I’ve been off the night shooting circuit for a couple months due to work and family priorities, but I have finally been able to get back out and shooting recently – and I still love it!

I have been somewhat vocal in my questioning the utility of IR lasers and illuminators on handguns with reflex sights, but readily admit that they are quite a lot of fun to use. Further, if your reflex sight does down or comes loose, the lasers do provide a backup aiming method. Thus, even though I don’t necessarily think they’re a must-have, I’d still recommend them for anyone doing a lot of night vision shooting.

However, giving up your white light is not a great solution, either – so the preference would be a device that could combine both VIS and IR needs into one package. Surefire has this in the form of the XVL2-IRC, which is $1200. RovyVon, an EDC flashlight manufacturer, has come out with a close (but not exact) copy for $300 called the GL4 Pro. I’ve finally had time to test it, and I’d love to tell you what I think.

Cost: $300, straight from RovyVon’s website. I paid full price. I also bought a second one used for $325 (which included an RSR-07 cable).

Aesthetics: It is a close, but not exact, copy of the XVL2. The biggest changes are the use of a lever for mounting, different control paddles, and a larger reflector array for the illuminators. You’d have to look close to notice the differences, though.

Controls: The GL4 Pro has a mode selection knob on the side. This works pretty well, and is usable with your eyes closed (or night vision on). The modes are sensible, and are “laser, illuminator, and laser+illuminator” (IR and white light have their own modes, for a total of six modes). The bottom off position gives you immediate access to either IR or WL laser+illuminator, which I think is great. Even just having an “off” mode is quite nice in avoiding things turning on in your safe due to inadvertent bumps.

I am not as much of a fan of the paddles, which are a bit mushy. The on-off controls are momentary and constant. For momentary, you hold down the paddle for a bit, and then release. For constant, you just push the paddle up or down quickly. It is very much like the Inforce controls, which, IMHO, are not great. For some bizarre reason, if you click the paddles for constant-on while it’s off, it will turn on when you move the selector mode. That’s a recipe for white light or IR negligent discharges.

If you want to use a remote switch for PCC mounting, the GL4 Pro is compatible with Surefire RSR-07 switches. That wasn’t my use case, but it’s nice to know it has the compatibility.

The clicks for zeroing the lasers are firm and loud, and they use large coin turn slots, so they’re easy to manipulate. Somogear could take some notes from RovyVon in this area.

Lasers: The GL4 Pro features visible green and IR lasers. They are coaligned (“slaved”), so you just zero with the visible laser and then maybe tweak for the IR laser. My experience on the range was that RovyVon did a solid job with the coalignment, and the IR laser was on target after zeroing with the visible laser. Perhaps more importantly, they STAYED zeroed.

In terms of actual power, the lasers looked civilian powered to my eye. While everyone loves a full power laser, it’s not really a requirement for shooting.

Illumination: Illumination was surprisingly good. The IR illuminator (LED) has enough throw to easily distinguish targets to 50yds, and maybe see stuff to 100yds if it’s reflective. It’s all flood, but it’s well-executed flood. It does glow red like other IR LED illuminators, so understand that it’s less stealthy than a laser solution in terms of being visible with the naked eye. The throw isn’t as impressive as the VIR II with VWS EFL, but it meets the requirements for outdoor use at typical pistol caliber ranges.

The white light is somewhat less impressive, and is more of a 15-20yd solution outdoors. It is certainly far better than nothing, but compared to the modern high-lumen/high-candela lights of 2024, it doesn’t keep up. I’m not sure you could expect much else out of it; it’s just too small of a package for RovyVon to fit a large reflector and LED into. For comparison purposes, it is a little brighter than my Streamlight VIR II with VWS EFL attached, with a much more defined hotspot.

I don’t have an XVL2-IRC to compare to, but my understanding from Nick Chen’s review of the GL4 Pro is that the GL4 Pro has substantially better illuminators.

One very unexpected bonus is a small green light to tell you when IR laser and/or illuminator are on. This is a big deal for safety purposes, and very much appreciated.

