Hi Rob.
Not sure how much help I can be, but I’ll offer up what I can.
1. Don’t believe any lumen claim from any budget torch maker, especially Chinese ones. In some cases they simply quote the theoretical maximum the emitter could produce under ideal conditions, but a lot of the time they are just plain made up lies. Also OTF (out the front) lumens will always be lower than what the LED can produce due to loses from the lens, reflector and head.
2. There are a lot of emitter types. Most flashlighs (although by no means all) use CREE LEDs. There are several different types of LED and each type is then sub devided into a ‘BIN’ category. Basically the higher the ‘BIN’ the brighter that example of emitter is. There’s some good info here: Cree - Flashlight Wiki
However some common emitters you’ll come across are:
XM-L
XP-G
XR-E
The XM-L is large emitter so it produces a large hot spot and has the highest lumen rating of all the emitters. Common bins are T6, U2 and the just released U3. Meaning a U2 driven to the same level will be brighter than a T6.
Something else to watch for, while you have the emitter name, the ‘BIN’ you also then get tint classifications, although many sellers will not list this. But if you see things like 1C listed then it’s referring to the tint colour of the LED.
XP-G’s are a good all round emitter, physically a lot smaller than an XM-L and produce less lumens.
XR-E’s are some of the older emitters dating back from 2006. These are also very small, produce the least lumens but are favoured because they are cheap and can throw well. Q5 is a common ‘BIN’ of XR-E emitters.
3. Don’t get hung up on LUMENS. It’s a bit like “torque” with cars. Just because you have more of it, doesn’t mean it’ll be fast/shine further.
For example:
An XM-L makes more lumens because the hot spot is many times bigger, i.e. there is a greater volume of light being emitted.
The lest most light is an XM-L, see how much bigger the hot spot is:
The biggest thing this does is light up a “wider” area.
4. Throw relies largely on several factors:
-emitter size
-surface brightness
-reflector size
In relative terms a smaller emitter in the same sized reflector will offer up more throw. e.g. if you have a torch with a 3/4” wide reflector a lesser lumen XP-G will likely project the beam further than a higher lumen XM-L will.
Surface brightness is hugely important to throw and this is were the old XR-E does very well. It’s tiny but it also has the highest surface brightness of all the CREE LEDs.
A larger reflector will help with throw over the same LED in a smaller reflector.
Special lenses like TIR’s and aspherics can enhance throw and make more of a beam as you’ve seen. But the other factors still remain true, basically a smaller higher surface brightness emitter will still out throw larger higher lumen ones.
The only real downside here is, XR-E’s while they can throw the furthest they can become quite ‘laser’ like and will only have a tiny hot spot and no spill light. This means while they can reach a long way you won’t be able to light up much at a time.
5. Drivers. Last up is how well the light is being driven. Even if you have the right emitter and in a high ‘BIN’ category, if the driver (electronics) aren’t supplying the right current to the LED then it will under perform. This is common with many budget lights. Now if you have an interest in this you can buy new driver boards (and emitters) and fit them or upgrade existing lights. Some are easier than others to do this to however.
If you want something that can chuck out a tun of light and still offer up some good throw then the Ultrafire HD2010 seems very popular:
It is an XM-L equipped torch, but the LED is driven hard in HIGH and combined with a large reflector it is very effective.
Something like the Jacob A60 which uses an XR-E can probably throw further, but the beam will be a lot more narrow and a lot less light over all.
If you want more then you need to look at some good aspheric lights or build one. This can be in the form of a modded MagLite, a p60 based light, Crelant, Dereelight and a good number of others.