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Posted: 4/14/2026 11:51:54 AM EDT
[Last Edit: TX-Zen][Edited]
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I'm a big fan of thermal night vision and have been using thermal since the 90s when I was an M1A1 Abrams tank commander where I spent my all my time using the cooled array Thermal Imaging System, training to vaporize the hordes of Russian tanks we'd surely meet some day. Due to the rarity of modern Russian NV optics and the state of their military issuing modern equipment I never thought I'd get my hands on an actual rifle thermal optic, but to my surprise here we are. Not one, but five different thermal units I'll be reviewing the different thermals and have a post for each below. First off, don't be put off by the sometimes crappy photos of the displays of the various units. It's extremely hard to get accurate looking photos and frankly they are not great for comparing units to each other either, so don't rush to conclusions and assume these units are crap. They most definitely are not. It is safe to say that the actual image is almost always better than the photo, and as a guy who actually uses thermal almost every single day (6 out of 7 nights most weeks) I'm very happy with how all these look and function. You wouldn't want to be downrange of any of these, that is for sure. I already favor 1PN140-2 and 1PN139 for image quality, resolution and the core processor, but all of them are very capable For me the gold standard of civilian accessible thermal is the BAE 640 core, and I compare everything to it. Its got such excellent performance in all conditions that it is an extremely good core to base performance on. The BAE core is used in a whole range of thermals like the Trijicon REAP-IR, Hunter-IR, Skeet-IR and Voodoo-S and Voodoo-M for example. It is not cheap, but there are many thermals that use it and it is widely available in the US. In my experience, once you hit the image quality of the BAE 640 core, you are at the level that makes thermal dangerous and effective in almost all conditions. Lower resolution 320 core or different processors make a huge difference in real world use, but when you obtain BAE 640 performance you are now in the zone I consider to be highly effective almost all the time. Almost every thermal is better than not having any thermal at all, but the BAE 640 core stands up to weather conditions very well and if you can obtain one for your kit at some point you'll be doing yourself a solid, and adding capability that can be extremely useful in real world situations Right off the bat, these Russian thermals don't suck. Many of us have used the older quirky cold war night vision units like 1PN34 and 1PN51, and we all know how wacky they can be. Those have definitely shown their age and their reputations have for sure colored our impression of what good looks like for modern Russian optics. We often think Russia can't make effective NV gear but thats mostly because it is extremely hard to get modern stuff over here and we aren't seeing what is actually available these days. All we have is older stuff with varying levels of performance and it can be very hit or miss. There is no question that the West is way ahead of the Russians in NV and thermal tech, but in my experience they can produce very similar units as we do...just not on the same scale or same level of consistency. I've had a few Russian gen 3 tubes with amaziing specs, but I've had many more with much lower specs than we get on average. I was thinking the same thing for thermal units but to my surprise these thermal units are really close to what we get in the West as civilians. Yes, they are at least 10 years behind what we are currently fielding in our military, but most civilians can't get our hands on those units either, so its not easy to make direct comparisons. Again, my baseline is the BAE 640 core and these units are pretty close, with a couple maybe exceeding it Initial impressions are very good. I've been using all of these units for months and because I live out in the country I am extremely familiar with my AO. I have been hunting and using thermal for years out here which has given me a solid baseline to evaluate new optics really consistently. Some of the Russian units are definitely better than others, but none of them suck - and all of them are capable units. A couple of them are extremely well made and as good or better than most Western units and compare very well with the BAE 640 core ITP-34-1 - No GRAU number but supposedly preferred by Russian SF units. Mine is calibrated for the AK74 1PN139 - 12.7x108 for their 50 cal sniper rifles 1PN140-1 - Smaller AK unit with Picatinny mount. A good friend let me borrow his for this review. This unit looks like its meant for AK74M rifles 1PN140-2 - Larger SVD unit with side rail mount. Mine is calibrated for 7N14 1PN154 - AK unit with Picatinny mount. Mine appears to be calibrated for all things RPK74 based on the ammo and rifle designations in the menu An observation to note is that while I ended up with specific scopes calibrated for the SVD or AK74M or RPK74M for example, there are a number of sub variants of each and they appear to have BDC for various kinds of Russian issue weapons. I've heard of 1PN154 models calibrated for the VSS 9x39 round as well, and it sounds like there are AKM, AK74M and RPK74M plus SVD BDC versions for most of these units. Some units are said to have all, or most of the calibers available in the BDC reticule options but I haven't verified this first hand yet. 1PN139 seems to be dedicated to 12.7x108 only as far as I can tell but the rest probaby have variants for lots of calibers. It makes me wonder why the Russians aren't just using all the BDCs on most of the units. Some of the speciality thermals like 1PN140-2 for the SVD are so tuned for that rifle it makes sense not to use all the BDCs, but for things like 1PN140-1 AK and 1PN154 I don't see why they didn't just include them all, or at least the non-DMR calibers. The mysteries of the Russian mind may never be fully understood I guess, but it really doesn't seem to be a technical issue Another observation is that some of the units I've seen have collimation issues, screen burn/NUC issues or battlefield damage. Some of them have definitely been abused or had a hard life and I haven't had the luxury of evaluating 100% brand new units straight off the factory floor. That's another factor that shouldn't be applied to Russian thermal capabilities as a whole because most other units won't have these issues. I mean, technically they could because QC can be hit or miss sometimes, but bespite the issues on the ones I have the performance is very very impressive and its reasonable to assume the industry as a whole puts out consistently quality unit. Reliability is another factor I can't really evaluate due to sample size, current condition and amount of use, but I will say that thermal units tend to last longer than NV devices because they don't wear out, and as always with Russian optics, these thermal units are pretty robust and well built Top row left to right: 1PN140-1, 1PN154, 1PN140-2 ITP-34-1 not mounted, 1PN139 mounted and underneath, the venerable 1PN151 NV scope for size comparison  ACOG for size comparison also  Super zoomed in 1PN140-2 SVD on a pig at 87 yards   1PN140-2 SVD on racoons at 87 yards   |
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