When getting into Night Vision gear you quickly learn the accessories also are very important and having a solid mount is a good example of this. Luckily also having the Team Wendy bump helmet it already had a NVG shroud so I was able to pop this Wilcox L4 G24 NVG-Mount right on in.
The L4 G24 Mount allows attachment of a variety of NVGs to a MICH/ACH helmet using an Ops-Core VAS, standard Army shroud, and similar mount setups including Wilcox's own shrouds. Made of light weight Aerospace grade metal the mount feels like a solid piece of gear like that expected in high end AR-15 accessories. For other first hand impressions it seems like there is a lot going on and frankly there is to offer all the adjustability options. I try and show all the angle and distance adjustment options in the pics, but also attached the manual which helps convey it even further. I was happy to see I could really dial in the angle and distance from my face, even eye side. Although made clearly as NVG on left eye design priority, pretty cool that eye switching is still available. The finer adjustment knobs and levers are a little harder to get to which makes sense as generally one doesn't want to mess with them once dialed it while the main up/down button is fairly easy to activate. Although the main up/down button is on the left side it is still easy to access and activate with either hand. The eye distance adjust buttons are different yet also fairly easy to engage to adjust between wearing goggles or not.
I like how there is a split between the NVG attachment arm and the rest of the mount which offers more NVG storage options on one's self. The NVG plus mount makes a bit of awkward shape when it comes to pouch storage while detaching at the the shoe mount is still a quick way to take on and off while leaving most the mount on the helmet. Somewhat on that subject, the main connection button of the mount to shroud isn't very complicated, however does take some getting used to to put the mount back on while wearing. This is mostly due to the not being able to see it factor, however releasing is much easier. Another cool function is that the main shroud connection can be set to a hard connection or a break-away setting. This setting basically just adjusts how far the main lock bar goes into the shroud and when in the breakaway setting it is enough to be a solid fit yet will allow breaking away with heavy force. This way one can have a full lock when just hard using on the ground, yet have the option for break away when doing high speed stuff like fast roping where it would be better to lose snagged NVGs than to break one's neck.
Experience wise I'm definitely new to NVGs, however I was fortunate to be able to get some good moving and shooting experience with them at the Costa Ludus RVET class. Despite there being more play in the mount than expected it did not feel floppy or loose even with heavy movement. The L4 G24 was overall easy to use for main NVG up/down action and even to do minor adjustments. The difficulty of putting the mount back in the shroud while wearing is more of a limitation of the shroud slot shape and I think it is understandable to make this mount compatible with the heavily distributed standard Army shroud.
While I'm overall pleased, compared to other mounts of similar price range the main features that will still stand out on the L4 G24 will be adjustability and the break-away feature. Wilcox has been in the high-end NVG part game for quite some time so they are certainly a company one can rely on and it shows. I look forward to checking out more of their products to further see how perform as an integrated package together.
www.wilcoxind.com/L4-G24-Mount-P3.aspx
