I’ve been on a quest for the perfect headlamp pretty much forever. And I’m as close as I’ve ever been to headlamp happiness. The Fenix HM50R Headlamp has almost all the features I want in a useful and highly productive form factor. Where the Fenix HM50R Headlamp really shines in the small details that refine its design and use. But to appreciate the nuances of the Fenix HM50R Headlamp, one would need to have developed frustrations with previous designs. So here are some obvious improvements with the Fenix HM50R Headlamp. First and foremost is the light throw. With a turbo mode of 500 lumens, this light screams in the dark. And the steps down in brightness of 130, 30, and 4 lumens are exceptionally good choices give all types of darkness the proper amount of light.
For comparison, my first headlamp was four D-cell monster with a dim incandescent bulb that probably threw two dozen lumens on a good day going downhill and with the wind. The pound of batteries were worn on the belt in a big red plastic case. A wire ran from the case to a bulbous unit mounted on a two-inch wide rubber strap. At the time it was like the light from a Maglite but with the advantage of a headlamp. Overall, it was awful, but since it was the only affordable option in town, we didn’t know any better. Today, however, our standards are much higher, our expectations much greater, and our tolerance for poor design much lower.
Operating Operationally
In order to control headlamp lighting, a simple interface must power the light on and off and through the settings in an intuitive way that is watertight and works easily in the dark by feel as well as when wearing gloves.
Another consideration is beam control. Headlamps by design are to be worn on the head. This means a significant amount of control is possible just by moving one’s head. This works with gross movements, but what about when precision is needed such as with close-up work (think medical or mechanical interventions) or when moving through terrain with hands full and limited head movement? Generally a headlamp points forward or rotates down placing the center of light closer to the eyes. Lateral adjustments are from simply revolving head strap around the head.
The Fenix HM50R Headlamp is essentially a cylinder in a cuff meaning it can spin 360 degrees around the vertical. The cuff is a rubberized plastic material that connects light to the headband. My Surefire Minimus headlamp uses the same attachment concept, but in a heavier, beefier design that requires a tool to adjust the tension. Normally I would prefer a Surefire light over almost any other brand, but the number of design flaws in with the Surefire kept me looking for a better light even after I dropped more than a Benjamin Franklin on it.
Batter(y) Up!
The Fenix HM50R Headlamp runs on a single CR123 battery which is my preference with headlamps, powers this light for two hours on full power and 128 hours on low with 14 hours and 48 hours respectively for the middle two settings. However, the Fenix HM50R Headlamp ships with a rechargeable 700mAh 16340 battery that extends the top end light by half an hour but lowers the runtime somewhat. The included battery recharges in the light through a micro-USB port, or outside the light in a charger. A similar Fenix light, the HL50 caught my attention with it’s ability to run either CR123 or AA batteries but required a extra tube extension if running AA batteries. That means one must carry the extra piece when running a CR123 battery in the light and nobody wants to do that. Well at least me anyway.
Plus the HL50 headlamp had a metal attachment ring that was captured in between the battery tube and the end switch in order to keep the light attached to the metal clasp on the headband. That meant that you had to disassemble the light in order to remove it from the headband. With the newer Fenix HM50R Headlamp, all you need to do to set it free from the headband is to pull it out from the rubberized collar. For reference, the Surefire Minimus also requires a tool to remove it from the headband because the entire attachment system must be dismantled,
So why would you want to remove the headband from the light? Many reasons, notably that the Fenix HM50R Headlamp is a great flashlight on its own. The 90 degree angle-head design is like a mini military “moonbeam” D-cell flashlight. By the way, the first flashlight appeared around 1899 and was powered by D-batteries. So for almost 100 years, the D-cell ruled the flashlight world. Today I have no D-cell electronics except for a pair of 1950’s era Civil Defense Geiger Counters.
What’s Your Angle?
As an angle-head flashlight, the Fenix HM50R Headlamp can stand upright, upside down, and sideways. Often tail standing a flashlight requires a reflective ceiling to capture the photons from escaping out into space. The Fenix HM50R Headlamp on the other hand can sit still on a table firing the light forward or upward if you like. On the Surefire side, even if you remove the light from the headband, only one end of the cylinder shape has a flat-enough face to tail stand.
