Air Gun Home :: View topic - Green Laser & Rudimentary Testing (a review...mostly)

AGBug · Member

Hello fellow AGH members!

Well, I was browsing about eBay last week for various nonsense accessories for my air rifles, and I came across a seller who had a lot. One of the items which tickled my fancy was her laser sight/target acquisition modules, particularly, the green ones. A few air gunners I know have them on some of their rifles—varying from red, green, blue or IR—which they acquired depending on use and need, but the one thing most know is that a red laser is pretty much worthless in the daytime, especially if it is bright out. This is not the case for the green laser which is quite visible in any condition and at greater distances, and although green lasers do seem brighter than red ones at the same mw output. There’s a simple reason for this: human eyes are more sensitive to yellow and green light, that’s why green lasers can appear to be roughly 50 times brighter than red ones.

Now there are a lot of brands and models out there with varying wattage, varying wavelengths and tunable precision, and of course all of these affect range and clarity, but I wasn’t planning on spending top dollar for something I consider a ‘toy’; a not-so-necessary addition to my shooting, but more so out of curiosity, and yes, they do look pretty big-bad-butt sitting on the side of your scope.

Anyway, I found one which was cheap ($38.29 w/free shipping in CONSUS) from a seller here in the US (Maryland) and threw caution to the wind and got one and let me tell you, I was very surprised by the order. It arrived quickly via USPS—ordered on Friday, April 12th and it arrived today Tuesday, April 16th (eBay stated the free delivery would take until Thursday the 18th—in a nice cardboard case where every part was set in its own pre-fashioned foam seating. The kit is all metal (tube, mounts [2 types], sunshade and windage/elevation caps), as well as it comes with a CR123A battery. It mounted easily on my scope (this particular one is for 1” tubes) with 6 hex screws (wrench included), and it even comes with a Velcro tab if you want to mount the rubber covered on/off tab to your stock for easy control. It also comes with an end cap if you do not want the thin corded on/off pad, which you have to twist closed for ON, loosen for OFF (the latter not being so optimal if you are hunting).

Pretty little package, isn't it?

I ended up playing around with it indoors the night it came and I did quite a good job blinding a spider with it before squishing it, but I waited until today to do something more interesting with it. I wanted to test its potential at a longer distance than my back yard (@40yds), and during broad daylight and to know if the manufacturer’s claims held any water. The manufacturer purported that its daytime visibility range is >300yds and >1,500yds during nighttime.

So, once I was done with some work-related conference calls—which meant four hours of my life that is now out there in there ethereal and to never return—I loaded up my new Benjamin Trail NP with the green laser attached to the 3-9x40 scope, packed up my Cannon EOS camera, got myself a 8.5x11” green sheet of construction paper (my niece and nephews come over a lot so I have plenty of doodle-tools to keep them off the ignorance box for a while), and went over to my friend Keith’s place. He lives in my area, but he has a yard twice my size and an old garage sitting @ 72yds near the back=end of his property. I had long since walked out the distance in the past with a Stanley wheel counter—an essential tool you can get on the cheap for any field-target shooting—and propped up the paper. We often use this garage as a back drop for a lot of air gun shooting—you can note some of the war wounds from past shootings in the stills next to the paper—especially because he doesn’t have nosy neighbors to harass us.

Ok, here’s the little test that was done:

I stated I used GREEN construction paper and not white or any other color, and there is a reason for this. The only reason we see the color green (or any color) is because your eye picks up every color in the spectrum other than said color, hence why we see that particular color. Since the laser was green, I wanted to see if on a bright day at a considerable distance, would I be able to accurately see the beam on target, striking an object which my eyes were already ignoring that particular frequency in the light spectrum (geeky, I know).

Testing Details

Ok, enough of the numbers and geek stuff, here is the result (still images taken from the camera which was in video recording mode):

Note the dispersal pattern of the light where center orientation is approximately 0.7” (18mm) whereas the outer corona is taking up approximately 1” (25mm) of the 8.5” wide sheet. Per manufacturer’s claim, at 15yds total dispersion of 18-25mm should be reached; here we are at 72yds.

Now, if anyone doubts that a green laser was being used, here's an image still from the video where the beam hit a twig and the leaves of a small growth from atop the mulch pile right up against the garage:

As you can see, the beam is quite intense no matter what it strikes in daytime.

Speaking of the corona-effect surrounding the core of the beam, part of what you are seeing is has more to do with the lens-effect caused by the digital camera attempting to take in every particle of visible light and computing this into an image. If this had been a film camera—and if I had thought of screwing my polarizing filter on the lens—or the naked eye, you would not see nearly as much ‘glow’. For instance, here are two images I took in my basement against a black cloth I had stapled up.

The length of my basement is 40’ from end to end, and the rifle had been set up in a bench rest atop my shooting table. Sadly, I had to take these freehand as well as with the flash on because my tripod is currently in use by my daughter who is away to college. I tried it with all the lights off, but even with the stability control of the lens, the aperture time was way too long to get a steady shot (no, sadly, I didn't have anything to rest the camera on at the time).

Here you can see the beam is more intensified, but we are still getting two abnormalities: the aurora and lens flare. Thinking, I then placed my polarizing filter on the lens, and got this:

As you can see, this is more true to how you would see the dot in real-time save the lack of a visible beam which was polarized out with the filter and the slight flare from the lens-effect. In real-time you would clearly see the beam as you would with any laser simply because of the light reflecting and refracting off of particles in the air. If you were hunting in a vacuum let’s say orbit, and you were after space squirrels there wouldn’t be a beam at all; just a green dot at start and finish.

Well, that’s it. I had hoped to do more with this little review/spiel, perhaps set up my zoom lens so that we can get some footage of sending some lead down range with the assistance of the laser, but three things happened which ended my fun: changing weather, my head cold and battery life. The former brought rain, cold and a serious pressure change, the middle was heightened by the former and it felt like I had a tiny gremlin in my sinuses gnawing away at the swollen membranes there and the latter had nothing to do with the laser; I failed to place the Canon’s battery on its charger since its extensive use from Easter. Regardless, the tests did prove to me that at a long distance—for a break barrel 70+ yards is considerably long, especially if you are hunting—the laser performed as promised. I suppose I could have taken it somewhere to see how a 200+ yard beam would look, but the moment anyone can accurately hunt with a break barrel at that range, then everyone will have to have background checks just to buy one.

To close, I haven’t yet decided if I will keep the laser on the scope; for now it’s just a fun little addition (and the Benji currently is the only air rifle I have that has a scope with a 1” tube and that’s the mount which came with this model). If worse comes to worse, it will be used to blind more spiders making them easier kills. Now, they do sell ones which comes with both 1” and 30mm for a little more, some less if you want them to take the slow boat from China, but as I stated, fun for now (especially since I am stuck inside with a bright red stuffy nose).

Thanks for reading and viewing and I hope that the time you spent was not a waste, if so, I owe you a quarter Smile

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If you are interested in their products, here's the link to their store, but eBay is full of toys for our toys regardless of vendor, I just like this one because I had a lot of questions about their product, of which they answered promptly (even over the weekend).