Hi! I was wondering if any of you could help me. I'm looking for a birthday gift for my husband. He doesn't hunt much, but sometimes hunts coyotes with his buddies.
He recently bought a new rifle with a scope (which he's been having fun with), and he seems to be interested in night vision scopes or night vision binoculars. (I over-hear him in conversations with friends and catch him looking at some in stores). The problem is, I am completely ignorant to this kind of thing, and don't know this from that when it comes to scopes or binoculars. Can anyone recommend me some good brands and something good for the money? I figure with something like this, you get what you pay for, but I'm on a budget, too....so how much will I have to spend that worth paying the money for? If it's just out of my budget, it just is....But rather that than get him something too cheap that's not worth it. I don't know if it's something better left to him to choose what to buy, but I'd love to surprise him with something he'd really like.
Thanks a bunch for any help you can give.
Brenda

So few good women like you left in the world! :) I do have some recommendations for your husband......KEEP YOU HAPPY!

But, about the night vision. I'm sorry, I'm somewhat ignorant on the subject, but I did snoop around a bit. You could poke around at http://www.atncorp.com/ to get some representation of prices. Looks like they have some basic lower end stuff and some really nice stuff. And, seems I remember seeing some "night vision" binocs and scopes advertised various places for below $100.....I'd stay away from that kind of "deal" if I were you. You'll likely get some better advice than mine from the many knowledgeable people here. Good luck in the search.

Hi! I was wondering if any of you could help me. I'm looking for a birthday gift for my husband. He doesn't hunt much, but sometimes hunts coyotes with his buddies.
He recently bought a new rifle with a scope (which he's been having fun with), and he seems to be interested in night vision scopes or night vision binoculars. (I over-hear him in conversations with friends and catch him looking at some in stores). The problem is, I am completely ignorant to this kind of thing, and don't know this from that when it comes to scopes or binoculars. Can anyone recommend me some good brands and something good for the money? I figure with something like this, you get what you pay for, but I'm on a budget, too....so how much will I have to spend that worth paying the money for? If it's just out of my budget, it just is....But rather that than get him something too cheap that's not worth it. I don't know if it's something better left to him to choose what to buy, but I'd love to surprise him with something he'd really like.
Thanks a bunch for any help you can give.
Brenda

Welcome to the forum bkmyers. I'm not sure how much your planning to spend on that lucky husband, but I can tell you a little about night vision devices.

There are three distinct classes of night vision devices on the market.

Generation 1, sort of fuzzy, enexpensive and with screens that do not last a long time. $90.00 to $200.00

Generation 2, better optics, more expensive. $400.00 to $2000.00

Generation 3, good optics, fairly long lasting screens and pretty expensive. $5000.00

Like good anything good night vision costs money.

If your husband likes to shoot you might consider getting him one of Lee's Anniversery reloading kits from Midway sales. Under a hundred dollars and can lead to a lifetime of reloading his own ammo and saving a lot of money down the road.

All of my coyote hunting (40 plus years of it) has been done in the daytime. There are several things that are nice like a turkey vest with one of the fold down seats to hold calls, ammo, binocs shooting sticks and so on.

You might also look in any of the Sporting goods catalogs for vidios or books on how to hunt coyotes. Several good mouth calls or some of the new electronic callers.

Well I don't know if I've helped any, but I'm sure some of our other members will also be able to help you.

Again welcome to the forum.

I myself have wondered about all these night vision available to the general public now. When I was in the military we had some pretty good night vision and they are even better now. But these units cost thousands of dollars and though I may be wrong, I really can't imagine one being particularly good if you only pay a few hundred for it. I'd have to say that my first notion is if you truly want a good quality one, you will have to pay a hefty price.

I'm trying to get educated on this topic, as well. I found a Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_intensifier) that did a good job of summarizing the differences in technology. From that, it would seem that anything less than generation 2 is kind of a toy.

Some of ATN's products can be bought at Cabela's. ATN has a lot of other products on their site, however. One thing that interests me is their Day/Night rifle scopes, which seem to be built like more traditional scopes but with an interchangeable eyepiece: a normal one for daytime and a night vision eyepiece for nighttime.

One question I have about those is that they say they have 1000-yard rangefinders, but that's a topic I am clueless about. Are they laser rangefinders? Are they are prismatic thing like surveyers used to use? Or are they just talking about the markings on the reticle?

I can't think of a reason why I wouldn't be better off with those day/night scopes, which have variable magnification, unless they just happen to be way too big to mount on an AR-15 :)

Thanks everyone for your replies. Actually, I was hoping to stay below a few hundred, but I think I'm better with going to something different for his birthday - and stay away from something I don't know enough about -- especially when the details and specs involve words that sound like foreign language to me (but you gotta learn somewhere right? He tries hard to teach me things sometimes. LOL!) . It's easy to want to spend too much to surprise someone you love. I'll have to tell him about this website. He would probably like it.
Thanks again!
Brenda

Brenda,
I think you made a wise choice. Unless your husband has mentioned something very specific, or unless he has no preferences (very rare among hunters and shooters), it would be terribly hard to know exactly what he would want.

A gift certificate isn't as romantic, but is guaranteed to please.

Yeah...My Father has become increasingly-difficult to shop for these last few years...Now - We all just pitch-in together and get him a gift certificate from Cabela's...He gets to get's to pick-out something nice for himself, and we keep racking up those Cabela's-Points.
- My next Leupold scope will be bought mostly with purchase-points.

Brenda,
Sounds like your problem is what do you buy someone that has everything. I mean that as a compliment. My wife bought me a spotting scope years back for a suprise gift. I was truly pleased she would do such a thing but the spotting scope she bought doesn't work very well and I don't have the heart to tell her. so when I go to the range I pack it up with me then use my rifle scope to see my targets. I'm trying to wait long enough to buy another one that works better. It's been 4 years now. I bet the handloading set mentioned earlier would be a good bet. My wife took the advice of a guy at a local gunshop. Been thinking of talking to him. :(

Get him a tactical flashlight for his perticular gun,I know I would like it.

bkmyers,
I recommend that your husband should do whatever it takes to keep you happy. You sound like a keeper to me. :)

bkmyers,
I recommend that your husband should do whatever it takes to keep you happy. You sound like a keeper to me. :)
Concur with that...