Thread: Red LED torch recommendation?

Originally Posted by sneeze

Iv spent a bit of time with red and green lights. Over a good sample I couldnt definatly say animals held any better. Sometimes they did sometimes they didnt and the percentages seemed much the same with the white lights. I havnt kept any.

Interesting. When we were culling deer on crops we found the opposite. Deer which were getting spotlighted quite regularly would almost ignore the red light completely. Even to the point where we had deer keep walking towards us or keep feeding when the light was put on them. Never really tested it on varmints.


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Yeah I cant say Iv tried them in that particular situation, just normal meat gathering with pigs and deer and a heap of rabbits and hares. Iv seen plenty of deer run towards a standard spotlight. The reduction in light with the colours we found to be a big negative so we just use the standard maxtoch now.

Yeah, I'm not overwhelmed by the argument for red light. I needed a spotting torch in addition to the one mounted on my rimfire, so thought I might give it a go. As far as output goes, there is a big difference between a red LED and a red filter put on a white torch which is why I started this thread. Having said that output from a red LED is significantly less than the white equivalent.

Yes you are right about the filter vs coloured led. Green was the worst for output by far.
Be interesting to see how you find it.

Out shooting last night on Canterbury farm, popping some bunnies and any pigs that showed themselves. Picked up 5 reds - spiker and some hinds - with the Maxtochs at about 200m. White light did not seem to trouble them and could easily have dropped one or two. Left them however as farmer and his mates like to shoot them. Nice to see but..

Used the Maxtoch red LED for the first time. The light is very focused, so you get a laser beam effect which only lights up a small area. This isn't a bad thing for a spotting torch in my opinion. It was lighting up sheep eyes at 200 metres, but at this distance, it wasn't lighting anything else particularly effectively. At closer ranges, it was better. The first bunny it lit up didn't even twitch and I thought this thing is bloody awesome! Four subsequent bunnies were all scared by the red light, so I'm not convinced that red light doesn't scare them. It was definitely better as far as maintaining night vision goes. There was also an unexpected benefit. I mounted it on my scope just to see how it would go and there was no issue at all with reflection from the barrel in to the scope. In summary, I like it and want another one! One for spotting and one scope mounted. However, I don't think it has magical properties in terms of not scaring animals.

Originally Posted by MightyBoosh

Used the Maxtoch red LED for the first time. The light is very focused, so you get a laser beam effect which only lights up a small area. This isn't a bad thing for a spotting torch in my opinion. It was lighting up sheep eyes at 200 metres, but at this distance, it wasn't lighting anything else particularly effectively. At closer ranges, it was better. The first bunny it lit up didn't even twitch and I thought this thing is bloody awesome! Four subsequent bunnies were all scared by the red light, so I'm not convinced that red light doesn't scare them. It was definitely better as far as maintaining night vision goes. There was also an unexpected benefit. I mounted it on my scope just to see how it would go and there was no issue at all with reflection from the barrel in to the scope. In summary, I like it and want another one! One for spotting and one scope mounted. However, I don't think it has magical properties in terms of not scaring animals.

I mount the torch so that the barrel is in the shadow of the scope bell in order to cut out reflection. I didn't like the red LED as the output was too low and it didn't have a wide enough beam. Also since red is the opposite side of the colour wheel to green anything green comes back as a black nothing.

OK I'm going to re-energise this thread and ask a very specific question:

Has anyone here got any definitive experience of using a powerful red LED torch (e.g. Maxtoch X Pro) for shooting deer at night?

Do deer spook with the red LED or not, as different from a red filter over a white light (which in my experience was piss poor).

I haven’t shot any with it but did catch a few deer in the red beam of a Maxtoch Shooter 2X, mostly in a spot in South Westland where I doubt they see many (if any) spot lights. The first were a group of deer we had been seeing on a terrace on the opposite side of a river, so one night after dark we had a look to see if they were there. As soon as the light came on they fled for their lives - range was around 250-300m.

In another spot a hind trotted towards us briefly to look at the light, then turned and ran off. Both times the light was turned on suddenly rather than scanning with it continuously, so this may be why they ran, but I have since had the led changed to white.

Conversely, my son has a Maxtoch headlamp and has seen deer quite a few times while walking back to camp in the dark, and they are not at all bothered by the dull white light. He managed to walk up to within about 15m of a group one night before they started getting edgy - the main difference I guess is his headlamp was on continuously so they weren’t startled by the light switching on.

I have this https://www.weltool.com/page137?product_id=123

Pretty impressive. You're welcome to take it for a spin.

A few weeks back we were at one of our local huts. Outside having a smoke 10 ish pm and heard movement. Shone the lenser p7 on a red maybe 10 mtr away. It just looked up. Turned torch off. 30 sec later turned torch back on and it was still there. Kept torch on it and it turned and slowly walked away after a noise from the hut. 5 min later it was back in exactly same spot and I kept torch on it for a good 30 sec or more while it fed. Didn't seem to bother it at all. Next night same thing with a fallow in the bush line maybe 6 mtrs away. Kept lighting it up randomly for 15 or more minutes , it would just briefly look up then keep feeding. Not a shit given. The kids loved it and got a real good look at live deer at close range.

I've got a red maxtorch. It scares deer just as well as a white light. Sometimes they run and sometimes not. The colour dosent seem to make any difference.
I think the led ones are too strong.

Yer, I tend to agree with Brian. certainly just banging them on certainly gives them a fright. It can help to start the light either up in the air or down on the ground and slowly 'walk' it onto the potential deer holding ground, slowly so that you pick them up in the side glow the lens throws, instead of the main super bright core of the beam. Have held sika on the side of a white beam for quite a while, while mate sets up bipod etc.