Noblex NV OS 1×23

by moondog on July 19, 2025 with No Comments

Noblex may not be a well-known brand in the US, but this German tactical and sporting optics company traces its origins to two very important brands. Noblex is an offshoot from Zeiss Jena, the original Zeiss factory in East Germany during the Cold-War. After the reunification of Germany, the Bernhard Doctor optics company bought part of the old Jena factories from Zeiss, and produced the Doctor line of micro-reflex sights.

Doctor reflex sights were among the first micro red dots used on competition pistols and combat ACOGs. In 2016, Doctor Optics was bought by Noblex. Doctor/Noblex micro reflex sight designs (and Trijicon RMR’s) are probably the most widely copied designs. If it’s a generic Chinese micro-reflex sight, it’s probably a rip-off of a Noblex.

The NV OS is a sight Noblex designed for modern Glocks with MOS cut slides. The NV is one of the few micro reflex sights that has a low enough base to allow Glock factory iron sights to co-witness with its 4 MOA dot. The NV comes in either red or green emitter models. The sight offers an auto-adjusting brightness setting that can be manually set with a brightness memory to the last setting. The NV does not have motion activation.

Unfortunately, to get a low MOS base, a side battery tray was not posible, so the unit must be removed from the slide to access the battery. Moreover, it uses a small CR1220 battery, which only gives the unit 10,000hrs of runtime (a little over a year). The red dot will blink to warn you that the battery needs to be replaced. Fortunately, because the dot has an absolute co-witness with my factory irons, it is easy to visually zero.

Apart from the 10,000hr runtime, my other gripe is that the brightest setting of the dot is not quite bright enough for visibility in noon-day, direct sunlight. This would be a deal breaker for competitive action pistol shooters. The NV feels more like a low-light augment to your iron sights than as a primary aiming device. Despite these disappointing aspacts, the NV is a good example of precise and well built German engineering.