Firstly I am not in anyway connected to Torchguy or Brinyte, this is simply my experience with regards to both the seller and the product.
Just a word about the seller before talking about the flashlight. I did not personally deal with Mark from www.torchguy.com as the flashlight was a gift from my father. I did however get a chance to read the emails that accompanied the purchase and the correspondence thereafter.
I would just like to state that we are truly blessed in South Africa to have a local supplier who is so passionate and knowledgeable about flashlights and who is willing to go the extra mile for his clients.
I encourage anyone from South Africa who is interested in obtaining a new flashlight to support him and his business.
Below is the review, it is not aimed at serious modders as there is still a lot more details about the flashlight that I did not touch on. I do however hope that anyone considering this light will find this review to be of some help.
If anyone has any specific questions I would be more than happy to answer to the best of my ability.
Review of the Brinyte B158
I was pretty excited to receive the Brinyte B158 as an early Christmas gift. It has been on my radar for a while now.
Zoomies have had a bad reputation among flashlight enthusiasts for as long as I can remember. It is not so much because of a problematic concept, but rather that the manufacturers tend to either build zoomies to a lower standard or they do not incorporate features to make them truly useful or reliable.
Fixed focus aspheric lights can be built to be amazing throwers and for a single purpose light they are exceptional. No reflector can compare to the throw capabilities of a lens of an equal diameter.
Zoomies as the name suggests are not fixed focus flashlights. They incorporate a mechanism to focus or de-focus the beam by varying the distance between the emitter and the lens. Doing this gives these lights the ability to be used as both flood lights and throwers.
It sounds great in theory, but as many manufacturers have come to realise, is a very difficult concept to get right. Many of these lights end up being a bad compromise rather than incorporating the best of both worlds.
Brinyte may have finally built something that will change the negative perception forever.
Holding the B158, one can instinctively tell that you have a well-built, high quality piece of engineering in your hand.
The head diameter is 54mm, which is large for a pocket size light, but quite small for such a monster thrower. Inside the head is an easily swappable brass pill, housing the 17mm driver and the LED.
The light, when screwed in to flood mode is only around 145mm in length, making it quite a bit shorter than the very popular C8. Two full turns of the tail to focus it, and it measures around 170mm long, still not much longer than the C8.
The B158 weighs in at 249g without the battery, on the heavier side for this size light. This isn’t a bad thing as it will definitely help with heat management if one decides to mod this with a high current driver.
The lens is made of a hard plastic, possibly poly-carbonate. It is more prone to scratching than glass, but it won’t crack or shatter when dropped. The lens, I might add, seems to be of superior quality compared to other lights in its class.
All threads come pre-lubricated and operate smoothly.
The threads on the tail cap and head are triangular, whereas the threads on the zooming mechanism are square cut. All threads are anodized, allowing for lockout functionality by means of slightly unscrewing the tail cap. Anodizing has a nice matt finish. The quality of the finish appears to be exceptional with no scratches or uneven areas to be found anywhere on the light.
At the rear is a forward clicky switch under a rubber button. The rail mount gets attached by two screws on two “anti-roll ring” like pieces behind the head. I do like this method of mounting and it does seem very sturdy. I believe it would hold up very well on smaller calibre rifles. If, however, you plan to mount this light on a high calibre rifle, I would advise on using something like a scope mount around the section of tube behind the “anti-roll rings”
The light is capable of tail standing, though the large head makes it a bit top heavy.
Water proofing has been a major issue with zoomies since their introduction. This was due to the fact that moving parts and an external mechanism of manipulating these parts have to be included to adjust the focus.
To my knowledge, the B158 is the only widely available light that has overcome this problem. They achieved it by incorporating seals inside the zooming mechanism to stop water from getting in. I did not personally test this, but a quick search on the Internet will reveal a couple of others submerging this light in a bucket of water while turned on and, even in some cases, going as far as manipulating the zooming mechanism.
I really wouldn’t recommend anyone to do this as it would create a negative pressure inside the like which could suck in water. It does, however, show just how good the manufacturing and design of this light truly is.
The light features easily changeable pills allowing for a variety of different emitter choices.
I got two pills with my B158, one with what looks like an XP-E2 Red emitter. The other with an XP-L HI, and judging by the tint I would guess it to be a V2-1A. Both came with single mode drivers, which make life easier when using the remote switch that I got as an optional extra. There is also a 5 mode driver available for the pill with the XP-L emitter for those who would prefer to have more brightness levels available.
I am not sure what drivers where used in either of these. I doubt that they are the same for both. The drivers appear to be press fitted or possibly glued. I did not bother to take the pills apart at this point as they are both very useful and I did not want to damage them. I may buy another pill to mod with an exotic emitter like the L4P version of the Oslon black flat or simply a sliced XP-G2. Either of these have the potential of reaching close to or exceeding 300 000 cd with the right driver.
My light meter and clamp meter are in storage so I could not do proper testing of current draw or lux and could not conduct a ceiling bounce.
I’ll give my best estimates on the throw potential though. This is at best, an educated guess so don’t take these figures as fact. More just a ball park figure of what to expect.
The user manual lists the light output with an XM-L2 U4 to be around 900 lumen in flood mode. This would put the amp draw very close to 3 amps.
It also gives a light intensity value of 52000 cd with the above mentioned emitter.
This light, with the factory dedomed XPL HI running at the same current with an aspheric lens should get a value of at least 100 000 cd, very likely slightly higher at around 110-130 000 cd.
Comparing this to my 160 000 cd HID’s hotspot. I would say that this light comes very close.
The beam, when focused, is remarkably clean compared to other zoomies and the rings around the beam are hardly noticed in real world use. I tested the throw out to about 400m and it could definitely go further. A reflector based light with a similar cd rating would not look as bright at that distance due to the spill.
When de-focused, the flood beam is very usable out to about 50m and it really does light up an area well.
In conclusion, this light has exceeded my expectations of what is possible in a zoomie. There is still a lot I would like to say about this exceptionally impressive piece of flashlight engineering.
Honestly though, I do not think that there is another light in its class aside from some very hard to find limited addition anomalies.
It is great value for money and really does incorporate many flashlights into one.
I believe that every serious flashlight enthusiast should have one of these in their collection.