Rifle lights........

For night pest destruction on private property I have been using a variety of lights on my rifles. Some are rifle mounted, some are headlamps like Lenser H 14's.
One thing I have noticed is that LED lights pick up all sorts of foreign crap floating in the air. ( Pollen, moisture etc) As an experiment I dragged out my 30yr old rifle mounted 'Lifelite' spot lamp and immediately noticed 2 main advantages......

1. Being a soft yellow light any animals picked up continued to look at the light instead of turning away.
2. Even in rain and fog, visibility of objects in the light improved drastically and there was a resulting lack of glare being reflected back on the 'shooter'.
I normally dont shoot beyond ranges of 75-100m and have now reverted to using the Lifelite as my go to light for shooting, reserving the LEd's for walking and general light.

Just wondering if others have had the same experience.

Here are a couple of boars shot using the lifelite last week.......when lit up both of them continued feeding and the light didnt bother them at all........others seen the same night immediately ran for the hills when lit up with led/cree chip lights.........Maybe they simply regarded the lifelite as a full moon......

Attachment 143516

Attachment 143523

now after repairing over 1200 led "hunting lights" as well as HID, halogen etc there is a reason. halogen and HID have a huge infra red spectrum which especially on rabbit makes them stare down the beam and startled. i did some tests and put an IR filter on a led light and my night vision just wouldnt know if it was switched on or not.
i just fitted a single IR LED to a 7 LED spotlight for a customer and he says it works wonders.
i could go into it further but most people would think its a boring subject. PM me if you want more info

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Originally Posted by gonetropo

now after repairing over 1200 led "hunting lights" as well as HID, halogen etc there is a reason. halogen and HID have a huge infra red spectrum which especially on rabbit makes them stare down the beam and startled. i did some tests and put an IR filter on a led light and my night vision just wouldnt know if it was switched on or not.
i just fitted a single IR LED to a 7 LED spotlight for a customer and he says it works wonders.
i could go into it further but most people would think its a boring subject. PM me if you want more info

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I think it's deLIGHTful!

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Originally Posted by canuck hunter

I think it's deLIGHTful!

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cheers, but if you are a leafs fan i will put you on ignore !! :P

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Originally Posted by gonetropo

cheers, but if you are a leafs fan i will put you on ignore !! :P

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Even if I was I wouldn't admit it. LOL

Have you ever had the problem of having a light on top of your scope and the light just blurs the target area and target.
Im not sure if its just from the zoom of the scope or the glare of the light is affecting the scope..

A bit of current through some tungsten makes for a much more pleasant light than LEDs. LEDs are not able to give a normal spectrum of white light - it's actually a mix of red, blue, maybe some green. And far too much blue content, and blue light scatters more, penetrates less, blinds/irritates animals more, as you've discovered.

LEDs of course require less power to run but battery technology has caught up and glow lamps should really come out of the cupboards now you no longer have to bring along a boy to carry the lead-acid accumulator.

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Originally Posted by Jusepy

Have you ever had the problem of having a light on top of your scope and the light just blurs the target area and target.
Im not sure if its just from the zoom of the scope or the glare of the light is affecting the scope..

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I got shocking haze from a scope-mounted torch on a gun with a stainless barrel. I've now mounted the torch under the rifle forend via picatinny rail and the problem has gone away.

I have hunted with someone who had a cheap hand held led with a red chip. Brilliant, it held animals for ages and has about 175 to 200 metres of useable range. Think it was stealth brand or something. No detectable scattering one in a maxtoch would be ideal I think.

My Maxtoch is a red LED. I've posted about it before. I like it. Pigs don't seem to mind it, although they simply may not be educated to it. Rabbits are quite variable in their response.

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Originally Posted by gonetropo

now after repairing over 1200 led "hunting lights" as well as HID, halogen etc there is a reason. halogen and HID have a huge infra red spectrum which especially on rabbit makes them stare down the beam and startled. i did some tests and put an IR filter on a led light and my night vision just wouldnt know if it was switched on or not.
i just fitted a single IR LED to a 7 LED spotlight for a customer and he says it works wonders.
i could go into it further but most people would think its a boring subject. PM me if you want more info

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How would a red LED go compared to to a std white one? I see some red LED lights for sale online
And what about a filter on a white LED light will it make any difference

I used a stud mounted picatinny rail from Accu Long Range. They also make a "wedge" that goes between the rail and the rifle to bring the mount in to parallel with the barrel. They do need to be pointing in the same direction! Even with that, it took a little trimming with some bicycle inner tube to get it just right.

yeah ive only had the spotlight setup on my air rifles , im yet to put the spotlight setup on my 22 mag and try it.
The rabbits I will be shooting with my air rifle will be under 30 m so I cant really put the spotlight on the bottom of the barrel as its a break barrel.
Ive come up with using my bike light and battery to spot them while I line them up and shoot them... yet too be successful !

