The LumaHunter is the tactical line-up from LumaPower, consisting of rugged, powerful lights with a feature set that tends to appeal to the tactical community, IE military and law-enforcement but also emergency personnel and even hardcore outdoors types that want an exceedingly durable light.
The M1-T is a mid-range offering in the LumaHunter line-up and here are the raw specs.
Features and Specifications:
Runtime Data:
The M1-T is not a small light. It's pretty big, although not too big for pocket carry. It fits the hand very well and offers pretty good retention just from the shape itself.
There is a kind of knurling on the tail cap and the barrel of the light, but frankly I found this knurling to be largely useless.
The knurling is pretty much the only thing that needs improvement.
Here you can see the M1-T next to a modified SureFire KL3 head on a G2 body.
As you can see, I went in and added some texturing to the knurled portions of the M1-Ts body. I then deposited tungsten carbide on top of the texturing.
And here is the M1-T in almost all it's constituent parts. The light engine and the switch mechanism itself were not removed, but come out easily enough. As you can see, the M1-T is designed from the ground up to be easy to upgrade and modify. Excellent design.
The tailcap is really well-designed. The button is well-protected by two raised sections that are also cut to allow the attachment of a lanyard. The standard button is a straight-forward momentary switch with twist-on permanent on function. This is a very smooth button design and one that is inherently more waterproof than the typical momentary buttons you see on for instance Surefire lights.
The other switch - that can be easily swapped out - is a reverse clicky switch with two levels.
The sequence is off-low-high-off.
You can also buy, as a separate accessory, a forward clicky switch. I have one of these and for the 11 dollars that they cost, they're a great add-on. Solid function and very responsive.
The tailcap and other threads on my example were smooth and well-lubed. The tail end has two O-rings for added waterproofing and the threads on both the body and the tailcap itself are hard anodized, which provides much greater wear resistance and generally smoother action.
The pocket clip is a bit of a mixed bag. It works, putting the light in your pocket with the bezel facing up. But it's a little flimsy and I don't care for the bezel-up position. I've ended up taking it off, which is very easy to do. You simply unscrew the head and it comes right out.
There is no anti-roll bezel, but I don't much care for that myself anyways. It tends to make the light bulkier than it needs to be.
One very nice thing about LumaPower's lights is that they are almost all entirely modular. New tailcap buttons, new reflectors, new LED modules, all are available for repair parts or for a simple upgrade to the power and output of the light!
The finish on the M1-T is, like stated in the specs, a Type III hard anodizing. The example I have is a natural or clear hard anodizing, so it's a nice subdued gray.
It's a fairly matte finish, but it shows off the excellent and clean machining done by LumaPower.
There's a bit of color variation between the individual parts, but I find this to be only a minor annoyance and it's no different than what you see with many other manufacturers.
This light is also available in a black finish, which appears from the pictures to be a bit shinier than the gray.
Now, for the business end.
The reflector is deep and well-made on the M1-T. I'm using the Orange Peel reflector for a smoother beam and while you lose a bit of throw this way, this light still throws like crazy. Really good range, great for picking out stuff at a distance. At the same time, it provides a very useful spill-beam so overall beam quality is really good.
Combined with the excellent job LumaPower is doing with their LED bin selections, the beam is bright and very white. Something that LumaPower is doing far better than more expensive offerings from other companies.
The lens on the M1-T is mineral glass, and anti-reflective coated so it does little to diminish the output and since it's well-protected by the strike bezel, it's unlikely to get scratched or otherwise damaged. The lens is waterproofed with a glow-in-the-dark O-ring.
This also provides a handy way to locate the light in the dark if you've dropped it, as does the glow-in-the-dark switch cover.
I use both, since I often take my light into dark places.
Speaking of which, the strike bezel on the M1-T is quite nice. It's fairly subtle, IE it doesn't scream weapon to anybody that look at it, but would still serve as a nice force multiplier if you had to hit someone with it.
I've had the opportunity to use the M1-T in a variety of different conditions and with a variety of different batteries.
Now, while you lose a tiny bit of output when you use a single 18650 lithium-ion rechargeable battery, I find that the vastly increased runtime is a huge bonus and it's a trade-off I'm perfectly willing to make.
Most recently, I took it into an old, abandoned mine. It performed, like always, flawlessly and was very useful when looking into a deep shaft. The beam pierces that eternal blackness like a lightsaber! The clean whiteness of the beam is also handy when looking at mineral samples since it closely resembles sunlight and gives you a good idea of the actual color.
All in all, if you're looking for a rugged, bright, tough and well-designed light, the LumaPower M1-T is a great option, especially since the price is WELL below a hundred dollars!
I plan on keeping this one for a very long time to come, and since LumaPower is great about making upgrade modules available for their lights, I expect to get years and years of use out of this light. Highly recommended.
Thanks go to a certain marine mammal for providing me with this light!
Beamshots will be forthcoming!
No comments:
Post a Comment