Don Shift Sends: Night Vision Lessons Without Shooting, Just LARPing

Can you learn something from going out with guns and night vision? Of course you can, but you have to go outside! A friend and I went out into the desert recently with our night vision, rifles, and lasers in an undisclosed location in 11S (that’s a close to dropping my grid as you’re gonna get). Yes, we were basically LARPing but even basic familiarization or re-familiarization tasks are necessary to maintain skills. It’s not like we’re raiding Sadr City every other night.

It was a 100% illumination night (full moon) just after moonrise. Sky was bright and the moonlight was bright enough to work by mesopic vision alone for the most part; that’s when you’re mostly using natural night vision but there is enough lights for your cones (photopic) vision to see some color. Conditions were optimal for NOD performance making it bad time to really put them through their paces to see what they can really do, but this was when we had time.

We stopped at our site just after civil twilight ended, meaning the sky itself was no longer useful for illumination, except we had a big pumpkin moon. To our west about a 100 yards were some jackass campers. Initially, as this was a well-known shooting range on BLM land, we assumed their activities were packing up or scrounging brass for recycling. That was until the campfire started. They spent the better part of an hour raking debris out of their way for a tent site.

Well it was still too bright to shoot so we goofed around with our equipment and painted targets. Meanwhile, we watch these moronic city people in a Prius 15 minutes outside a major metro area thinking they’re in God’s country scraping trash up. They had no clue whatsoever that we were watching them do what they were doing. Of course their light discipline was terrible; a campfire, staying within the light, and using all sorts of white lights, along with leaving the car dome light on.

We actually didn’t shoot, despite putting our targets out down range. Why? No suppressors, for one. Two, these idiotic campers were so close we thought it would be rude to start shooting in the darkness. The morons would have probably been utterly terrified that we were shooting and they would have no idea we had everything under control while wearing NODs. To be honest, there was a serious debate about doing it anyway because stupidity should be punished brutally.

Second, we also had a thought that they might be homeless or at least poor boondockers, and while ignorant people who camp at any time, night or day, on a BLM shooting area (where night shooting isn’t uncommon), don’t deserve any courtesy, disturbing homeless car campers who aren’t doing it in the city itself would be too inconsiderate of us. That person living in their car might have a job to commute to at 5 AM tomorrow.

Third, they were outside the ricochet zone but not by a comfortable margin for us. Sure, even the most casual public land shooter would know that there is enough of a safety buffer until they get far downrange, but the campers wouldn’t know that. Also, unlike during daylight shooting, there would be no way to see them and one of the dumbasses might be out in the moonlight without a cheap flashlight to mark their position. Now had we been there first, yeah, I would have unloaded a couple rounds just as a reminder of where they were. Same thing if it was dawn and we were further away from them; don’t camp at a public shooting area. I’ve shot plenty of times at sunrise and frankly screw anyone who stupidly picked a place like that to camp.

Finally, we were up-moon from them, meaning we were backlighted. If they felt threatened and were armed, they had a clear silhouette of us. Might be bad. Even people without NODs can shoot at black shapes against the moon. We were just as entertained knowing these fools had no idea how close they were to crapping their pants, but for the fact we weren’t your average big city trash shooters.

Discretion being the better part of honor, we packed in the targets after we played around with the different settings without firing a shot. I established a rough converging zero on that Somogear fake PEQ-15 I picked up. I have some questions about the illuminator (IR laser flashlight) but need to try it on a moonless night before I have an opinion. One thing we noticed that under the monocolor of NODs, a white painted steel target doesn’t really stand out. The lasers will reflect off it though.

And yeah, that Somogear was WAY brighter than the Steiner COBL CQB laser I have as my “real” IR laser. I could see the COBL dot but not as clearly and it took slightly more mental effort to recognize it. In full moonlight or ambient conditions, I’m going to have to pony up some money for a proper IR laser (Chineseum “airsoft” is not “just as good”).

But with the spot “ruined,” what to do? We went driving in the darkness on desert roads. Normally for driving you want binocular NV for depth perception. Driving IS possible with a monocular like the PVS-14, but there are a couple of caveats.

1. We had a full moon. Great contrast and the shadows weren’t really deep.
2. We finished up as astronomical twilight was ending, meaning there was a lot of sky light available.

I found that if you have both eyes open and enough ambient light, your brain will fill in the image well enough to give you some depth perception with the PVS-14 over the dominant eye. I had issues keeping the truck “between the lines” so to speak but otherwise did fine. Got up to 80 on some sketchy roads. Pretty sure hearing a truck blasting by a high speed in total darkness freaked out the campers.

Also when driving at night you gotta cover up the instrument cluster and turn off the dash iPad, I mean the stereo screen. This isn’t a Crown Vic or Tahoe where you can just hit the blackout button and all goes dark. Ambient lighting reflects off stuff and even a little illumination from the miscellaneous lights here and there goes a long way when amplified.

The nice thing about being the driver and wearing NODs is, that unlike my limited professional experience with them looking for agricultural thieves, I can control the vehicle and didn’t get seasick. With more practice a passenger shouldn’t have this problem either, assuming the driver isn’t a jackass or a bad driver. Yet having a passenger playing backseat driver also looking around is helpful too.

Was this dangerous? Sorta, but we had a clear view for miles and lots of moonlight. I wouldn’t recommend this in any trafficked area or on any public (paved) roads. Did we set up a shooting spot later? Nah, we were getting bitten by something and felt satisfied with what we accomplished, so we called it a night. After all, night comes…every night, so it’s not like we won’t have regular opportunities to shoot in the dark again.

Despite no trigger time, I did get some valuable insights about my setup I couldn’t get in the dark at home. I think I need a 2.26” optics riser for proper passive shooting through my red dot. The 1” riser didn’t cut it, and the 1.93” was a stretch. BUT the biggest issue was one of focus. NODs can’t really focus on everything like your eye can. You can focus to infinity, put on the day cap for a pinhole effect, but neither will make the red dot and the target come right into focus.

Again, I’m late to the passive shooting party so I need practice, but I’ve read that focus and aligning a monocular behind the red dot can be challenging so it’s not entirely me. Plus I only recently switched to wearing the NOD to my right eye (I’m cross-eye dominant). No, active IR won’t get you killed; it’s using it stupidly and without discipline that will. But that’s for another time. Otherwise, it was pretty easy to get the rifle at least up and on target, especially with the laser. I just wish I bought a thermal device.

In conclusion, playing around has its advantages. Even without shooting, there are some things you need range to do outside. Walking around, making observations, testing stuff, shouldering guns, and simply using your gear is important. Like how I now know that my supplemental IR helmet light is hard to activate when wearing gloves. So get out there and do something with your night vision. You don’t need to shoot, or run some special course, but use it! Every outing can be a lesson if you use your time wisely.

*In case you don’t know, LARP means “Live Action Role Play.” Also don’t use cheap Chineseum gear for real.

About the author: Don Shift is a veteran of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office and author of the Suburban Defense/Rural Home Defense series, a cop’s guides to surviving riots, civil war, or SHTF.