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Looks like TDunn did a hell of a job already here, but here's my AAR as well for this class. It's extremely late, since the class happened 2 months ago and all, but nevertheless here it is. Hopefully others can gain some knowledge from it.
On May 25-26 2012, Tactical Night Vision Company (TNVC) in conjunction with Telluric Group conducted a TNVC Night Defender course in Victoria, TX. The class was made up almost entirely of civilians from different walks of life, as well as at least one law enforcement officer. This class was intended to better familiarize students with their night vision devices and how to properly employ them in a variety of ways, both on and off the range. This was not a shooting class, this was a Night Vision class (although we definitely put a good number of rounds downrange during our brief few hours on the range each night). Like I stated, the purpose for this class was to familiarize students with their NODs, how they work, their capabilities and limitations, etc... so that they could most effectively employ them in their given situations. Their was a variety of different night vision devices and setups, but most students including myself were running the Night Enforcer PVS-14 night vision monocular. A couple students had PVS-7s, and one was running dual PVS-14s with the new N-Vision Dual PVS-14 Adapter. The class met up at 1300 on TD1 in the conference room of our hotel. This was different for me, as I'm always used to meeting up on the range and ready to shoot. This was evidenced by the fact that I was the only dude in the room rocking my Multi-Cam combat shirt. It also just so happened that my corner of the room was where all of us Marines in the class were located. This is never planned, but always seems to happen with us... Semper Fi! The instructors for this class were Chip Lasky and Kyle Harth from TNVC, and Don Edwards from Telluric Group (I could swear there was another person from Telluric Group as well, but I'm having problems remembering here so I deeply apologize if I've forgotten brother!). These are some solid dudes with a metric fuck-ton of knowledge and real world experience working with NODs in hostile environments. If you had a question, they could and did answer it. They put on a Powerpoint presentation for us on the history of night vision and how everything works. It was all very interesting and it definitely helps you to use your night vision to the best of your ability if you know how and why things work the way they do, as well as its capabilities and limitations. We also had a representative from FLIR on hand to explain the advantages of thermal imaging devices as well. He brought some toys for us to play with, including the FLIR Recon M24 thermal monocular, which I'm definitely going to be buying for myself at some point in the near future. They're just so badass! Laser Devices was represented too by an awesome dude named Raul, and we got to see a few new products that are about to be released or just released from them, too. A rep from Wilcox (one of the former Marines in attendance) was on hand to show us their night vision helmet mounts and explain how they're far superior to the standard GI Rhino mounts. I can attest to that myself. Last year I finally bit the bullet and bought myself a Wilcox L4 G24 mount and PVS-14 Arm and couldn't be happier. It's a much more solid and secure mount system, and doesn't bounce around like crazy as the standard GI mount system does. However I did have to purchase the more expensive Wilcox PVS-14 Arm with the auto on/off button built in to it, just because that arm cantilevers the PVS-14 forward and essentially allows it to slide closer to your eye. The standard Wilcox PVS-14 Arm just doesn't get close enough for my eye (it won't even allow the unit to touch my ballistic glasses!), and causes the effect of looking through a straw. I didn't need or like the actual auto on/off feature with the upgraded arm though, so I just cut off the wire so it wouldn't just be dangling around freely. Before this class I really wanted a set of dual night vision binoculars, like PVS-15s or PVS-23s. I'd looked through some ANVIS 9's a couple years ago and was convinced I needed a setup like that, running duals. However, while in this Night Defender class I realized the PVS-14 night vision monocular is extremely versatile and is a fantastic option for myself and most others. I discovered that depth perception issues are sorted out simply by training and running NODs frequently. Another great new tool that helps tremendously with depth perception problems is the Re-Focus Ring (RFR), manufactured by STS. The RFR is flip-down lens that slides over the objective lens of your night vision device and stows away by being flipped up and out of the way until you need it when looking at something up close in your hands (loading mags, reading, lubing your gun, etc..). When you flip it down over the objective lens of the night vision device, it instantly provides a focus of 18", rather than having to manually focus your night vision device's objective lens for up close. However even with the RFR mounted, you can still make slight adjustments when it's flipped down, so it doesn't have to be exactly 18" of focus. I bought the Re-Focus Ring months before this class and thought it was kinda shitty to be honest. I thought