The Browning Hunt Master is Excellent for the Price

While most lights of this quality will cost hundreds of dollars, Browning has put the Hunt Master LED onto the market at a considerably lower price, and they’ve done it without parring back the quality. The Hunt Master has all the power one could want, is of a very robust and quality construction, and costs less than one hundred dollars. That alone will be enough to draw people in, with the expansion of the LED market over the last few years, and they’ll be hooked once they have actually tested the light and seen it in use.

With an aluminum body and olive drab coloring, the Hunt Master looks quite at home in the woods. The body is very thin for most of its length, only around the size of large highlighting marker, and then fans out at the end to encompass the lens, which is boasted to be unbreakable. At just over six and a half inches long, this makes the Hunt Master very convienient as far as carrying is concerned; when moving about in the woods, it doesn’t have the bulky quality that is constatly catching on things, and one’s arm will not get tired just from carrying it. This is great for long stretches of time, and it can fit easily in a belt or pocket to get it out of the way if something urgent arises.

A compact, powerful little tool, the Hunt Master pumps out a fair bit of light. It uses three CR123 batteries, which will cost a little bit themselves, but it is worth it. The three Luxeon Rebel LED’s that the batteries power put out 300 lumens, giving one all the illumination in the woods that one could want. It can easily light up the tops of trees, groups of trees a long way off, and bushes more than eighty feet away. The light it puts out is not just barely trickling to the tops of the trees, either; it is getting there with strength, so that things can actually be seen. It lights the tree up so that the individual branches can be made out with no trouble at all, not just so that it turns from a dark green blur into a light green blur. Those tree tops, also, are no mere forty feet away. They are one hundred to two hundred feet away. That is a lot of power for a light so little it looks like the handle is the size of a small tube of toothpaste.

The main problem with the light is that it can not run at its highest capacity for hours on end. Granted, most people won’t need it for that long, but it would be nice if the availability was there. What happens is that the light decreases its output every so often after it has been on constantly for a while. The problem is not the light output itself, but the heat that the light produces. If this gets to too high of a level, the bulbs can be damaged, so there is a built-in protection system that dims the light and thus reduces the heat. This can be combated by turning the light off and allowing it to cool, and should be naturally combated by colder weather.

Overall, this light would be rated a four out of five. The power, size, and durability all play in its favor, as does the low price. The main drawback of the powering down has to take it down somewhat, however, as it could become quite frustrating in the woods. Still, quite a good little flashlight without breaking the bank.