Testing Platform: I installed the GL4 Pro on a Glock 34 gen3. The GL4 Pro comes with the Glock lug pre-installed, so it’s just a matter of getting it into the slot on the Glock accessory rail and then closing the lever. The fit is EXTREMELY tight. Much more so than the Streamlight VIR II (which has the unfortunate tendency to also come loose in my experience). For what it’s worth, when I removed and remounted the GL4 Pro on my Glock, it stayed zeroed.

I also put another GL4 Pro on a Glock-alike built on a CCF race frame. It is one of my favorite guns – it weighs roughly 46oz with the GL4 Pro installed, and has a 2lb Timney Trigger. (I may eventually put a Radian Ramjet+Afterburner into it…)

I used a T.REX Arms XVL2 holster for both pistols. The fit was a bit tight, I assume due to the lever, but it was fine otherwise. After testing the fit, I spent about five minutes with a heat gun to reshape the part of the holster that the reflector fits into, and this got me an even better fit. This was a pretty cheap and easy way to get going with this optic.

However, the holster situation is a bit bad in the sense that there’s a couple $70 options from T.REX Arms, and if those don’t work for you, you’re paying $200+ for a custom holster or a Safariland holster. I really wanted to try the GL4 Pro with some of my P320s, but it appears these will be a Glock solution for the moment due to holster cost.

Testing: I ran the GL4 Pro through about a couple hundred rounds across several night shoots. I typically did five iterations of a “stage” at each night vision shoot, all using the IR illumination with my gen3 night vision (or white light).

It was really quite a treat to use. The controls were easy to hit, albeit I did have the light stay on once or twice when I preferred it not to. The illumination and laser were well-suited to pistol distances, and were usable even for the farther rifle targets when it came to IR. It was as pain-free an experience as I’ve had from a pistol-mounted light, and that is really saying something.

I experienced two more serious problems:

1. The GL4 Pro became loose on one gun. This was my CCF Race Frame Glock-alike, which uses a Picatinny-style accessory rail. Switching to the larger rail insert on the GL4 Pro mostly fixed this. There was still a little back-and-forth due to the slots being ever-so-slightly bigger than they should be on the pistol, but the springs in the mount recentered the GL4 Pro so that it retained zero even if you pushed it to the side a bit. To be honest, it’s a better mount design than I gave it credit for. (My VIR II also exhibited similar movement, so I know it’s the pistol.)
2. The GL4 Pro didn’t stay on during one course of fire. I was able to repeat the problem off in another bay. It resolved itself after swapping batteries using a spare I had in my helmet counterweight. This was a quick and easy operation which did not require dismounting the light, which you quickly appreciate when it comes to lasers and maintaining zero. I’m chalking it up to a bad battery until I determine otherwise.

When I got home every time, guess what? Both units were still zeroed. Nice job, RovyVon.

Conclusions: I think the GL4 Pro could use a touch more refinement in terms of the paddle controls (and removal of the potential for light NDs), but for the price, it’s pretty hard to beat. The Streamlight VIR II with the VWS EFL can throw IR illumination substantially further than the GL4 Pro and has better battery life, but zeroing the IR laser on the VIR II is a pain in the neck, and the mount is somewhat substandard (which means you may be zeroing it multiple times).

The jury is out with regards to durability, but the overall build quality feels very high, and RovyVon enjoys a good reputation for its EDC lights. The warranty is two years, which isn’t as long as Surefire’s lifetime warranty, but is reasonable at this price point. Another question mark is battery life. RovyVon lists it as half an hour, and, frankly, based on my usage, that might not be wrong. I suppose you’re paying for that increased illumination performance in battery life. On the plus side, you can run the GL4 Pro on RCR123As, so you don’t really need to spend a lot on batteries if you’re willing to swap between range trips, and the actual battery swap is painless and doesn’t require re-zeroing.

I do want to point out that if you aren’t in need of IR illumination, you are far better off with a Surefire X300 Turbo or a Streamlight TLR1-HL to provide white light output. While it’s fun to pretend you’re a cool guy oper8r oper8ing oper8ionally, functionality needs to take priority over form, and IR just isn’t a requirement for most people or guns. But if you need it all… the GL4 Pro is my new go-to until I have a reason to believe otherwise. RovyVon knocked out of the park with this MFAL.