it was more of a pain in the ass than anything, and was much easier to just quickly manually focus the objective lens myself. However I found at this class that for me the depth perception doesn't seem to be as exaggerated when using the RFR as opposed to manually focusing the lens yourself, and I've now found the RFR to be a fantastic little accessory that will remain on my PVS-14. Once you get the hang of using it, you'll find it's extremely useful and invaluable. I've actually used it with great results cooking myself a microwave dinner in pitch black in my house one night, and even ate in the dark as well. Although I had food all over my face, the RFR really helped when preparing everything. I really like it. Another popular accessory for night vision is the Wilcox Amber Filter, which replaces the standard eye cup on the PVS-14 (and other model NODs as well). Its purpose is to kill the green backsplash on the operator's face when wearing night vision. It also acts as a demise shield and helps protect the lens. I've had one for a while now and have decided that it just isn't for me. Since it clips to the outside of the PVS-14, it prevents me from getting my eye as close as possible to the unit, and narrows the field of view a little. Apparently this is not an issue for most people, because I haven't heard anyone else complain about it. But mine fell off at the range and I quickly threw it in my range bag and went to the firing line without it, and I immediately realized I had a wider overall field of view since I could get my eye even closer to the eyepiece of my PVS-14. So for now I'm running my PVS-14 with nothing but a standard demise shield insert (to protect the lens), and I like it this way. I wish Wilcox would think of making an amber filter that was an insert like the demise shield is, instead of the eye cup design that goes around the outside of the unit. We shot just our carbines on the first night. We only had a 25 yard range to work with, but for what we were doing it was plenty. Everyone got on line and we went through the process of zeroing our IR lasers. There was a large presence of Laser Devices DBAL-I2 Class 1 eye safe IR laser units. I was running one of them myself. The Class 1 DBAL-I2 is an extremely effective and capable IR and visible laser unit. I've used mine extensively over the past year that I've owned it, and am very happy with it (once the battery drain issue was finally resolved anyways, of course covered by the warranty as well). I actually used the DBAL-I2 in a Costa Ludus Night Operations class running the IR laser under NODs at 50 yards when the rest of the class was running white lights, and I could still easily see my IR laser even with all the white weapon lights going on and off around me and very effectively engaged the target downrange. I've also engaged targets with the green visible laser in the daytime on a very overcast day once out to 250 yards. Another great thing about it is that it doesn't bloom like crazy when you point it at your target, which allows you to be more precise with it. I continue to be impressed with the DBAL-I2 Class 1 laser unit, and I'm so grateful to LDI for finally releasing a class 1 laser for all to enjoy. I did actually have issues getting my laser zeroed though, which was very odd for me. I'd co-witnessed it the night before with my aimpoint using my PVS-14 mounted behind it with the TNVC TM-14 ring and Aimpoint twist mount base at my house in the backyard using a telephone pole 60 yards away. I've done this many times and it allows me to easily get hits with the IR laser out past 100 yards. However for some reason this was not the case in this class. Thankfully though Raul from Laser Devices came along and helped me out. It turned out my IR laser's elevation adjustment knob was almost completely unscrewed and about to fall out! I think the person who put it back tougher at Laser Devices after my warranty repair must have not screwed it back on completely, instead they just screwed it until the two white witness marks aligned with each other. But thankfully Raul got me all sorted out and I did a quick co-witness, fired a few rounds and was close enough for the work we would be doing. I was running my BCM 12.5" upper with 11" Larue Tactical rail, Aimpoint T-1, Surefire Mini Scout light and DBAL-I2 on my SBR registered Larue Tactical billet lower. I was also running a Surefire FA556-212 sound suppressor the whole time. About half the class was running suppressors, while the other half ran loud. I also ran the new(ish) ALG Defense ACT trigger in my gun ("ALG Combat Trigger" is what ACT stands for). The ACT is simply a single stage mil-spec trigger that is polished and has its components hard-lubed. Whatever the hell that means is beyond me, I just know that these triggers are the very best and smoothest mil-spec triggers I've ever used! They have zero creep or grittiness. It's just a really nice 6.5lb pull and the reset is amazing. It's simply a fantastic mil-spec trigger. Everyone loves the Geissele SSA trigger, but I just could not shoot the damn thing very well. But I absolutely love these triggers. I've got 3 of them now. It's great to finally have mil-spec triggers across several of my lowers that feel almost identical to each other, rather than one being great and one having lots of grittiness, etc... I was blazing fast with that thing, too! The