@Phil_H you could try taping a toilet roll over end of light maybe cut top half out so you have shadow falling on barrel but full light everywhere else....sort of a scope sunshade in reverse.

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Originally Posted by Micky Duck

@Phil_H you could try taping a toilet roll over end of light maybe cut top half out so you have shadow falling on barrel but full light everywhere else....sort of a scope sunshade in reverse.

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I like this idea and will try it !!

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Originally Posted by Phil_H

I have exactly the same problem. I worked it out that for me, at least, the beam was falling across the barrel and reflecting back at the scope from the end of the suppressor.

Like @MB I am working on a solution to attach the beam to the underneath of the fore-stock. I believe this will work from experimenting by just holding it under the fore-stock with my forward hand. Not good for balance and stability so need to make some permanent attachment.

Cheers
Phil

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Move the bell of the torch behind the objective bell of your scope. This will put the barrel and suppressor under the shadow of your scope and the flaring will go away.

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Originally Posted by Mauser308

If there is any sort of moisture/fog/dust present the more horsepower the light the worse a backscatter problem you'll have.

Some filters are ok on some lights and some are shite, I played around with IR filters once and found variable results. Those Maxtoch sniper lights that are dedomed seem to hold animals OK, you're right some LED's are shocking for spooking animals.

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The really white LED light refracts in water droplets and comes back at you. You can see more if someone holds the torch a couple of meters away to your side. The de-doming changes the colour more to the red side of the spectrum with a warm yellow which doesn't refract the light the same, nor does it seem to spook animals as much.

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Originally Posted by Phil_H

I have exactly the same problem. I worked it out that for me, at least, the beam was falling across the barrel and reflecting back at the scope from the end of the suppressor.

Like @MB I am working on a solution to attach the beam to the underneath of the fore-stock. I believe this will work from experimenting by just holding it under the fore-stock with my forward hand. Not good for balance and stability so need to make some permanent attachment.

Cheers
Phil

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I had this exact problem with my shooter 2x the quickest easiest solution I found that worked with my dpt was a neoprene suppressor cover slip back down over the suppressor 'barrel nut' that was reflecting the light bouncing off the stainless back into the scope... Instant success. Only figured this on Wednesday night [emoji106]

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I've only run Leds in spotlights and can say that the deer don't hang around long IMO that's for sure. Maybe an old school light beam does provide something else?

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Originally Posted by gadgetman

Move the bell of the torch behind the objective bell of your scope. This will put the barrel and suppressor under the shadow of your scope and the flaring will go away.

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That one.


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Originally Posted by Phil_H

I have exactly the same problem. I worked it out that for me, at least, the beam was falling across the barrel and reflecting back at the scope from the end of the suppressor.

Like @MB I am working on a solution to attach the beam to the underneath of the fore-stock. I believe this will work from experimenting by just holding it under the fore-stock with my forward hand. Not good for balance and stability so need to make some permanent attachment.

Cheers
Phil

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A piece of PVC pipe with a lengthwise split and flared end works well as an under rifle mount for a hand held torch. Just slip the torch in when game is spotted. The PVC can be heated and bent so that it has a 'spring' fit around the torch

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Originally Posted by deepsouthaussie

I've only run Leds in spotlights and can say that the deer don't hang around long IMO that's for sure. Maybe an old school light beam does provide something else?

Sent from my ELE-L09 using Tapatalk

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Try a warming filter, see the image, you get the idea. High intensity lights invariably have over-blue as they go for intensity rather than usefulness, since more lumens sell better.

Attachment 143619

This guy gets a warming filter sheet, you can see about the light orange-brown / sienna / ocre colour you need as you scrounge around.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeghmvHoJ18

One hack is to use an orange or pink highlighter pen on the lens, but it does not stay on when wet. You can however cover the lens with sellotape, use the highlighter on that surface, then let it dry and "lock it in" with another layer of sellotape.

Just put "barrel torch mount" in on trade me and you will see a similar one I have and it is cheap as.
Just got annoying with a bipod really but other than that handy as. I got a 30mm ring to use with one of my torches.

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Originally Posted by Phil_H

Yep, did that @TLB, but apart from the "Sling Stud" attachment, I wouldn't touch the others as they attached directly to the barrel and will impact the zero, unless you zero and shoot with the attachment and torch permanently mounted.....as I understand it. Please feel free anyone in the know to correct me if I am wrong.

Cheers
Phil

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Maybe, I don't think it would impact it that much though unless it was on either a poorly bedded rifle or something high recoiling, you probably wouldn't barrel mount on the latter anyhow.
I had mine on a .223 and head and neck shot maybe 30 deer and a fair few hares with it no problem at all.
Every rifle is different though.