HID light for shooting at night

[JohnGalway]

Have you seen this thread: Ryobi 35W, 18V HID ?

Norm

Thanks Norm, it sounds a good light, but I need one that I can attach to a rifle scope, not sure how I'd manage to do that and line it up correctly with the Ryobi.

 

[Toster]

Plan B is to bait the area with phosphorescent bait that will make all the foxes glow in the dark.

I just about lost my coke when I read that... that is funny right there!

 

[CouldUseALight]

We often discussed setting up PIR sensors around bait. Have it rigged up to power a light over the bait, nothing severe, just enough to light up bait and critter.

Thinking about your application, I kept arriving at something like this. You've gotta set it up all the way down there but it might turn out simpler than building a super high-performance gun-mounted light!

Good luck with the conversion! Please keep us posted on your thoughts and results.

Those foxes are beautiful; the ones we get in Texas are hard-bitten indeed! Those look like they've been eating...a bit TOO well.

 

[JohnGalway]

Thinking about your application, I kept arriving at something like this. You've gotta set it up all the way down there but it might turn out simpler than building a super high-performance gun-mounted light!

Good luck with the conversion! Please keep us posted on your thoughts and results.

Those foxes are beautiful; the ones we get in Texas are hard-bitten indeed! Those look like they've been eating...a bit TOO well.

We've never honestly found baiting to work too well. We, my buddy & I, prefer to get to know the foxes habits. For example, I go to a new area, so naturally I know nothing about it, scout it out during the day if possible to get the lay of the land. What we then have to figure out is, where do the foxes come from, what direction, what times, where are they going to, and why? That's found by spending time on the ground, and it's information that'll project years into the future onto other foxes not yet born, because it'll be to do with feeding grounds, lay up sites, and dens, and fox paths or "highways". With all that information then I can set about thinking where is a good spot to sit out and wait, that I have a good field of view, that I am between where my foxes are coming from and where they want to go. It's very valuable information that way.

There's nothing especially high performance from the lights, I just have expectations. Those are that I can shoot accurately and safely out to 300 yards on a good night, so my light must keep up with my requirements. This is pretty normal stuff over this side of the Atlantic really. The technology is moving on now from high draw incandescent bulbs to lower draw light sources like LED and HID. But, it's still all evolving so there are teething issues at the moment. Tonight I shot a fox at 180 yards using the Crelant 7g5cs with collimator head and neutral tint (I removed the pointless window pane at the front of the collimator head). Then I shot a second fox at 210 yards later with a Nightmaster 800 (dereelight). I know how my bullet drops, and when there's little or no wind I can shoot a fox out to 300 yards, so I expect my light to keep up with me. The Lightforce Striker with the 100W bulb could do that, but the price is a heavy 28amp lead acid battery on my back, that's just masochistic given the newer technologies available to us now.

So the HID, yeah, I am excited about this. Personally I see it as another stepping stone, rather than my destination. If it works as expected I'll still need a battery in a backpack. Though I can either use a smaller amp, and therefore lighter, lead acid, or I can go Li-ion (don't really want to due to expense and seeing pics of them after exploding).

Since I am so happy with the Thrunite TN31 as my search light, I am eagerly awaiting an LED torch that can do what I need it to do. Then I can be wire and large battery free. Operate with torches that use the same batteries and same chargers, that simplifies my life.

And yes, foxes are magnificent creatures, I just wish they were vegetarians and didn't eat my lambs come Spring time. I could get a lot more sleep that way, lol.

Those are my thoughts in a nutshell tonight.

 

[JohnGalway]

Had my scope mounted HID out in anger tonight, shot two foxes, can be read on my blog link in sig.

I hope these pics below are OK for the forum

30W 4300k HID conversion for Lightforce 170

 

[Devildude]

Have you thought of the STL-V6 from onestopthrowshop? It is has springs on both ends so it might handle the recoil and I have seen that at 300 yards even the spill is fairly good and the hotspot is only about 30 or 40 feet in diameter. The only issue I see is that it might be too bright even at that distance and the plus is that it is a nice neutral tint. it uses 18650's to help keep the weight down a big plus for scope mounting. Another plus is the instant on capability over HID's just somethings to think about.

 

[JohnGalway]

I have talked to Saab about it, he doesn't think what I want in a torch is available............. yet

 

[Dave1988]

Hey John, I see you're still on the hunt for the ultimate scope mounted light.
Man I just got the dereelight xsearcher and I use the ez900 q5 pill out of my nightmaster. It's insane, i can see the fox at 500m with ease. Ive got a pretty good scope though. As far as I'm concerned it is what we are looking for. Having said that, saabluster has mentioned he will probably offer a modified version of it, which will probably be like 17 times more powerful than the stock one. So that might be worth waiting for. I'd love it to be powerful enough to put a red filter on and be able to throw red light out to 500. The foxes would have no chance. Soooo many foxes around atm!

 

[JohnGalway]

Hey Dave that's good to hear, I will probably end up waiting for that 1 to be modified. I am still experimenting with lights at the moment bUT I don't really want to spend any more money until I see Saabs offering!

Shot 4 with the hid so far but not many foxes around this part of the world right now.

 

[yearnslow]

John, I hunted in England for many years with various calibres, my prefered for Foxes was a .243 with 80g soft point bullets.
In relation to hunting at night, I never really found it necessary, as most of the foxes I killed were shot in the early morning,
or at dusk.
I'm sure you know this already, but I always found these times of day a bit safer than shooting into the dark!
And you could save a small fortune on lamping gear! :thumbsup:

 

[JohnGalway]

Have to say my existence of foxes has been different. Foxes can be around any time of the day, the vast majority will be out in darkness hours though. We don't shoot them for sport, we're sheep farmers and also shoot for other farmers. It's predator control. I could honestly count on one hand the number of foxes I've seen in daylight compared to the hundreds I've shot at night. Shooting at night is not dangerous, once a couple of simple common sense rules are observed. Always have a suitable backstop, always positively id the animal by it's body. very, very hard to go wrong once those two are observed.

 

[DTF]

The Deerelight Nightmaster has already been mentioned but not that it is possible to order both red and green pills for it. Just got a Nightmaster with the red pill and went "hunting" with my gorden setter, Jaqi, last night. It was silly easy to spot Jaqi 150 plus yards away (she's a "big runner." The red reflection from her eyes was remarkably brilliant at even the furthest distance. It was easy to light up areas over 300 yards away. Not sure if there is a better high intensity red hunting light out there.