only downside to this trigger, and it's consistent with all 3 of mine, is that I cannot use the Battle Arms Development BAD-ASS ambidextrous safety with it. The reason for this is because it's too hard to easily put the gun on safe when the bolt is locked to the rear. You can do it, but you have to be very deliberate when doing so, rather than just quickly flicking it on safe. It's dragging on something I guess, and I'm not smart enough to know what or why, so I just settled for installing a plain mil-spec safety lever. I know some of you are wondering why I'd ever want to put the gun on safe when reloading in the first place, and the reason for this is because instructors like Jeff Gonzales and Pat McNamara are now requiring students to do this in their classes for safety reasons. It doesn't impede or slow down the process at all though, so long as your safety is functioning perfectly. I might contact ALG Defense some day and ask about this, but as of now it's not a huge deal to me not having an ambidextrous safety. We ran a lot of standard square range "Up Command Drills," NSRs, Failure Drills, reload drills, etc.. I quickly realized that I seemed to be the most experienced student in the class when it came to shooting under NODs. Don Edwards also pointed it out to me, and I was honestly a bit surprised simply because I'm not used to being the most experienced student in training classes. It was at that point that I was well aware at how fortunate I am that I have a range available to me to shoot at night any time I want to, with both white light and under NODs. The owner of the range trusts me and knows I'm squared away and safe. None of the other students have this great option available to them, so this class was the first time a lot of them were ever doing any actual shooting at night under NODs with IR lasers and illuminators. For me almost all of my knowledge was gained in the classroom at this course, although there were several lessons learned on the range as well. One such lesson was clean your fucking gun before class, dumbass!! Normally this isn't an issue, but since I was running suppressed I should have taken the time to wipe down and re-lube everything beforehand. But I didn't and I suffered the consequences. My gun ran just fine for a few hundred rounds. I was going through a lot more ammo than the others, because I knew I'd brought WAY too much of it so I wanted to get as much trigger time as possible, and I did. My Surefire suppressor was slightly glowing visibly orange, and under NODs that things was super bright. After a course of fire the students would pick up about 3 of their empty mags on the ground, whereas I would search around for the 6 PMAGs and occasionally a 60-round Surefire mag as well. Good shit! So after a while my gun started getting really sluggish and nasty. I reapplied lube but it still was getting more and more sluggish. I eventually began having feeding and cycling issues, then got plenty of experience doing malfunction clearances under NODs, which is always fun. I was running M-Pro 7 lubricant. I recently switched from Slip 2000 to M-Pro 7 after I had the same issue in my Costa Ludus class back in January with a BCM 14.5" mid-length. I just can't seem to run a gun suppressed for more than a few hundred rounds before I start having issues, and no amount of lube can resolve the problem. I'd really appreciate ANY feedback on this one, please. Am I the only one who can't seem to run a gun suppressed through a whole class without it choking and going down? It seems that other guys who run their guns suppressed all the time don't seem to have this issue like me. I dunno. :confused: I wound up spending an hour and a half that night at the hotel cleaning the shit out of it, and then we wound up only shooting handguns the next night. Oh well. One thing I feel the need to mention though that I learned a long time ago is at a class like this, where there's a lot of money and logistics involved and a very small window of time to shoot at night on the private range, is that you need to being quality ammo to run in your gun! For fuck sake, if you can afford night vision and IR lasers and silencers and shit... Do NOT bring Wolf ammo!! That just didn't make a whole lot of sense to me when a fellow student did just that, but hopefully he learned his lesson. It's also very important for you to be very familiar with your gun and to be able to manipulate it in the dark, since it's a night vision class and all. I also had major issues with my goggles fogging up. I was wearing the new Smith Optics Boogie Regulator goggles, using their awesome new bungee cord kit that is made to easily attach the goggles to my Ops-Core helmet via the included plastic hooks that attach to the ARC Rails. It's a great attachment system and I loved how it all worked, except the goggles themselves fogged up like crazy, even though they are made to not fog up. The Boogie Regulator goggles have a little "regulator" that slides open and closed that exposes a bunch of little holes cut into the goggle that allow air to get in and help prevent fogging. If the wind is blowing or you're moving and getting good air flow in there, it does work pretty well. But if you're just idle and not getting air flow in there, they'll fog up like anything else. Victor and Chip both recommended I get the Revision EXOSHIELD goggles. So I went to TNVC's