Ok so went out earlier to see if any deer would ignore my crunchy footsteps in the frozen snow. As expected they laughed at me from a distance.
Anyhow, i stayed out in the cold until it got dark, more than an hour after sunset and had a play with this Vastlite Bow LEP (not the minima Bow) Certainly no molten foxes or rabbits as it is a much softer beam at distance than what i experienced indoors earlier. It is a fascinating tool. Like a light sabre that cuts through the dark with no spill outside of the tight beam. As in no spill at all. At 100yds for example, it spotlights a perfect circular area of approx 8-10foot maybe but either side of it is entirely in the dark.
The advertised 750 metres of throw is obviously bulls*it but it is certainly far enough for our needs in terms of shooting fox. Easily will allow a 200yd fox to be taken and the image through Polar T96 in total darkness was amazing without polluting any of the area around it with unnecessary light.
It is very small. As in fits in the palm of your hand small. Weight with a battery in is I would guess 100-150grams. I have a Ludicrous Lumens 34mm mount on the scope and the little torch (with quite a few wraps of insulation tape to bulk it up) fits in nicely and locks in perfectly in seconds from the pocket. I just lined it up indoors on the wall with the reticle and outdoors it was bang on centre.
Drawbacks are that it has this step down in power once it hits about the 60-90second mark. Guess this is heat management. It basically steps down the output to a lower setting which is still usable even out to nearly 200yds, so no massive issue if it did it in the middle of a shot but if you were about to shoot something at say 280yds and it then stepped down, that will likely be an issue depending on weather conditions. Weather conditions tonight were clear skies, very very cold and no humidity as such. Maybe a little as thermal conditions were not as crisp as I might have expected given the temps but good enough.
Not entirely sure how long the battery will last. It is a small little thing. C type charge plugs directly in to the battery. Never seen one like it before but I am sure you can buy spares, so no massive issue.
It has an annoying strobe feature on it like lots of torches. This is obviously rubbish for us but it is what it is. If you switch it on and off too quickly, it goes on to either the next power setting or the strobe. Which is annoying but as long as you leave a couple of seconds between turning it off and turning it back on again, it recalls the last power setting you had. There are only two and the lower one is good enough for 100yds and a bit and the higher power is good for much much further.
I think if you were just shooting rats or rabbits or something at 50 odd yards, you would just use this with ease on the lower setting and it would likely last ages. As a novelty, I was lighting up the whole sky for ages and basically dicking around with it on high power, so I probably caned the battery quicker than you otherwise would. In terms of shooting with this in anger on something like foxes, it is really ideal if you want something to allow you to shoot foxes on the way back to the truck after deer light has been exhausted and you don't want to be carrying NV or IR Torches etc.
Although it has some shortcomings here and there, they are manageble and this will be something I can see myself using a lot. I will still use NV and IR when out for a few hours rabbiting but for impromptu or opportunist fox shooting, this is going to be awesome. Haven't experienced it yet but looking at the softness of the beam at distance, I don't think it will spook animals too much initially although more testing will be required.
£70 very well spent I would say.
