I was waiting till I took it out in bad weather to leave a review.   Mission accomplished. Hunted 2 nights over thanksgiving. High 40s with drizzle on night one and a very dense fog on night 2.   In the drizzle it did pretty good.  Unable to see much at any useful distance with the pvs15s so I had to constantly flip them up to use the nox gun mounted.  Deer and calves were hard to tell apart at distance but you could tell they were there easy enough .  Killed 5 pigs first night.  Second night the haze was so dense I could barely make out where I was walking with the pvs15s.  Range with the nox was down to maybe 100 yards and everything else was a wall of white.  The animals I found were black dots in that white background at 100.  Closer in they were black cotton balls with legs.  You could only take a rough guess at size but I could still find the pigs.  No moisture issues from the unit.  Drops were condensing on everything so I had to wipe it a few times. Killed saw 22, killed 11, wounded 5-8 this night.  Best I have ever done solo on foot.  Put 5 hours on the extended rechargeable battery they send. I had to work the controls and refresh the image constantly due to conditions and found them more intuitive than expected.  All in all very happy with the purchase and would recommend.  My first thermal and I like it weapon mounted.  I have it dialed in and dont want to mess up my zero although I think it would keep, the mount is well built.  I think it at least as good as the reap if not better and would buy it over the reap if I had to do it again.  

Complaints:   Minor.   The rechargeable extended battery housing looks and feels cheap or like an after thought.   That is the only way I plan on powering it.  The case it comes in should have more holes for extra batteries.   It has the space for at least 3 but only 2 are cut out.  The manual that comes in the case leaves out important info.  Easy to find on the website but a pain if you are in an are with no cell reception. I wish the eye cup was the shutter type to block light escaping.  The screen is so bright I have to watch how I hold the gun or I will glow.  I think they sell one online.

Pvs14 shuttered eyecup works on the 18 and a think   it should work on the 35. Lots of places sell them but I don't know if the quality is all the same. I paid a little more for one from tnvc. It's quite comfortable and it doesn't take much pressure to open the shutter. It's quite soft and you can lean into it a little more to aid with stabilization for offhand shooting at least with lighter calibers.

If skip the pvs shuttered eye cup. I’ve used them quite a bit because I had a handful I didn’t have to pay for rattling around in boxes and have lost all but 1 over the last year.
They have downsides like trapping dust and condensation etc that can’t be dealt with a lot of times without removing it so things like zip ties or a dab of glue don’t really work as well.

Butler creek #14 is functional but not very durable. The Vortex  Defender cap #40 and the Buttler Creek Element cap (for 45.5/46mm) are optimal flip cap options that are the same price as a pvs shuttered eye cup.
I prefer the Element cap over the vortex because the vortex can be a little sticky opening.

The higher quality flip caps are holding up to a lot of use. I keep it closed and only open to get on target because of the amount of light spill from the optic. They’ve cut down on the condensation wiping and if I need to hit the lens with a brush etc it doesn’t need removed to get a thorough cleaning

Thanks for the review. Please share your thoughts on the manual focus and whether it has to be constantly tweaked for pig shooting distances. If I get one, it will go on a .308 sbr for stalking and the manual zoom is the one thing that has me concerned as I don’t like having something else I need to constantly tweak. Thanks!

IMO if you’re not in clear fields you’ll want that manual focus of the nox35 vs something like the halox

I’ve got some video examples of where the “auto focus” ROI on the X50 makes it sub optimal for working in thicker areas like river bottoms and mesquite chocked thickets.

The problem I’m seeing is not a full NOGO but is not entirely conducive to the best chance for opening shot pigs dropping in place in a lot of circumstances.

With intermediate distance objectives like limbs and such in between you and your target animal going across the roi but not obscuring your shot has a tendency to blob out the animal image and leave you significantly less defined lines to use for precise shot placement.

It hasn’t gone away with any of the settings the irritated rabid Nvision fans have offered.

It was only recently that I realized this is likely the same reason I preferred my Hogster35 in my primary pig hunting areas over my REAPIR2 35mm.

My HaloX has become the go to optic in my safe, but if I’m going into the river bottoms I have a tendency to take the Rico with manual focus.

Thermal conditions were not great that night but you can see the effect I’m talking about here.
The halox target image is far less defined than the Rico. Same hog, same exact time from less than 5’ away from standing on the same spot. My son didn’t even have the Rico focused for the distance we ended up shooting the boar at. He focused in closer to 40-50yards farther out when the pig presented him the first shot. We held off until we both had a clear target.

Thanks. I recently sold my Reap and still have the Halo LR. And the Reap had become the goto for stalking with the shorter rifle. And much better in the woods than the Halo LR. Trying to decide on the Nox 35 or not and all this helps and I can see the benefit of the manual focus in the woods. We do have feeder sets in the river bottoms and I have killed my share of trees….and even the feeders a time or 2 with the runners??

I also hunted over Thanksgiving weekend and it rained most of the day Saturday and was shitty thermal conditions that evening. With that being said, the Nox 35 did very well. I could still make out deer, cows, and pigs from more than 300 yards away and further. I increased the CE level to 1, which is significant in ideal conditions. This gave the environment more contrast and detail, but the downside to that was I had to NUC the unit more often.

This was the first night I used it in probably the absolute worst thermal conditions and compared to my Trijicon MKIII 35, the Nox kicked it's ass pretty good.

Overall, I agree with OP. Damn good unit

Question for the owner/users….what is your experience so far with Return to Zero taking the Nox 35 on and off the rifle.

Man, I was concerned about that as well when I decided what my use case was going to be. I use the Nox 35 helmet mounted a lot. So through some minor testing that I have done, you have to mount the scope in the same way everytime. And this goes all the way down to what finger and what arm you use to latch it on the gun.

I practiced in the dark trying to get efficient and quick with taking it from the helmet to the rifle and shooting with it. I practiced this with a sling on the rifle like in a real world scenario. So I am actually mounting it with my left hand, my pointer finger on the dovetail and my thumb latching it while giving it forward pressure.

I noticed if I deviated from that way of mounting it, if I latched it with my right hand in a different position, I would get a slight shift in zero. Maybe an inch vertically and horizontally.

Now, some guys may not care about that, minimal shift, but I do. After testing this a few times (not too extensively though), I feel confident in it.