I've searched on here and came up empty, frankly I find it hard to believe as many Reddit post about them and no one here has posted a review yet.

I get they are gen 2 tubes, but binos at that prices for casual price seems like a decent buy. Is it because they are Chinese that no one touches them? Everyone seems to buybthe Iray thermals without problem. Am I missing something?

Knockoff housing, mediocre tubes...

Why bother? Save up and get a good set of used Gen3 (either a PVS-14 or used ANVIS) and a modern housing. Everyone wants NVGs but people will rush to failure to look cool.

Yeah the first generation of these things is usually sub-par.  If they sell, then you will see improvements, much like the thermals.  

This is sort of like others have said; they'd prefer lower-tier binos, to higher tier mono.  I remember when those nice XSLH tubes came out with 6K-priced binos, and people were all over them.  The difference there was you were still getting mil-spec housings and glass.  In this case, you have a lower-tier complete system, which might be a step too far for some.  

Personally, I find myself drifting more and more back to mono, especially in conjunction with thermal, so this isn't a niche I'm looking for.  But I wander around in the woods a lot, so not saying this is for everybody, either.  

I do like the tie-in with jerry-c; so if they do improve, and you go this route, with thermal overlay, then that's an interesting system.  If you're ok with chinese-made.  Lots of if's huh.  

IF you're looking this way, I'd say Photonis has the hot hand right now.

If you have Phoria than it may be better choice than a quality mono, if not the mono will be better for you

I got a chance to try some at an event a few weeks ago. The housing felt really cheap. The gain knob had almost no tension. It felt like it would snap off easily if handled roughly. The unit I tried was being demonstrated by a dealer so I can’t be sure if it was cherry picked. The image was better than I expected. I didn’t get a look at the spec sheet. From what I have been told most of these are 1400 range FOM. Personally I would spend the money on a high spec PVS14 before buying these. At minimum I would want to try them before you buy.

That’s not really true. I have a set. I’ve used everything from these to DTNVS with both standard Caron lenses and RPO optics. These have a little chromatic aberration but they are a step up from the older AGM sets

OP - at $4000 you’re not going to beat them unless you make significant sacrifices on the housing (ANVIS). They’re pretty close to Photonis tubes in image quality and the glass isn’t as good as Carson, but it’s definitely not the worst I’ve seen. I’m happy with them so far, knowing the limitations and not expecting it to be as good as my unfilmed L3 tubes

I’ve bought 3-4 used but like new RNVGs, some still under transferable warranty from the vendor, for $4k-4.2k. They had gen3 Omni contract tubes, while others had white Photonis echos. Any tubes are going to be significantly better than what comes with the Jerry 31s

You can definitely beat them. You could also get some used pvs15s in that price range that have some of the best lenses made.

My advice to OP is to watch the equipment exchange here and do business with a member who has a lot of feedback. You’ll find deals posted every week, and you’ll find something too good to pass on within a month. Don’t be afraid to make an offer that’s within your budget.

You can buy Jerry 31s that will immediately be worth less than what you paid, or you can buy a better used set that will be worth more than what you paid, and will increase in value every year due to the rapid rising costs of (good) night vision.


And yes, the jerry 31 glass is terrible (some just have lower standards). But so are some higher end proprietary lenses imo that should have been good for what the units cost, such as the $11k Photonis PD Pro’s lenses which are made in Germany. Lenses are very subjective. Some people can deal and live with less than ideal optical qualities, while others like me are incredibly picky and have OCD when it comes to things like fisheye, non-flat images, slight magnification, lens flair etc…. and comparing everything against Carson lenses which are still some of the best lenses ever made and the standard by which all others are judged. Once I see something off, it can’t be unseen.

Photo through an Elbit Pvs31D, because threads are boring without photos…

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My first NV was sub par quality. PVS-14, 1400ish FOM, non-standard glass. Was white phos but I had doubts on the validity of the spec sheet.

When I upgraded to my current set up, with a real quality housing and glass, and legit tubes, I was immediately kicking myself for not doing it sooner.

You can tell yourself that it's just for casual use, you're not kicking doors, etc. But at the end of the day, you will never be truly happy with sub-par components that you spent a ton of money on. And like a poster above said, it will be hard to resell them.

Either save your money for something better or start hitting the used market. There is a plethora of knowledgeable people on this very forum that work on and build NV, so you would even have the possibility of upgrading your tubes over time as long as you have a quality housing.

Buy once cry once definitely applies here.

