The Nitecore MH40S is a long distance flashlight that comes with an interesting wireless remote that can be used on a rifle as an activation switch. Nitecore sent me this flashlight for review.
Wireless Remote
I’ve used some flashlights that had wired remote activation paddles or switches, but never ones that were wireless. The wireless remote for the MH40S makes mounting a heck of a lot easier and opens up some options that may not make sense for a wired remote. The remote offers an on/off switch, strobe and a large momentary on paddle.
Now, the main downside to going wireless is batteries. The wireless remote is powered by a 1632 battery.
Batteries & Quick charge
The MH40S is powered by and comes with (2) 21700 size batteries. These are a bit wider/bigger than 18650 batteries and have caught on as a more popular form as they can store 5000 mAh compared with the 3400-ish available with an 18650 battery and they can discharge at pretty high rates.
Not that you ever have to take the batteries out. There’s a weather-sealed USB-C port on the flashlight itself that you can use for charging and it can recharge at up to 18W with the included QC charger.
The batteries in mine had a bit of room to wiggle/rattle with movement of the flashlight.
Using the Flashlight
The flashlight itself is rated for IPX68 so it’s good for submersion up to 2M.
The button setup is fairly straight forward. On the flashlight itself, the tail switch can be used for momentary on with a half press or on/off with a full press. When holding the flashlight, the top button can be used to toggle power settings or held to access strobe, pulse, and SOS.
The flashlight beam holds a very tight hotspot with a much lower power wide flood. Most of the light is going into that tight beam.
After 1 minute on turbo, the front of the flashlight isn’t super hot but the collar does get warm. After 3 minutes, the collar is painful to hold on to for 5 seconds but the barrel (where you’ll hold it anyways) is still fine. After 5 minutes, the collar is very toasty but still won’t burn you. After 10 minutes, the barrel was warm and the collar was too hot to hold on to for more than 2 seconds at a time.
The low power vibration feature was interesting. (it buzzes in your hand when it needs to be charged)
Other Included Accessories
- Mounts for:
- Velcro strap
- Picatinny rail
- Stick on velcro
- QC charger plus USB-A to USB-C cable
- Lanyard
- Holster
- Spare o-ring seal
Conclusion and Use Cases
On its own, the flashlight is fine to use for security in a larger area where you need a long throw flashlight that could also double as a club. But, that’d be skipping out on the coolest feature on this flashlight: the remote switch.
The remote switch is better suited to using this flashlight on a firearm: something that needs the long range that the flashlight is capable of. That’d be interesting in a hunting rifle where night hunting is legal (hog hunting in the south?) and may be interesting for some police units.
