Courtesy of Tactical Life

For many of us, that familiar green glow of night vision immediately conjures up images of special operations forces on a covert mission in some far-off land. Night vision devices have come to symbolize military operations for many because they are all over the news and even in movies and video games, But what about using night vision for non-military applications?

Night vision gear such as monocles, scopes, goggles and even thermal-imaging devices have been on the civilian market for some time now. Their significance in the search-and-rescue and hunting communities is well documented, and they can truly be effective force multipliers when used for home-security and survival situations.

When these devices are coupled with weapons, specifically long arms, some people (finger directly pointing at some of our staff) can get confused about what type of device is optimal for the work one is doing. We are casual users of night vision devices, namely the PVS-14-type monocle. It’s our go-to device when shooting or navigating in near total darkness when flashlights aren’t optimal.

The PVS-14 navigates and shoots very well when mounted to a helmet and reasonably well mounted behind a red-dot optic directly on a rifle. But what about dedicated night-vision scopes? Are there advantages to using them over our trusty old PVS-14? What’s a “clip-on” night vision device? Come to think of it, we’ve never touched thermal imagers before, either. They look like they’re coming into their own now. What should we know about them?

Luckily for us, we have the experts at Tactical Night Vision Company (TNVC) on speed dial. We spoke to Charles “Chip” Lasky, director of operations at TNVC, to help clear up some of the confusion and answer our questions about using night-vision devices.

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