9MM has gone up maybe 25% since pre-covid times, but 5.56 is still like 45cpr - almost double the price of what it used to be.

Night vision has gone way up, too. I imagine some of that is related to the Ukraine war, but also the democrat terror actions in US cities saw a lot of police and concerned citizens buying night vision. Say Trump comes into office and ends the Ukraine war almost immediately, as he has promised, what happens to the price of night vision?

We paid $4200 for a TNVC hand select unit in their first or second year. That same unit is available from them now for $3499. It would be $6300 if simply inflation adjusted.

I think the following will happen, the market will be flooded with ever cheaper and yet reasonably effective thermal.  High end bleeding edge of technology stuff will still remain expensive but affordable at a pinch for many.  

I think analogue night vision is going to be a different story.  Bottom line, there is no realistic short term replacement for high quality, effective NL5 equipment - the smart people know this, a key question for suppliers is "has market saturation been achieved" e.g. have the sophisticated and knowledgeable buyers already gone all in and thus the extant market has reduced in size. I don't know the answer to this but suspect the trade - in to upgrade options need to improve.  Perhaps sellers need to offer trade - ins and seller backed "CPO" style offerings.  

The analogue suppliers need to work on their marketing more and have clearer better defined entry points, exit options and seller backed high - quality second - hand options.   Add to this, market expansion as safety devices essential for emergency use as an obvious option.

The advance of integrated multi-sensor digital systems will continue apace, in the civilian world this will be dominated by car manufacturers seeking to produce level 5 self driving cars.  In the military world this will bring together networked systems and multiple devices capable of full theatre/ battle space integration - coupled with spectrum superiority the modern day equivalent of air superiority.

Probably going to be a lot of units for sale on eBay, and other forums once it ends.

I'll try to snag a used set of Panos if the price is right.

Well, I don't have a crystal ball so I can't see into the future.  However, defense spending is up throughout the world right now.  Nearly every NATO member and many nations in the Pacific have all increased or pledged to increase their defense spending in the years ahead. So, will demand really go down that much for military hardware?  Time will tell.

One of the interesting factors though is that as demand has gone up there is a lot of talk about governments providing funding  to military industrial complex companies to expand their production lines.  Obviously there is a real desire by the government to get the costs under control, because at present we've seen things like 155mm artillery shells go from a pre-2022 cost of approximately $1,500 a shell up to as $3,000 to as high as $5,000.  

Some of the $95 Billion dollar Ukraine funding proposed would be specifically to help expand U.S. defense contractor's production lines. I think the USA needs a more solid plan to return manufacturing and promote the training of skilled labor so that dual-use technology and industries can be returned to the USA with a better plan to convert those companies to defense production should the need arise, but tha's another discussion.  COVID was a rather minor disruption to logistics/imports compared to what will happen if there is an outbreak of war in the Pacific.  We have defense contractors that are years behind now in delivery due to the lingering impact of COVID lockdowns, as incredible as that might seem.

So we should see a ton of photonis tubes and holosun hit the second hand market?

No.

Pricing is not going down.

Commercial demand may ebb and flow but there will always be demand.

After the Ukraine war ends, or...whatever happens there.  There will be another conflict.

The only hopes we have for price drops will be competition in this space.  L3, Elbit and Photonis have ZERO incentive to lower their pricing.