You'd be better off getting a PVS-14 with a quality tube / proven tube in it like an Omni 7/8, Photonis, Elbit, or L3.

If you look around enough on the FB groups or on the various EE's on the forums you can find yourself a RNVG with omni 7/8 tubes for sub $5k or elbit xls tubes in the $5k range or even Photonis BNVD's in the $5k range. Which all those things I listed would better options in the long run over the Jerry 31.

That's not true at all, I bought an Aeturnus housing with clean Omni 7 tubes for $3,600

I've seen 1431s with omnis for around the same price.

I have an Aeturnus also. I dig it.

They are not close to Photonis tubes.  Not by a long shot.  They don't even have autogating.  They are about the same as Russian EKRAN tubes.  The minimum spec you will find for Photonis tubes is ~ 2000 FOM (Echo+) although there is older stock of 1600 FOM (Echo) floating around.  The lowest spec ECHO tubes still have fast autogating.

I have a set of ~2150 FOM photonis vypers and checked out a set of the Jerry 31's on a NV hike a few weeks back.  They were better than I was expecting.  Once the gain was adjusted on the J31's I honestly don't know if I could say there was a huge difference between them and my binos.  Granted this was just a 30 second look in a fixed position and there was quite a bit of ambient between the moon and not being terribly far removed from the city.  It'd be interesting to check them out under low light conditions.

Photonis has multiple lines, they aren’t all echos.

Because there isn’t a huge difference. People want to shit on these because they’re Chinese. I’ve had TONS of NV devices over the last few years. Multiple sets of thin filmed and unfilmed binos, the Vyper binos, and monoculars of all flavors. The only ones that are head and shoulders above the rest are the unfilmed tubes.

If you want a good value with a basically full featured housing and WP tubes, you aren’t really going to beat these. You may find used goggles but again you’re likely going to sacrifice quality of life features on the housing or risk getting old tubes that die with no warranty. Do deals occasionally pop up? Sure. But for the average person these are going to do everything you want. I’d gladly take a set of Jerry 31s and put more money towards training than be that guy who blows their whole budget on a more expensive set and hasn’t trained under nods a day (night) in his life.

Hmmmm.  The omens are many and confusing.  I would say there is no consensus on the J31's.  

Well yeah.

I'm not one of the "OMG you're LITERALLY funding the china military" types. But china is notorious for shit quality control. And I, personally, have never produced an I2 tube, nor even assembled a NV device. But I've watched enough youtube and talked to enough knowledgeable people to know that it is a very specific and detail oriented process. Such things are not usually found with conscripted live-in labor facilities.

IMO, there is a big difference between a $400 holosun and $4k NV. I don't think china can give the quality demanded by the price tag.

Lots of vendors selling these are doing the final QC on these checking collimation etc. while china may not have good QC, the American vendors can take care of that.

Most people just want an easy purchase - looking for used unicorns (or super unicorns like used with a warranty) is mostly for the NV nerds. I haven't kept up with pricing, but the $5K XLSH binos were the golden ticket. No idea how much those are today, nor the cheapest Photonis Binos. If they are close, I'd go for those - but iRay makes great Thermals (I have 3), so quality should be fine.

'Custom Night Vision' on YouTube does some good comparisons with the NNVT - they carry all mfgs it looks like. The NNVT obviously look the worst in extreme low light, but they are $4K, and I think I could still hit targets with them, YMMV.

Chinese nonsense buy American.

Yes I know, also the other lines are dated and rarely used in new devices, much like FOM 1600 Echos.  

Don't be fooled by images, there are very significant differences between these PRC units and Photonis Echo units from good suppliers.  Anyone that recommends non-autogated devices is doing unsuspecting buyers a very significant dis-service.  Again, these are EKRAN grade devices.

This is not the case there are significant differences that matter over the life of the product.  Autogating exists for a reason, just to name one.

And to expand on @TNVC_Will comment…

Old tubes dying… while they do, it’s not exactly a common occurrence for units that have been cared for and used recreationally (which applies to the vast majority of used devices floating around). I’ve seen more new Filmless tubes die than anything else, and they end up getting replaced by L3.

If anything I would be more worried about these Chinese NNVT tubes that have a very limited track record compared to US made IITs. You would be buying something that you really have no idea what to expect in terms of how they hold up over time.

US tubes are a known quantity and are dead nuts reliable. Take the following as a great example… a PVS7A I owned (thanks to W.Outlaw on here) with original 1989 Omni1 tube that has likely passed through a ton of hands in the 35 years it’s been in use. Who knows how many hours are on it.
    This is just one of several dozen used/older devices I’ve owned, and I’ve never had a single unit shit the bed.