The Fenix HM50R Headlamp has a battery charge indicator in the form of a glowing or blinking green or blue light in the switch. When clicked quickly, the switch lights up indicating the rough amount of charge in the battery. This is a tremendously welcome feature for several reasons. First, it’s always good to know your battery’s condition. Second, as a rechargeable flashlight, the Fenix HM50R Headlamp can be topped off before adventuring so a quick charge indication will tell you both if you need to charge, and with charging experience, about how long that will take.
And third, the subtle green or blue light does not interfere with the operation of the light whereas the Surefire Minimus begins an irritating blink sequence when its battery runs low. My lone complaint here is that the blue glow indicates a lower charge. Blue? Why not red? Red would make so much more sense, and Red is universal indicator of too much (redline) or too little (in the red). The meaning of blue must be memorized. And worse, if you use a Fenix rechargeable 16340 battery with built-in micro-USB port, the light on the battery glows red when low and charging, and blue when charged. So even within the Fenix family, a blue light means both fully charged and almost dead. May I suggest that the Fenix Flashlight engineers spend a few more minutes a week talking with the Fenix Battery engineers. It is those little things that are maddening.
Splitting Hairs
Regardless of the indicator light oversights, I highly recommend getting the ARB-L16-700mAh rechargeable batteries. The chief complaint about using CR123 batteries is their initial cost, and slightly less available presence in low-volume battery sellers like back road gas stations and small town grocery stores. So those same recharging superpowers that the Fenix HM50R Headlamp has are equally available in the ARB-L16-700mAh battery. Yes, the battery has its own port and can be charged just like a non-Apple cell phone.
Something to think about with headlamp batteries is that you just might have to swap them out in the dark...with cold hands...in a hurry...while on the run. With the Fenix HM50R Headlamp all you have to do is spin off the only cap, swap batteries, spin the cap back on, and fire it up. This is so very different from one of my 3-AA headlamps where the entire light must be unsnapped from its headband bracket, then cracked open like an oyster, then replace each AA battery in the proper configuration, then reseal the housing in the right direction, reconnect it to the bracket in the right orientation. In other words, you need time, patience, and an understanding of the battery replacement sequence prior to the lights going out.
Bounce Check
Another great feature of the Fenix HM50R Headlamp is the minimal weight. My other Fenix AA headlamps had some heft to them causing the light to bounce up and down on my forehead when running or biking, and being a noticeable weight on my head. So much so that a hard bump can knock the headlamp around if not wearing the strap that runs over the top of the head. With the Fenix HM50R Headlamp, no third strap is needed which makes donning it much easier especially when helmets and hats are involved.
The durability of the Fenix HM50R Headlamp seems above and beyond. The aluminum chassis of the light conveys solidity to everyone. The fine threaded aluminum cap with O-ring seal is part of the IP68 rating of this light. IP68 decoded means IP for International Protection standard. 6 means complete protection from dust, dirt and sand for eight hours. And the 8 rating means water resistance at 1.5m for at least 30 minutes.
Head of the Class
Fenix seems to have upgraded its headband material. Compared to my other Fenix lights seems less saggy (if that’s a word) with a tighter textile weave and with a grippy strip across the forehead. A few features missing from the Fenix HM50R Headlamp include that there is no strobe, no red light (to preserve night vision) and no SOS mode. You know, if it comes down to when I need to telegraph an SOS signal with my headlamp till the battery runs dry, well then I’ll regret the missing feature. But I will also likely forget that feature even exists if I ever have to use it.
So as noted, I am thrilled with this particular Fenix HM50R Headlamp. While there is some obvious room for improvement, the room is small and probably only apparent to those who have used many other headlamps and developed specific preferences. Either way, I have no reservations about this headlamp for general use, emergency use, and survival use.
Hollywood is an easy target for the teaching of poor to impossible gun skills. The number of errors and impossibilities in any gun-filled movie gives the general population a wildly distorted understanding of guns, shooting, and expectations of a bullet; all a good thing in my survival book. As long as potential adversaries are living in a fantasy world, there is a direct and severe survival advantage to a confrontation where Hollywood’s magic has taken its toll.
