Newbie advice please

[Richweasel]

Hi I’m fairly new to shooting and currently have a 17hmr and a .222 I’m looking at get some sort of night vision set up. I ordered a photon but didn’t really like it so sent it back. I like the idea of a good add on so can use on both rifles so I ordered a pulsar f155 as it ticked all the boxes
The shop asked me what scope I was going to use it on and I said s&b 8x56 and they said it wouldn’t work as no side focus? Is this right! I’ve also been offered a cobra Titan gen 2 but will this have same issue with my scope?

[some bloke]

It will have a very limited depth of focus with a fixed focus scope - which is likely to be closer than the sharpest focus it sees in daylight because Infra Red light focuses closer than daylight. The seller told you right and saved you money.

Digital Night vision will be more focus fussy, so if you want to be able to use it at a variety of ranges you will need a variable focus scope. I think tubed has similar issues but I've no experience with tubed add ons.

If you are willing to change to a focusable scope anyway there is little stopping you from trying before the scope change rather than after.

[warbucks]

when it comes to scopes that work well with n/v add on's its usually the cheaper end scope that parallax down to 10 yds, the standard here is the Hawke side winders, Falcom m18+ 4-18x44, ect, when using with a n/v add on swop the word parallax for focus, cos that what it does
After this then you need to choose which n/v add on, if your not wanting to shoot further than 250 yds when conditions will allow id suggest one of the "Addonite n/v add on's ----ive owned a pvs 14 and now use a "wardy 700" ------as ADD ON's
Then you need a good infra red illuminator, best is the Solariis srx laser, but owt like a t 20 blacksun 2 will do ok.
All add on's suffer from high water content in the air, if its going to be bad, just don't go out, if you can live with this you will be ok.
Best n/v all round performer is the DEDICATED Drone Pro 10x, but this is sort of tying up one rifle, this scope will allow you to carry on when add on's and thermal will have you going home early.

Dave (warbucks)

[phoenix]

There are no NV scopes or add-ons that will give as good an image as a decent day scope - and the S&B 8x56 is a very good day scope.
Unfortunately, it does not lend itself well to being used for any type of NV work

Forget front add-ons, they all have too many compromises to make them any practical use - the extra frontal weight, probable zero shift and poor image quality all work against them. If you didn't like a Photon, you'll hate the image from an F155 viewed through a x8 scope.

Rear add-ons are much more popular for a reason - they are cheaper and can produce excellent quality images - when used with the correct scope.

If you are serious about getting into NV, then you are going to need to change your scopes - it's that simple I'm afraid.

If you are prepared to do that. then a wide choice of scopes and rear add-ons become available to you, with the added bonus that some of the best scopes for NV are not expensive compared to high quality day scopes (S&B, Swarovski and Zeiss are all poor scopes for NV)

Sightron, Bushnell, Delta Titanium and Hawke all make scopes that work well with rear add-ons

As for the actual rear add-on then the PARD NV007 (sold under many guises such as "warden adder", "Addonight" etc by several retailers in the UK) is the best "bang for your buck" add-on and the Ward WDV 800 is best for long range work

BTW the Cobra Titan Gen is a x1 magnification hand held spotter which can be adapted to fit onto the rear of a scope and as such, the scope to which it is attached would need some sort of focus control to produce a clear image.

PS You said you were fairly new to shooting and wanted "some sort" of NV set up
The more information you can give us about what you want to shoot and how you would intend to go about, the more advice we can offer so hopefully, you can buy the right kit at the right price

Cheers

Bruce