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I think in this case, there are good arguments on both sides.  But GHOZ is right; I have looked through Ekran tubes and they are well, just what you'd expect: Russian kludge.  You know, twenty years ago I would have made a joke about how you have to look through Chinese tubes in order to see anything.  But just the fact that they have managed to reverse-engineer these things (as always) is pretty amazing.  Love 'em or hate 'em, you gotta give the devil his due.  

If you think they have great potential and are worth looking at, you're right.

If you think they're Chinese kludge, and US stuff is superior, you're right.

I think this is it, right here. Performance needs are subjective, a paperweight is not. These do have Bright Source Protection, did some searching and found some stuff on BSP.

Bright source protection is not auto-gating - nearly all old ~ 20 year old low - cost systems have this, often called automatic brightness control, it is the hall mark of very dated systems, in the the absence of auto-gating which is an industry minimum standard for professional use.  These tubes decay from the get go and you'll be lucky to get 2,000 hours out of them - whereas modern systems give you a genuine 10,000 hours unless abused.

There have always been units on the market with subpar glass and subpar tubes. ATN and Armasight are the two big ones that come to mind, but you can always find a number of units made with usually Russian housings using usually Russian tubes. These systems always had wide ranges of differences in quality, even from the same manufacturer, that would go from being perfectly usable to a complete waste of money.

Were the ATN and Armasight units worth it? Eh, maybe.

The China units are the "x is the new black" of the Russian night vision game. Instead of being Russian housings, they are Chinese housings. Instead of being Russian tubes, they are Chinese tubes. They are not challenging the market that the quality and performance of US made NV occupies. They are also not challenging the market that the cheap Russian units occupy, just joining it as a competitor.

Are the Chinese / Jerry units worth it? Eh, maybe.

The problem with night vision is that compromises are not additive, they are multiplicative. A slight compromise in glass quality and a slight compromise in tube quality isn't just two slight compromises, they multiply off each other and make a massive difference. A tube that cannot amplify as much light, also receiving less light due to the poorer glass quality, is going to produce a much darker, less clear image overall. It's just the reality of these devices. The thing is most people are shown these units in the most favorable conditions. Being handed one of these things outside in full moon with no overcast is going to produce a pretty remarkable picture, like any Night Vision device would. You might notice a tiny bit of edge distortion or the eye relief isn't perfect, but then you'll feel like that is the only compromise they have. The question in your mind is; is saving 2,000 dollars worth a little bit of edge distortion. The answer would obviously be probably yes.

But that isn't the real question. The real question needs to be asked in conditions when the device has to use 100% of it's capability to give you an image. It needs to be asked when you see how it performs in no moon, or overcast, or under a forest canopy, or in a pitch black basement - or all of the above. You need to see how the device will perform in the dark because that is what it is designed to be used for. You need to see what it will be like in situations where you might have to use it, like if its a real bad storm outside with heavy cloud cover and its really, really, really dark. That is where the difference between a 2,000 dollar Jerry and a 4,000 dollar Filmless PVS-14 are going to be seen. I promise you the difference will surprise you.

Many people buy cheap NV units, then look through a Milspec Thin Filmed or Unfilmed and have instant regret. Some people don't, and often times those people were at the very, very limit of their budget and would never have been able to afford anything else. For them it's a question of "Maybe good enough" vs nothing at all, and they can be happy with their purchase. If you have the capability to stretch your budget, or can wait out to scoop up a reliable used one? That is the route you want to go 100%.

The only way you are going to know 100% for sure is if you see your options side by side. If you can't do that, just go the route that will guarantee you 0% risk of regret, and get something good.

You can buy a PVS-14 today you'll still be running on your head years after you scrapped the car you are driving right now. There are units 10 years old that are perfectly fine and good enough to hold their own today.

There are different ways to evaluate the broader capability of an electro optical device e.g. MTF, rather than single specs e.g. SNR.  

At the end of the day, a device reveals its true self at the limit of its capability and in the case of night vision, this is most often seen in very low light conditions.  This is what you pay for with good equipment along with robustness and the genuine ability to function in rapidly evolving bright light environments.  

The "buy once cry once" truism is real.  

I would rather have the best quality tube in a PVS14, that I could afford, than the worst quality tubes in binos.  The rest is training and practice.  Its doesn't matter what you have if you're not effective with it.