The list of humorous gun behavior is long. From the inevitable click whenever a gun is pointed, to the ability to send someone airborne with a well placed hit, to anything and everything sparking when touched by a bullet, we come to expect the fairy tales of film firearms. But all that comic book action can be a good thing. Here are seven wonderful misconceptions that are sure to take the neophyte gun owner into bad territory when it really Hits the Fan.
1. The pre-shot pause: Most movies build tension during an armed conflict through dialog and well planned pauses. What that teaches is indecisiveness and introspection at the absolute wrong moment. When a couple of cowboys with antique wheel guns are squaring off fifty feet apart there is a poker-faced dance taking place. Not just draw speed but also hipshot accuracy. But in a true survival situation, Magpul got it right with its unfair advantage catch phrase. No reason level a tilted playing field by a calling time out. Act fast and without discussion.
2. The lack of aiming: This fallacy hardly needs explanation. It’s misfires on two fronts. First is the wildly skewed probability of a successful hit that Hollywood encourages. And second is the ease at which one can hit a target with a moment or two of actual aiming. Especially moving targets. Aiming a gun takes practice and is a perishable skill so knocking a few cans off a fence post twenty years ago is not of much comfort today. But the opposite is true. Even a little occasional practice can keep your shots in the center of mass rather than in the ceiling.
The bottomless supply of ammo: Usually the easiest criticism of any Hollywood gunplay, the belief in endless ammo is pretty common. Outside of Dirty Harry counting his shots, most shooters have no idea how many bangs went bang and most importantly how many bangs have yet to go bang. Add some stress to the poop salad and who’s counting? Right, nobody. So plan accordingly because they aren't.
3. Weightless guns: Anyone who has really carried a long gun around for any length of time knows that the weight and size of the rifle makes a difference on what you can do and where you can go. Not many of the untrained can run through a forest with a rifle, nor tread water let alone swim while carrying a useful firearm even if the stock is made of wood. Walking from pickup to range table is not a workout. Ten hours of stalking during a mountainous hunt is a good start. Even after a couple hours of carrying around your rifle I can guarantee that you will want to set it down no matter how much you think you love it.
4. Easy long shots: Whether a headshot from 200 yards while standing in a row boat (Bob Lee Swagger) or knocking a helicopter out of the sky with a .380 (James Bond) or bouncing a metal bucket at a quarter mile with a Sharps rifle, (Matthew Quigley), taking time to aim can make an accurate shot possible, but still unlikely. The movie Shooter did put an opposite spin on this theme as well by making a long shot seem superhuman. So illusive in fact that only a few snipers on earth could do it. In reality only a few snipers on earth are ever given the training and opportunity for a verified quarter-mile plus shot, but anyone with a bit of money, time, skill and a wide open space can ding steel at a thousand yards.
5. Loud but not too loud: It would really a be a downer if the good guys always went deaf during a shootout. In reality there would be very little dialog following gun fire. Just a lot of confused looks and bleeding ears. Now double all that when shooting inside a car. Triple it when shooting next to someone’s head. In real life, guns are absolutely silent until they're not. And when they are not, gunfire is one of the loudest things anyone ever encounters in life. That fact is hard to portray in the movies, and really is a buzzkill for plot lines. Actual gun loudness is ignored. Perhaps that’s why silencers are so common in movies. It’s a Star Trek fix to an obvious physics problem.
6. Faith in bad shots: The film vaults in Hollywood are stuffed full of movie footage where thousands of rounds zinged back and forth with not a meat hit in sight. There’s some truth to the accuracy outcomes of spray-and-pray, but the statistics of sustained auto fire in general directions lean heavily towards something bad happening. The happy takeaway here is that the uninitiated might suspect a positive outcome when hiding behind a telephone pole waiting for your reload.
We all owe Hollywood a collective thank you for planting the seeds of misconception in the general population. Tactical advantages are where you find them. Long before Hollywood, about the fifth century BC to be exact, Sun Tzu penned (or penciled, or scratched or whatever the heck they did back then) that letting the enemy believe the world is what it seems is truly an Art of War.
“Engage people with what they expect; it is what they are able to discern and confirms their projections. It settles them into predictable patterns of response, occupying their minds while you wait for the extraordinary moment — that which they cannot anticipate.”
