Review: Nitecore MH40 Pro Kit LED hunting flashlight

The Nitecore MH40 Pro flashlight’s amazing output is one thing, but its other features almost steal the glory of the 30 Amp battery and clever LED technology that provide the 3500 Lumens of night-ending brightness.

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True, it wouldn’t be quite the same if the power wasn’t good, but once the thrill of so much white light begins to settle, you realise how much you appreciate the other features that are the culmination of many years worth of product development.

Nitecore MH40 Pro kit review — The Nitecore MH40 Pro is a neat fit on top of a hunting rifle yet throws a massive and strong beam

None of the lights I’ve owned or tested before this have been as complete and refined as the MH40 Pro.

This is a purist hunting light with a fixed, intense, narrow beam designed to go far rather spread wide, ideal for mounting on a rifle so you can take aim at distant creatures.

Nitecore claims a range of 1300m but I must admit I couldn’t verify it because such distance requires clear air which, throughout the time I’ve had the light, has eluded me due to dust or humidity.

However, at ballistic ranges I’d call optimistic in the dark (400m is about my limit) I picked out pigs and deer without any doubt about what the target was when using a decent scope or binoculars.

I went out first with a scope that I knew wasn’t ideal for spotlighting and found I could use it to longer distances than I had previously, which is all because of the Nitecore’s huge light output. The better the scope you use, the further you will see under the Nitecore’s light.

Two years ago, Nitecore’s corporate stablemate NiteLab co-developed the tiny UHi 40 light-emitting diode in the MH40’s head, claiming a breakthrough in LED technology that enabled significantly smaller LEDs to put out significantly higher amounts of light.

The LED is also round, not square like those that came before, and Nitecore claims a more consistent cone of light as a result.

I couldn’t really pick the latter but there’s no doubt the former is true.

Ultimately, it’s a more efficient LED so you get more light from less power, and because Nitecore has fitted the MH40 Pro with an enormous NBP100R lithium-ion battery rated at 10,000mAh, you can get a claimed 62 hours of runtime out of the light.

That length of time depends on using only the lower output of the adjustable-brightness light, and the battery will drain in about four hours if you leave the light on its 1300-Lumen high beam all the time.

The full 3500 ‘turbo’ beam cuts out automatically when heat rises too far, so you can’t run it constantly, but if you use it a lot along with the high beam you’ll reduce runtime to two or three hours.

If you do run low, the battery can be swapped; you can even use a pair of 21700 batteries instead, provided they have at least 8 Amps of discharge current; the NBP100R’s 30 Amps is way better, though, allowing greater light density on the higher brightness settings.

The Nitecore has an indicator light to warn of the battery draining, giving triple flashes at 50% power, doubles at 25% and singles at 10%, but I’ve often failed to notice these little warnings if they’re not in my eye line.

As such, one little feature I really liked was the vibrating signal the MH40 gives out when the battery gets down to 10% charge. You can’t miss it, so avoid the risk of the light going flat at a critical moment.

Nitecore built in heat-management functions so that when the LED gets too warm it’ll switch to a lower output, which is nothing new but very good for the torch’s longevity. I rarely fretted if I wasn’t on full beam, such is the light’s brightness.

A great piece of gear that comes in the MH Pro kit is a wireless remote switch to activate the light. You also get a remote on a cord that screws onto the back of the light but once you try wireless you won’t go back. It can be attached to your rifle (or anything else) by Velcro or straps.

Apart from the obvious, the main difference between the two switches is that the corded one activates the light only when you hold it down, while the wireless on turns it on and off again with alternative presses of the button.

The MH40 is as tough as we’ve come to expect of these modern LED flashlights, with a strong aluminium body, waterproof sealing (plus a spare O-ring for the cap if you need it), and a hard-anodised black finish. I’ve owned Nitecores before and have never had reason to complain about their quality.

It comes in a solid, padded case containing various accessories: a web pouch that can be fitted to your belt or hung from a clip; a USB-C cable for charging the battery; a small lanyard; the essential figure-8 clamp for mounting the light on a rifle or shotgun; and two filters, red and green.

Before lights as bright as this came along, I was never a fan of coloured filters because they would dim the beam too much, but that’s not the case with the powerful MH40. You won’t get close to the claimed 1300m of the unfiltered white light but the coloured beams will go a good 200m.

The advantages of the coloured filters, of course, is that animals don’t see the light, or at least have trouble detecting it. You can be much more stealthy than when you’re using the white light.

The sum total is a complete light kit that is perfect for hunting. The MH40 is a very strong spotlight, is small enough to comfortably mount on your rifle, has good run time from the large battery, and has interchangeable batteries for when you do need more time. The kit includes everything you need.

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