My personal view is most of the PRC electro-optical devices are disposable e.g. I have a GL35R on my pack rifle (CZ600 trail for pest eradication on a number of properties), if it breaks its no big deal.  In my view thats the best way to look at this stuff.

This has been a great discussion, and I appreciate everyone's view points! I will admit the allure of dual tubes at the price was simply related to spending enough time under nods driving/walking/shooting that I know using a PVS-31/DTNVG was always more enjoyable than using a 14 or 7. And even more so than GPNVGs I got to borrow a year or so ago for pig hunt. I think those may be more useful for Urban settings, but the extra FOV wasn't enough to offset the extra weight/bulk of the unit. I was also paranoid of hurting them due to the price tag so that didnt help either. But I'm just a redneck not a cool high speed guy. So what do I know.

Where I am in the mountains of North Georgia tree cover can be pretty thick, I hadn't even considered the extremes of no ambient light use cases. It's rare I get to hunt an open field or drive a non wooded trail. I am sure the j31s would work better if I was out west, with a higher chance of clear/open skies. But as it stands my use cases will probably benefit more from better glass/tube than being Binos.

So with that being said I'll probably just nab another PVS-14 to replace the one I sold years ago, and buy a Katana or other bino with better quality glass/tubes down the line/when finances permit.

Another balanced one, nice. I think on a forum where 98% could afford their NV, the first sentence is frequently discounted.

Yeah that was one of the best replies I've ever read here.  He really hit that one out of the park, or scored from mid-field, since he's from up north, eh?

The problem, for me, is in the end-use.  In my case, I am prepping for hard times.  I used to get smoked for saying that; now I don't give a fuck.  So in my case, you are trying to stretch a budget over a shit-load of stuff you need.  The question then becomes what priority does NV get, in the scheme of things, regardless of how good the state of the art is.  Is really good "gen II+" good enough, older gen III, or the latest gen III filmless.  Mono or bino.  I2 alone or Thermal.  Fusion or just dual capability.  So for me, and again this is in village self-defense mode, I am leaning heavily in favor of super tube mono, with thermal back up. For the price of good binos, you are getting solid dual-spectrum capability.  I think that is the answer, for me.  

When we talk about really dark places, be it heavy forest, or deep cave, you can't amplify what ain't there.  Ask Lowdown 6 about the time we hit that "biker base camp" in a draw in WV.  You couldn't see shit.  Another time was with Hawkeye down in Ga.  Literally couldn't see the hand in front of your face.  Or the jungles in the NTA on Oki.  Or down in the PI.  So I want the best performance I can afford, to leverage every last piece of light, but knowing full well that sometimes even that ain't enough.   Use every advantage you can, but don't depend on anything for a crutch.  

Yeah I think if you're doing rural self-defense, good I2/Thermal is going to give you a significant advantage over intruders without it, and parity with those that do.  If this is your situation, I'd pass on the J31's.

Yep, all of this ^^^^

Me personally I'd rather stick with my monolithic Gen 3 PVS14 WP XLSH Echo tube.

Lot of ancillary stuff to buy with night vision.  If you're going to invest the money into a Wilcox Mount, Arm, Quality Ballistic Helmet, and useable MFAL/LAM it seems odd to cheap out on the actual unit itself which is the whole purpose for buying all those things.

I understand what it means to be young and broke though, but if you're hurting for money there are much other wiser things to do with your coin like pay down or avoid debt.  

The other thing to point out is that increasingly for classes and MILSIM you can rent night vision and get some time under night vision to train with.  There are Hog Hunts where I've heard they will rent out night vision units.  Yeah, you will not have a pair at home to practice your depth perception and use of it without firearms, but with few ranges open to night vision shoots in this country that's not a massive hit.   Plus, during that time when you're just not up to it financially to buy night vision you can get that time in at the training and MILSIM events to see what set-up you like best, which housing you like, it's like test driving cars before you buy and I don't think anyone would say that's not a wise thing.

Don't be in a rush to run out and buy night vision so much so that you cut corners you'd rather not have to cut. Even the Jerry 31's aren't that cheap to justify such action.

At this point I've been completely turned away from the Jerry unit. I think k the appeal was simply getting binos at the price. As the saying goes, if it barks like a dog, and scratches like a dog, it probably has fleas like a dog. Too good to be true always is. So I'll live with a PVS14 until I can afford a set of decent binos. Maybe buy a housing first and then send them off to get then built once I can fund the tubes.