are is to find out what your IR laser/illuminator setup seems like. There are two fundamental solutions to this query:

1. Mixture unit that has each an IR laser and IR illuminator
2. Standalone IR laser that can, most probably, require a separate outboard IR illuminator

Above: The writer’s “Do-All Survival SBR” incorporates an Arisaka/Malkoff Gadgets white gentle at 3:00 and a Holosun IR laser/illuminator combo at 12:00.

Subdividing the alternatives even additional, there are two attainable illuminator/gentle options to contemplate:

1. Twin Mode (VIS+IR) — pair your standalone IR laser with a dual-output gentle that options each white gentle (a.ok.a. seen gentle) and IR gentle
2. IR Solely — pair your standalone laser with a devoted IR-only flashlight, and fix a separate white-light-only weaponlight

Learn on as we present some sensible examples of every of those night time imaginative and prescient rifle setups.

IR Laser / IR Illuminator Combo + White Gentle

These are the perfect resolution when you can afford it. The overall efficiency of your NVGs will rely on the quality of your tubes, however all night-vision requires ambient gentle and all will expertise degraded efficiency when environmental lighting is briefly provide. For instance, consider a darkish basement with no home windows, or a bed room at night time with the curtains drawn. Whereas lasers offers you a visual level of purpose for capturing, they won’t gentle up the goal or its background. This is the reason IR illumination is so important to a holistic NV-capable weapon setup.

IR laser / IR illuminator combo items provide a one-stop reply to this downside. However they’re noticeably costlier than buying a standalone laser. Some examples embody:

Nearly all methods on this class include manufacturing unit stress pad remotes, however many of us will merely use the on-body button. Because you usually won’t activate a flashlight and IR unit concurrently, combo items are nice for many who desire avoiding the litter of tape switches and remotes altogether. Place the combo unit and white gentle in order that each push buttons are close to your assist thumb, and press whichever one you want once you want it. That is best on shorter weapons like SBRs and PCCs/PDWs the place rail area is restricted.

The alternate possibility is a distant swap, or switches. As we stated, nearly each laser on the market will include a tape swap. However if you end up making an attempt to combine stated swap onto a handguard that already has a distant pad for white gentle, area turns into restricted rapidly. That is the place aftermarket options just like the Unity Tactical TAPS come into play. Designed along with TNVC, the TAPS affords a single, barely enlarged stress pad with two distinct buttons, and twin cable leads, to activate gentle or laser off a single plate. The TAPS is designed from the underside up for low-light use. Every of the 2 TAPS buttons contains visible and tactile “dots” molded in in order that, even with out having the ability to see the buttons, you possibly can determine which peripheral you’re about to activate.

Our instance here’s a Holosun LS321G, which includes a inexperienced laser, IR laser, and IR illuminator mixed right into a single unit. The white gentle is an Arisaka 18650 light body with Malkoff Devices E2XTD head, run off the Unity TAPS swap.

IR Laser + Twin Mode Illuminator

If an IR laser with built-in IR illuminator is out of your finances, you possibly can pair a standalone laser with a dual-output weaponlight. Some examples of standalone IR lasers with out onboard illuminators embody:

• Steiner OTAL and most DBAL-I2 fashions (excluding 9007)
• Holosun 117 and 221 sequence
• Zenitco PERST-4

The instance seen here’s a Holosun LS221G, which is a inexperienced/IR laser-only unit, paired with a Surefire M600V Scout Light. The V-series Scouts function a head meeting which might be switched from white to IR gentle by twisting the pinnacle to pick out your required mode. This feature can assist maintain prices down as you get each a white gentle and IR illuminator in a single buy. However there are two trade-offs to this. First, constructing dual-spectrum output right into a single gentle head implies that, whereas your gentle turns into a jack-of-all-trades, it will likely be a grasp of neither. Twin-mode lights usually have a lot decrease white-light output than their devoted brethren. For instance, the white-light-only M600 Professional has an output of 1,000 lumens. However the dual-mode M600V Professional solely pushes 350 lumens of white gentle and 120mW of IR illumination.

