Thread: Maxtoch Shooter 2x vs my hunting torches

From a hunting perspective, IMHO, a head lamp is your best method of searching and finding your prey (way safer than waving your gun all over the place with your gun mounted light), then once found, turn on you gun mounted light for the shot. Using a head lamp keeps your hands free for the important job of controlling your gun.

Therefore, for me, run time on the gun light is not a big issue as it is only on for short bursts. For this reason, I sold and/or gave away all of my 2 battery torches (including two Maxtorch's) and changed over to a single battery torch. Its smaller, lighter, and far easier to manage batteries because you don't have to try and match battery capacities or charge levels - just throw any single battery in and when its done, change it out. This is particularly helpful what your batteries are getting close to end of life but you are too Irish to throw them out (like me).

For the headlamp, I have mounted a bike type light onto the top of a safety bump cap (the light weight caps with a slip over fabric peak on the front), mounted to the best balance point for comfortable wearing, which for me is close to the crown of the cap. I use two of 4x battery pack holders that allow you to change out the batteries. When one runs flat (2-3 hours run time) I change it over and if need be, put a fresh set into the dead holder ready for the next change.
The peak on the cap is important as it shields the light from the front lens on your scope, removing reflections.
I also have my light outputs such that the head lamp output is slightly less than the gun mounted light. That way I know that if I can see the animal in the headlamp, I will be able to see it better in the gun light and guarantee a safe and humane kill.

In addition, I don't mount my torch to the scope or the rifle barrel. I have found that the best place to mount the light is under the fore end. Its way more ergonomic to raise the rifle to a shooting position using the body of the torch as a rest for your forehand and thumb the light on to take the shot. To achieve his I have routered a flat spot on the fore end of the two rifles I use for night shooting, with the routered section being parallel to the barrel channel and mounted a 2" section of rail to the stock to accept the torch mount.

Just some thoughts on how I manage lighting, but each to their own.