Optix Firefly 6 Gen 2 + Nightvision

The chance to go out shooting with premium night vision gear is a rare pleasure for me and although some kit seems to try the patience, only the weather spoiled the opportunity for me here. With rain ever present in May and June, the crops on my predominantly arable shooting land were growing with fury, heavy rain interrupted by bright sunshine ticking both boxes to rapidly create endless cover for pest species to hide in.

No Strings Attached

The Optix Firefly 6 is a Gen2+ Green image intensifier tube coming in at the start of a build range allowing the same mechanics to be specified with up to 8 tube types, depending on market and price. At £4230 including VAT, it might take the breath from your lungs at first bite but just what is on offer? Well, the first thing I find with some NV gear is that it follows a very heath Robinson build with knobs here and there, buttons to push and mechanics to alter in use.

Although one has to expect changing ideas a little from the standard optic layout on a sporting rifle, Optix certainly seem to have addressed the need of the sporting shooter for a sleek build, far more fluid in looks and frankly, very easy to use. The starting point to remember is DON’T turn it on in daylight, safety factors or not you must resist the urge to pop a battery into it and crank up the `volume`, you may damage it. Weighting in at 1640 grams and 280mm long, it is large but not problematic although the height it adds to your rifle may preclude its storage directly in your gun cabinet as it stands over 100mm above the barrel. This isn’t a problem though as the mount on the Firefly is an 82mm length of Picatinny rail clamp that with two adjustable levers will allow the scope to clip on and off your Picatinny railed rifle (a common fitment or option these days) with assured return to zero. Two 10mm Nyloc nuts on the opposing right hand side can be adjusted to provide the correct repetitive clamping force and then left alone. As you need to have your eye relatively close to the unit it hangs toward the rear of your rail but this maintains the balance of the sight above your action and a rubber eyecup pops over to allow you to snug into the eyepiece. 65mm of eye relief is maintained although in use I found this to be totally acceptable and was pleasantly surprised by the non-fussy nature of the exit pupil `projected` from the 30mm lens of the 55mm rear body. Up front there is a rubber eyecup covering the 90 mm objective lens to both protect it from damage and light. It has 2.5mm hole in its centre, which will allow it to be used in low light circumstances but I played it safe and waited for full darkness.

Waiting For The Darkness

A screw cap to the lower left side allows a supplied lithium polymer 3.6 volt battery to be inserted that is predicted to last 65 hours but it will also handle a 1.5volt AA which is what I used, performance is identical but run time is shorter. At dark the 19mm knurled dial to the lower right can fire up the unit, I took the lens cap off and 4 further clicks illuminate and increase the intensity of the reticle, a simple red dot with 4 lines running towards it hanging in the centre of viewing field. Stage one was perfect to be honest and the first night was spent zeroing with a square shiny steel plate representing the target. The two dials atop and on the right hand side control elevation and windage with a screwdriver to adjust 1cm per click. 50 clicks per turn and 8 turns give 4m of adjustment at 100 metres which is extremely generous!

The labelling is a little vague but realistically once zeroed, this isn’t the kind of sight you will be clickety clicking around with to alter distances. Zeroing was surprisingly easy, I had the Firefly mounted on a Ruger 10-22 for bunny bashing and with a torch to inspect the target after each shot, I set a 60 yard zero. Note it is a `moving reticle`, not a `moving image` so the marking on the dials will seem to work opposite to normal, i.e. `up` will actually move your fall of shot down.

Shades of Grey

I set out some rabbit silhouettes of differing shades of brown, grey and white to have a look around on my zeroing range. The rear knurled ring is turned to set reticle focus and once defined, didn’t need any further adjustment. The 68mm ring towards the front sets image focus in a similar way to a parallax adjuster but like a high magnification scope, depth of field is limited. With a 6x daylight sight you would expect 30 yards to infinity to be well in focus but when detecting very few photons, apertures as large as possible help in the optical system and this punishes depth of field - a simple fact of physics. The minimum focus distance is 25m but a target like a rabbit at this range is large and doesn’t need to be pin sharp. I focussed on a white silhouette at 60 yards which meant I could tackle any target out to 100 yards with no further adjustment. I didn’t really notice any `warm-up` time required either, the image was at full intensity from the moment it was activated.

Wakey-Wakey

Now here is the point where you `kind of wake up` and think… hang on, it’s pitch black, I’m not using a torch yet confidently aiming at life-size rabbit silhouettes of various colours with 100% confidence of headshots! Yes, I suddenly twigged what this seemingly simple and easy to use product was doing without leads, wires, clamps, nothing hanging in and out of alignment at the front or back of my scope, nothing needing stock extensions or problematic eye relief. Just an optic that when switched on allowed me to see clearly in the dark, maybe a little higher from the cheekpiece but otherwise, intuitive.

The following night was pouring with rain again but a third night got me onto a paddock with rabbits and I set up to wait it out for them. Of course no spotting device means staying on the scope and scanning and after 30 minutes of watching leaves and foliage gently twitching in the breeze, I started to question my capabilities and wonder what I was doing. Well 5 more minutes saw a rabbit hop out as clear as day! Although the image is a little grainy (55 lines per mm of resolution on a Gen2+ green tube), the price brings you back to reality and the green hued image will quite happily recognise shapes, shades of foliage, areas of obvious light and dark and it is really little different from watching black and white films, maybe not HD but the story is what counts!

Growing Confidence

I went for a chest shot at 45 or so yards to play it safe and he fell stone dead. The next one came out even closer and fell too. A wander about led me to take a couple of rested shots at 60 yards from a gate with an increasing sense of confidence, headshots with clinical success. As I walked back to the car I wished the crop harvested, as I would have loved to put the Firefly onto a centrefire and extend both my viewing range, possible shot distances and see if a fox wasn’t on the cards?

The AA battery had been on for over 2 hours at this point and I took a precautionary measure to swap it over just in case. I sat and watched down a couple of tramlines for another hour but sadly nothing was moving other than a brief flash of a rabbit crossing at around 200 yards. If it had stopped, with my 223 or 243 it would have done so permanently perhaps a little grainy and very small, but 6x would have got it. A fox at that range would have been significantly simpler. The crosshair with its fine centre dot and adjustable intensity gave me confidence.

Conclusions

This is a cracking bit of kit and if money were no object it would be hard to refuse one, nothing has any idea you are watching, shooting is a definite process and importantly, identification of quarry is probably surer than with the lamp because you can have a really good look with no chance of spooking anything! Optix advertise an estimated identification range of 1900 metres although even 500m is plentiful on smaller quarry. At 6x mag, it’s time to `call` that quarry in or stalk closer for a shot though. You can also add an illuminator to the left side Picatinny rail mount to increase definition but I found no need. 65mm of eye relief is OK and the rubber eyecup would gently push you back a little if recoil were to bother you. I doubt it, not on a night use rifle below 6mm centrefire combined with correct body position, otherwise uncompromised by the Firefly.

The Firefly 6 is what I call a `boring test`, it just works and it’s only afterwards you realise just how it has changed the game in your own head. A great bit of kit for a serious pest controller or fox shooter, one of these will certainly pay for itself in a few seasons controlling foxes predating lambs or gamebirds; I just need to find a spare kidney to sell…