After getting a lot of good advice here a while back I went and have two rifles set up (I hope) for use with my PVS14.
I would like any and all criticism or advice you all can give here.
Top is a 12.5 with a CompM5b and a DBAL I2 9007. I replaced the mount with a standard hight Reptilia mount. Which brings it up to roughly the level of a 1.93 hight mount. I am not thrilled with this solution but it seems to work unless anyone else has any suggestions.
Second is BREN2 11.5 with an EXPS3 and DBAL D2. I love the output of the D2, but damn is it a heavy beast. I switched it to this from my 14.5 inch gun because I was tired of having it out at the end of a longer rail. I am open to suggestions here. And yes I know hitting the gym more would solve the issue also. Maybe running it further back on the rail?
I use a Unity Tactical TAPS SYNC on both which.
So what should I change? Keep the same? I am open to anything and everything. I now have access to a place I can do some night training so I am looking forward to being able to run these through wringer but I want to do it right.
See how easy they are to aim passively under NODs to see if the height is good enough; not just square range, but also unorthodox shooting positions.
A magwell makes reloads under NODs much easier.
I would check to see how much flex the BREN 2’s handguard has, may be worth moving it back if it’s got noticeable flex, even without the weight issue.
On the flip side, I would also check to see if you can hit the fire button with your hand comfortably without having to use the tapeswitches; even better if you can also manipulate the settings on the laser, though that’s not as important. I’m also mildly leery of the non-ambi nature of the tapeswitches, give that the firing button of the DBALs are all biased to the left side of the units.
Also work checking to see how the illumination interacts with your gun, making sure that it’s not causing splash back off of it and thus autogating your NODs.
Don’t have much to offer as I am new to NV as well.
Be careful with the cover on the illuminator on the D2, mine broke off the 2nd day I had it.
I have a Aimpoint PRO in a 1/3rd mount and ended up putting that on top of a yhm riser. If you think you want to go taller (although 1.93 seems to be pretty popular) you could try one of those, they are pretty cheap.
I’ve been trying to work on this for a few months. I am having a hell of a time - last week I broke a bone in my foot, then I got into a car accident.
That being said, here goes.
Personally, I think that magnified optics belong on the main, top receiver rail, and RDS should be offset. A flip up/flip to side magnifier can work, but there are problems with that system (e.g., you lose the precision of a 2MOA dot when you magnify it to 6 MOA with a 3x magnifier).
MAWLs are cool, but overrated.
Dbal-D2 is an impressive brick, but the only thing I can justify its position on is the Tavor X95. The rearward balance of the bullpup almost justifies use of that thing. A gentleman from the South put it beautifully recently (on another thread):
‘For CQB as you mentioned, it’s going to help just a bit also as the D2 is a “big ol girl” and tends to off balance a rifle depending on where you put it. I’ve watched students at our classes who had too much stuff on their carbines have to practically do whole body movements to bring the rifle up a few hours into training. Not all the D2’s fault there, they had all kinds of excess shit (IMO) on their rifles which made them off balanced.’
I’ve been playing around with the Surefire Vampire series of lights, helmet mounted, to do the same job. It keeps the weight off the rifle.
A 2 MOA dot is a 2 MOA dot; the magnifier may make the dot bigger relatively, but it also magnifies the rest of the sight picture, too, so size is maintained.
I personally keep a magnifier on my NODs gun, but really only because it’s also my favorite gun; when shooting specifically with NODs, I will pull it off and stow it somewhere on myself.
One problem with running the IR off your head is that now you can’t passively aim; not a big deal if you’re going to be focused on pointer usage, but a lot of folks are also running handguns with RDS as a secondary, and the helmet-mounted illum will splash off the pistol, which makes it basically impossible to aim with an RDS, due to the glare, plus the issues you might have with autogating. Beyond that, you’re also much less able to control your IR illumination now; not a big deal for some uses, such as hunting, but for duty use, it would suck, both from a detection POV and an issue of not blinding your teammates. Beyond that, specific to the Vampire, is that it’s a rather limited illuminator compared to the powers of what the DBAL-D2 offers. For some uses, one can get away with it no problem, but if pushing out range or trying to deal with photonic barriers, the DBAL-D2’s much stronger output, paired with an ability to adjust the focus, gives it a serious advantage.
Folks, be careful with ALL the covers for the outputs, they do break easy if you pull UP drastically. Basically you want to pull up JUST A BIT and then slide the cover off to the side.
I ran my original I2 without covers for about 7 years and it was always on my main training rifle, tens of thousands of rounds. Never had an issue because the covers were gone.
The only thing I would add is try to set up your device and switch so you can manipulate via either hand. At our NV classes we do a lot of ambidextrous shooting and that always screws up some folks that only have ever shot right handed. You may need to do a shoulder transfer to better use a left handed piece of cover, etc.
You are, of course, absolutely right about the relative size of the dot with a magnifier. I learned that lesson years ago, and yesterday wrote the stupid thing. I don’t disgrace myself very often, but I did there.
I confess that I am a bit confused about some of the information in your second paragraph. In my lexicon, “passive aiming” means not using an IR light source, so I don’t completely understand the first clause, or how that relates to the rest of the sentence. Since I am acting pretty dumb these days (see above), perhaps it’s just me.
My use of IR illumination is usually limited to navigation; I want to see where I am looking and the helmet-mounted lower power Vampire does the trick. Otherwise, I am pretty “emcon” oriented and don’t participate in a team. I am also a bit leery of using rifle-mounted equipment for identification purposes. Here is a conversation I would not like to have:
Me: I wasn’t sure, so I pointed the IR illuminator/light/optic/whatever on my carbine at him to get a better view.
LEO: So, you pointed your carbine at him?
I was using passive aiming to mean not using a pointer, not necessarily no emissions at all, since the emphasis is on the aiming part.
If your use of illum is strictly for navigation, then it’s much less of an issue, but for those that are using it as part of shooting, the helmet mounted illuminator is going to be subpar. IMO, one should have illum both on the helmet and on the firearm. In urban environments, it’d be pretty tough to get away without a rifle mounted illuminator if trying to do work.
One could fairly easily use the spill of the illuminator to try and PID something without directly pointing a weapon at someone, though you’d obviously have to stress that in your statement.
