If you have been unfortunate enough to enter the world of night vision, you have probably realized that not only is your hobby extremely expensive, but you now must learn many new administrative skills that you could previously easily accomplish with the aid of your eyes during the daytime. Night Vision shooting presents its own set of problems specifically because we don’t have our eyes to give us the information we need to make speedy reloads, or clear malfunctions rapidly when they happen. This is one area where oversized controls can help—by giving you a larger target to aim for when you go to grab it.
It goes without saying that you should strive to learn how to operate all of your equipment in its base form under night vision. This includes not only your firearm but also life-saving equipment such as tourniquets. While night vision is great for looking at things from a distance under low light, looking at things close up can be quite a difficult task without manually focusing your tube or tubes to look at the object close to you—this is why it’s important to learn how to do things like reloads, malfunction checking and clearing, and operating your optics under night vision.
While you’ll generally have a more difficult time finding things under night vision, your body actually uses its kinesthetic senses to help you orient your body to itself. You can try this now by attempting to touch your two fingertip tips behind your back. Even though you cannot physically see your fingertips, it is highly likely that you made perfect contact the first time you attempted this. Your kinesthetic sense is great for getting to objects directly attached to your body or close to it; for example, a pistol magazine well would be easy to find in complete darkness due to its proximity to the palm of your hand. However, when it comes to “off-body” objects like magazines, charging handles, and bolt releases, you’ll often find that you’ll have a difficult time finding these objects without a lot of constant practice. Oversized magazine extensions can help you make better contact with your belt, and larger wings on a charging handle can help you land your hands on it even when you cannot see it—allowing you to clear a malfunction and get your gun operational again quickly.
While I do not think that oversized controls and features on your firearms and accessories are explicitly necessary for training under night vision, they can sure help a lot when you’re shooting under stress and trying to make a concerted effort to not just shoot under night vision but to shoot efficiently under night vision. Of course, I’m sure some of you out there have some handy advice for shooting under night vision. We would like to hear what methods and tips you have for becoming a better shooter under night vision; let us know what you do in the comments!