website and bought a pair after the class. On website it says that they (TNVC) haven't been able to get these goggles to fog, but unfortunately I got them to fog in a mater of minutes in my backyard the night after I received them in the mail. I must have a fucked up face or nose or eyes or something, because everything seems to fog like crazy with me. However I tried out the FogTech anti-fog wipes that came with my Wilcox Amber Filter and it works pretty good at combating fog. It essentially turns fog into liquid form (water), so your lenses of your goggles or glasses will still be wet, just not foggy though. So you'll still be able to see through them, which is the point. I still need to get to the range with this stuff on to test it for real, but just in the backyard here in the insanely humid Houston climate it works pretty damn well. We started off the second day of training again in the classroom. At one point, all of us students went outside the room and hung out in the hotel lobby while the instructors blacked out the room almost completely and we took turns going in the room in groups. Once inside, we did things like picking objects up off the ground and throwing balls around to each other in order to get us used to the depth perception issues when wearing NODs. They also had us get used to focusing our objective lenses at a certain distance in the room so we could read off the letters on a piece of paper on the wall. Little exercises like these really help you get used to doing normal, everyday tasks while wearing NODs. On our second night on the range we ran just our pistols. Most everyone there had tritium sights on their guns, and the method they used to engage targets was to use the glowing tritium dots, which under NODs look like 3 small blooming lights. It isn't exactly the easiest or most precise way to go about things, but is definitely better than nothing and up close can be pretty effective. Myself and one other student however were running red dot sights on our pistols. I was running a Glock 19 with a Trijicon RMR-07 adjustable mini red dot sight. Using a red dot sight in the daytime is already great and advantageous, but having a red dot on your pistol at night under NODs is fucking incredible! It makes things so damn easy and efficient. It's the same at night as it is during the day: simply place the dot where you'd like the bullet to go on the target and press the trigger and watch a hole appear where you were aiming. Yup, it's that easy! And there wasn't another student there using his iron sights that could keep up with the accuracy I was getting with my red dot sight. But after a while the instructors allowed students to use their lasers on their handguns if they had them, and you could tell an instant difference in both speed and accuracy when those students began engaging their targets with the lasers instead of the irons sights under NODs. I did start having issues with my RMR-07 sight though, as it began shifting from really bright and back to dim during recoil. It didn't actually effect my shooting at the close range we were at, but at lover ranges the bright level under NODs would bloom a little too much to be precise with shot placement (like a head shot). Apparently this issue is common with this model of RMR and I'm sending it back to Trijicon to have the unit fixed or replaced. The last thing we did was go through an obstacle course, which I thought was really fun… even if it took me 5 damn minutes to get the "hand grenade" through the blasted hole! I really enjoyed this class and learned a lot. I only wish I would've been half this proficient with NODs when I was in the Marine Corps. I had a great time and also met a lot of really great dudes, several of which I can now call friends as well. Thanks to TNVC and Telluric Group for putting this gig on, and thanks to those reps from the several different companies who came and brought the awesome toys with you. I really want that $64,000 ADUNS optic that FLIR makes! Also MANY THANKS to Chris Lucci of Wild River Ranch for hosting this class! Hopefully I'll be able to get back out there before too long and do a hunt with him to slay some nasty hogs. This was a fantastic class and I cannot wait until next year when hopefully they'll have a slightly more advanced class for those of us who attended this one. We'll see how everything goes I guess. Hopefully Chip or someone can post pics from the class. I don't have any myself, but I know him and some others took some. Another student took a ton of video under night vision and thermal as well, which would be awesome to see if he can post it. |
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Thanks for the kind words brother. I'm glad you liked it.
This should link to the reviev in the NV forum with pictures. http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_18/371587_TNVC_Night_Vision_Defender_Course__AAR____Texas_edition.html |
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Shot at Tellgru just last night, blacked out, IR lights and Lasers are pretty sweet, and thanks to Don and th late great Kyle Harth I have a good Idea as to how to go about employing them.
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We will be running this course again at our NV training facility in Brunswick GA 17-18 Nov. Telluric NV Defender
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