Review: PKV-01 (ПК-01V) (by Gruppa-L)

 

The PKV-01 (ПК-01V) is another red dot sight from Belarus made by BelOMO (БелОМО). It is a modern, mil-spec, light scope simple in design and construction used by both military and police forces. Due to its relatively cheap price but good performance it also enjoys great popularity in the civil market. It is particularly reliable and sturdy like many Belorussian sights.

 

The PKV-01 can be seen as an updated revision of the famous PK01-VS.
As already mentioned it is built extremely solid and can handle the recoil of any caliber up to 12.7x108mm (pretty much the same as .50 BMG)
Like all other BelOmO sights it is waterproof and dry nitrogen purged to prevent fogging. The mount that comes with it is an AK/Saiga style mount, but it can be mounted on SVDs also. (This is usually not the case with AK/Saiga mounts)

   

The sight itself has a standard 30mm tube so it can be attached to any other 30mm mount. Therefore you can use it with virtually any weapon. On the civil market it is often used with Aimpoint mounts for use with 22mm rails.
The mount that comes with it is pretty interesting. It is basically an off bore 22mm mount rail with an 22mm/30mm tube adapter which positions the sight directly over the bore.
It sits extremely low, so you can even use the iron-sights with the scope mounted. More about that later.
The sight has a rather small profile like the PK-AS (ПК-АС), which I did a review on some time ago. (right photo)

 
The windage and elevation knobs are covered by screw caps and offer very easy adjustment with a decent 2/3 MOA click. It really feels like a high-end scope.
Because this is an export version the markings are in French (Russian still cannot stand English )
For use in very cold weather conditions the knobs are finger adjustable, even with gloves on.
The rubber covers can be folded into each other so that they do not swing around and disturb you.

   

The brightness adjustment knob uses the typical Russian 8 mode off-on-off layout like on the PK-AS:  (0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-0/9) You actually see which brightness you set the scope to since the knob has a little notch with dial behind it.
It runs on 3v with two AAA batteries which are stored in the rube along the sight. Like the Rusak (русак) it will run for ages with those.

   

The reticle is a traditional 1.5 MOA red dot, nothing fancy. (however there are versions with a T shaped reticle instead!) What makes this sight (along with the PK01-VS) special, is that it is mounted so low that you can use the iron-sights and the red dot simultaneously. The same technique is often used by ISPC shooters since it allows for very fast target acquisition.

All in all it is a pretty neat and solid sight. With a price of around 230€ it is still a lot cheaper the equivalent “western counterparts”.