UKC

I'm a mountain rescue volunteer and I've got a couple of pretty good headtorches, however, they don't have a great throw - I can't use them to pick out objects a long way away. The team has a few big Led Lenser lights which are great but big and bulky.

What I'd like is a recommendation either for a more focus-able headtorch which is comparably rugged to the black diamond ones, or  prefrabbly a supplemental hand held torch which would fit in a pocket and be bright with a long throw. It would also need to be as weather resistant and rugged as possible. And not too pricey cos its a personal purchase

thanks for your help

Petzl swift.

I assume that the black diamond you have is the icon? If not the 700 lumen version is pretty good.

In the end though for night into daylight  I think it is still the led lenser H19. A couple of people I know have them and they make the swift and icon look like a Petzl zoom without the halogen bulb. Maybe not quite but they make night nav excercises a bit easier... 

+1 for the swift. on full whack in clear conditions its reach is amazing and the reactive lighting is game changing. 

Team issue torches for us is actually a bike light: exxposure Maxx D.... they really do throw out a lot of light but are expensive. its a very useable flood beam with maybe 200M of reach if weather allows. 

The best I've found is the Emisar D1S which got recommended to me on reddit.com/r/flashlight which is full of torch nerds. It's survived multiple callouts and been dropped off a small crag into a stream without much cosmetic damage and still totally functional. It's very very bright, throws over 500m and fits into a pocket. Our team issue LED lenser, which perform worse and are unreliable. As a supplement to a floody headtorch it's been really excellent and other team members have bought them after seeing mine. I also bought a zebra light headtorch so that all the torches I've got use Li-ion 18650 batteries so I can carry charged spares which fit all my lights. I got sick and tired of the mountain of discarded AAAs!

Thanks where did you get it from ? they seem great but i cant find anywhere selling them.

The Lenser P7 or P7.2 is a great torch, very weather resistant and rugged. I've had a couple for 10 years now and they do get abused often. Small enough to fit in your pocket, great beam which can be focused and 2 brightness options as well as flashing.

Price wise you can usually find a deal on Amazon for about £30.

I got mine from intl-outdoor.com but that was a year or two ago and they don't seem to have them any more. They have got other pocket throwers though. If I was you I'd ask on that subreddit and get the geek hive mind to recommend you something.

Fenix HM65R - number of our team are using them for surface and underground shots and for caving in general.

And you should get a discount if in an MRT

That's a handheld torch?

Seems name / brand change to Nocton.

Those light forums set new standards in geeking out!

Fenix HM65R

Noctigon.

Sorry, recently updated phone and damn auto text keeps changing my words. Have since turned it off

Looks good. Prefer the t model.

https://www.fenixlighting.com/blog/the-fenix-hm65r-and-hm65r-t-whats-the-di...

I use a Fenix TK16 for work. Rechargeable and a max output of 3100 lumens. The beam is more flood than spot, but that’s handier when searching large areas, and the throw is a good 300 metres (says 380 on the box but I think that’s stretching it a bit). Small and waterproof, fairly rugged and though the build quality doesn’t feel as good as LED lenser, it’s certainly far, far brighter than their comparable models.

Steve,

I am also with M.R and the couple of torches I use are:

Headtorch - Led Lenser 14.2R. Very bright and good long beam. Rechargeable but can take aa batts, which I keep as spares. 

Handtorch - Led Lenser MT14 rechargeable. I find this excellent as it's half the weight and size of our old big, heavy P14 but the beam length and brightness seem as good as the old P14.

Most others on the team use smaller lighter headtorches, as we all have the handtorch but with my old eyes, I also prefer the brighter headtorch, especially in bad conditions.

With both being rechargeable, easy to plug in straight after coming off the hill.

May not fit your affordable range, but I've had a Lupine Piko headtorch for several years, the quality is superb. They do a handheld version as well.

My headtorch gets used at work (heavy engineering) all year round and on my MTB. compared to my colleagues torches (petzl, LED lenser etc) it seems a better light to work with and lasts a good while, even on the small battery.

I'm interested in the recommendations here.  For what it's worth, I have a Thrunite Catapult V6 and it's a fantastic thrower.  I'm not sure how robust it would be for MRT use - you'd have to look after it.  Beam distance is at least 700m which is pretty good for quite a compact torch.  Price was about £80 I think.

Actually it was £58.50 which I think is excellent value (found my receipt).  

Also handy if one of your less salubrious customers gets violent too, looking at that pointy bezel..

The thought never occurred to me!

It does have a handy button that initiates a random strobe pattern at 3100 lumens, which should be quite enough to temporarily blind someone, allowing me to scuttle off as rapidly as my stout little legs can carry me 😁

What do people consider to be identifiable at 'beam distance'? Finding a person in red clothes on a cliff? Finding a person in black on a cliff?  700m for example is a bloody long way to see!

A grey moth against a tree trunk at night?

This is a comprehensive review and guide for torches, worth a read https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/torch-buying-guide-faq-2021-updated.1...