The opposite challenge is certainly one of switching. If you’re utilizing white gentle, you solely need the white gentle. When utilizing IR, you’ll need the sunshine and laser activated concurrently. For instances like this, we’re again to Unity Tactical for the TAPS SYNC. Its bodily structure is an identical to the usual TAPS, however options inner program that may be had in a number of configurations. Our instance right here is the “V1” programming, setup as follows:

• Button 1 prompts gentle solely
• Button 2 prompts gentle and laser concurrently

If you want white gentle, rotate the pinnacle to white output and use button 1. If you wish to shoot beneath NVGs, rotate the sunshine head to IR mode and use button 2 to fireplace it and your standalone laser on the identical time for concentrating on and illumination.

That is, after all, not the one means to do that. You could possibly attempt to use a mix of physique button (or click on tailcap) plus a single-output tape swap, however we’ve discovered that that is awkward to function on the fly, and we run out of fingers making an attempt to push two buttons on and off whereas sustaining a optimistic grip on the weapon.

IR Laser + IR Illuminator + White Gentle

The third possibility is to mount a standalone IR laser (as mentioned above), a devoted IR illuminator, and a devoted white gentle.

Once more, with all issues, there are trade-offs. On the upside, devoted IR illuminators can have a lot stronger output than a dual-mode weapon gentle. Our setup right here options an Arisaka Protection 300-series Scout-style gentle physique with a Malkoff Devices EX IR 250 IR-only head. The Malkoff head is able to 250mW of IR output, with a 4-hour runtime on a single CR123 battery. There’s additionally a 700mW model obtainable for longer-range use. Each offers you far superior illumination to a dual-mode white/IR gentle. However this requires you to then mount a complete second flashlight onto your weapon for white-light functionality. Not solely is that this added weight and bulk on the muzzle finish of your weapon (the place you’ll really feel it most) however you now have three wires to handle as an alternative of two.

We mounted our Arisaka/Malkoff illuminator in tandem with a Steiner DBAL-I2, on an American Defense Manufacturing DBAL-SF mount. It is a single mount with QD lever attachment with direct-mount brackets for each a DBAL-style laser and a Surefire Scout-style gentle. This unit places your laser on the 12-o-clock place, with a 45-degree offset for the accompanying gentle. This mount can be utilized with a number of lasers and lights in no matter mixture you possibly can consider, however we felt it was splendid to run a standalone laser with standalone IR illuminator. For white gentle work, we mounted a Cloud Defensive REIN 2.0 on the 5-o-clock place.

Any gentle with a Surefire-pattern distant socket would make this one other splendid place to place a Unity TAPS SYNC. However as a result of the REIN has a proprietary again finish with its personal distant pad, we chosen a ModLite Mod Button Lite dual-lead switch to run the IR features. The twin-lead Mod Button options the identical mixture of Surefire and Crane leads, however its microscopic footprint means the programming is restricted to momentary-only, dual-activation-only configuration. Which means there’s just one output mode – press the button and each leads fireplace. This makes it inappropriate for a combo unit + white gentle setup, as you usually would solely need one or the opposite. Nevertheless, on this association, the place we’re going to wish to activate the IR-only gentle each time we activate the laser, it’s a very good resolution. This leaves the separate, REIN distant as your white-light-only swap, so that you merely press one or the opposite relying on whether or not you’re utilizing NVGs or not.

Conclusion

There are a nearly-infinite variety of switching and management configurations that may be woven from all of the obtainable IR laser, IR illuminator, gentle, and distant swap selections available on the market. However the backside line is that the prudence of constructing low-light and no-light functionality into your general preparedness plan isn’t going to vary anytime quickly. Whereas this information is on no account all-inclusive, we hope to provide you some reference factors to begin from in constructing out your personal night time imaginative and prescient rifle setup and night-fighting ability set.

Written by Tom Marshall