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There are many grades of tubes. Most of what you see from non OEM companies are going to be military contract rejects. That's not to say they're bad, but they didn't meet spec for whatever reason. It's been mentioned, but not meeting spec may not have any tangible difference to an end user. You'll hear things like mil spec, commercial, aviation grade, etc. Some will be autogated, some not. Usually it's reflected in the price. If you really want to learn about nightvision, visit identmarking in Rockwall. Jason Crum knows everything there is to know about nightvision, especially the PVS-14.
As someone who owns a PVS-14 I will tell you a few things you need to know beforehand. Nightvision by itself is not very useful for hunting or shooting at night. You still need to see what you're aiming at. A PVS-14 does have an illuminator built-in, but it's for finding stuff on the floorboards of a huvmee, not seeing pigs at 500 yards. A PVS-14 needs to be combined with an infrared illuminator for visibility at range. These are not cheap, at all. You can get away with cheap illuminators like "the torch," which is basically just an infrared flashlight. That will run you around $300 or so. You can combine this with an optic that has a nightvision setting and be reasonably effective (you will need a weapon mount for the PVS-14 and an appropriate optic). If you want to aim like the military does you'll need an infrared illuminator/target system like a AN/PEQ-15. These use a focusable laser projector for illumination, and an infrared laser for aiming. You can get (stolen) PEQ-2's for around $1,000 off eBay, and more modern PEQ-15+'s and clones for around $2,000-$3,500. You need to factor that into the price of nightvision if you plan on shooting at range.
I have shot with thermal as well, and I would definitely recommend it over nightvision for spotting animals. It makes hunting at night as easy as could be. I wouldn't go as far to say it's a better option for shooting, though. Thermal has a lot of advantages over nightvision, but it also has a lot of disadvantages. Unless you're dropping some serious coin on a high res, high refresh rate unit, you're probably going to be like 95% of people with thermal scopes and end up with a cheap low res, low refresh rate thermal unit. The good thing is you really don't need high resolution to get real use out of them. Unless you plan on sighting in your gun every time you want to hunt, you're probably going to have to dedicate an entire weapon to a thermal scope. That is unless you trust it to hold zero if you remove it.
I've found that a cheap handheld thermal unit combined with a PVS-14 is great way to be effective and not spend 10 grand. You can actually build them for pretty cheap, for instance using the "nightvision" camera out of a 00-05 Cadillac DeVille, which is a 320x240 30Hz Raytheon thermal unit. Really not a bad unit - and still in production in today's Cadillacs. You can talk to Jason Crum about them, he usually has one around that he's built. There are several cheaper units now available that weren't when the DIY route was popular. I prefer to use them as a spotting scope to locate the pigs, and then nightvision to shoot them. One of the disadvantages of nightvision is spotting animals that are not moving. Since nightvision relies on illumination from the same perspective you're viewing, there is not a lot of depth perception. Picking out a stationary animal is a little tricky, because camo is still quite effective. That's where thermal really shines.
Since both Thermal and Nightvision have shortcomings, the military has combined them on their newer AN/PVS units. They even make COTI (clip on thermal imagers) units that fit over a nightvision. The next generation US device is the AN/PSQ-20. Take a look through one. For the cool price of $18,000 you can own one.
As someone who owns a PVS-14 I will tell you a few things you need to know beforehand. Nightvision by itself is not very useful for hunting or shooting at night. You still need to see what you're aiming at. A PVS-14 does have an illuminator built-in, but it's for finding stuff on the floorboards of a huvmee, not seeing pigs at 500 yards. A PVS-14 needs to be combined with an infrared illuminator for visibility at range. These are not cheap, at all. You can get away with cheap illuminators like "the torch," which is basically just an infrared flashlight. That will run you around $300 or so. You can combine this with an optic that has a nightvision setting and be reasonably effective (you will need a weapon mount for the PVS-14 and an appropriate optic). If you want to aim like the military does you'll need an infrared illuminator/target system like a AN/PEQ-15. These use a focusable laser projector for illumination, and an infrared laser for aiming. You can get (stolen) PEQ-2's for around $1,000 off eBay, and more modern PEQ-15+'s and clones for around $2,000-$3,500. You need to factor that into the price of nightvision if you plan on shooting at range.
I have shot with thermal as well, and I would definitely recommend it over nightvision for spotting animals. It makes hunting at night as easy as could be. I wouldn't go as far to say it's a better option for shooting, though. Thermal has a lot of advantages over nightvision, but it also has a lot of disadvantages. Unless you're dropping some serious coin on a high res, high refresh rate unit, you're probably going to be like 95% of people with thermal scopes and end up with a cheap low res, low refresh rate thermal unit. The good thing is you really don't need high resolution to get real use out of them. Unless you plan on sighting in your gun every time you want to hunt, you're probably going to have to dedicate an entire weapon to a thermal scope. That is unless you trust it to hold zero if you remove it.
I've found that a cheap handheld thermal unit combined with a PVS-14 is great way to be effective and not spend 10 grand. You can actually build them for pretty cheap, for instance using the "nightvision" camera out of a 00-05 Cadillac DeVille, which is a 320x240 30Hz Raytheon thermal unit. Really not a bad unit - and still in production in today's Cadillacs. You can talk to Jason Crum about them, he usually has one around that he's built. There are several cheaper units now available that weren't when the DIY route was popular. I prefer to use them as a spotting scope to locate the pigs, and then nightvision to shoot them. One of the disadvantages of nightvision is spotting animals that are not moving. Since nightvision relies on illumination from the same perspective you're viewing, there is not a lot of depth perception. Picking out a stationary animal is a little tricky, because camo is still quite effective. That's where thermal really shines.
Since both Thermal and Nightvision have shortcomings, the military has combined them on their newer AN/PVS units. They even make COTI (clip on thermal imagers) units that fit over a nightvision. The next generation US device is the AN/PSQ-20. Take a look through one. For the cool price of $18,000 you can own one.
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