It’s not hard to imagine what might happen if the US and North Korea get into a nuclear pissing match. The nuclear option involves mass destruction, radioactive fallout, and a bit of global destabilization. So with the instability of both the situation and the predictability of the situation, you know, given tweets and all. So here are Five Specific Things to get squared away care to survive. And all that squaring away must be able to go mobile on a second’s notice. This short list, of course, is on top of your regular preparations and bug out plans.
1. Food: Get a supply of dehydrated food. My choice is #10 cans of dehydrated Mountain House food. The number of days, weeks, months, or years of food is up to you, your scenario, and your budget. A way to calculate your timeline is to follow this very rough basic math: Women burn 2000 calories per day. Drop that to 1500 and she will lose a pound per week. Men burn on average 2500 calories per day with a 2000 calorie daily diet causing a weekly loss of a pound. So you can do the arithmetic of both what amount of food you need for your comfort and duration, and what trajectory of starvation is acceptable.
Canned freeze dried Mountain House food has a 30 year shelf life and a two week once-open life. All that’s needed is water. If no water, then food is not your immediate problem. And in case you’ve never tried freeze dried food with just cold water, you are in for a pleasant treat. While it takes a little longer soaking time, it’s no different that when you let a hot-mixed meal sit too long. Like cold pizza, you might actually like it more. Just don’t forget the can opener.
2. Water filters: When on the run from a nuclear blast, you won’t have time to pack all your supplies and you certainly don't want a half-ton of water slowing you down and threatening to roll your vehicle on a turn, or pull you over a cliff. A water source and filtering must be in your plan. And like the food, you will need to do the math of how much water you need and can filter. My plan begins with at least 20 gallons on board in five gallon tanks. Any larger and they are hard to move, carry, and distribute around your vehicle for driving balance. The larger tanks often invite waste and spillage when transferring contents to smaller containers and cups.
Backpacking pump filters are a great idea, but you might have more time than freedom to pump. Instead consider something like the Epic pitcher filter; a Brita on steroids, if you will. That way you can be making a supply of pure filtered water while doing other essential tasks like driving or preparing camp.
While it might be prudent to consider a filter that removes radiation, the reality is that when on the run such a filter will have a short life and give no indication when it is no longer effective against radioactive particles in water. Unlike dirt and organics that clog a filter, there is a finite amount of surface area on the radioactive absorbing materials in the filter and when they are full, nothing changes except the radioactive particles now flow right through the filter like its not there...because it isn't anymore.
If you have to cut financial corners, do it elsewhere. Water is not only the basis for life, but a fluid that is consumed internally daily and drenches mucous membranes where contaminants can get a foothold creating hundreds of ways to kill you.
3. Fuel for your vehicle: As you can imagine, an nuclear blast is a traumatic experience for those not vaporized, incinerated, or irradiated. The panic will be instantaneous and permanent. Swinging by the gas station is not an option, and neither is stopping for long when you are outrunning a gruesome, painful invisible death sentence.
Go grey with your gas cans. I’ve seen cars headed into questionable situations with as many as half a dozen bright red gas cans strapped to the roof like a parade float. Going grey with your gas means putting the gas cans into duffle bags or second hand suitcases or travel bags. A pile of visible gas cans is probably the fastest way to get robbed.
The quantity is up to you, but using the Mt. St. Helens model (see #5 below), you will need 1000 miles of gas in a worst case. For many vehicles that’s two full tanks or a 20 gallon onboard start, and another 20 in four five-gallon cans. Minimum. You might arrive, but then be out of options because you are out of gas. Drive a guzzler or tow a trailer and count on doubling the above prognosis or halving your potential.
4. Wind speed meter: Sure you could just toss up some dust or dried grass, but keep that as your backup plan. What you really need is a definite wind direction and speed. Those two tidbits might be the most important pieces of information when on the run. Little wind and you can outrun it. Strong wind and you might have to head into it. It all depends on the distance from and prevailing direction of contamination as well as the natural barriers like mountains, valleys, and drainage.
My analog here is the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. The path of the ash was mostly east and then turned south near the eastern edge of Montana. So it covered all of eastern Washington, the north half of Idaho, all of Montana and North Dakota, most of Wyoming and Colorado, two thirds of South Dakota, finally dipping just across the border into New Mexico. The lesson here is that the ash followed the wind, the fastest escape route might have been to head south west towards the source at an angle even if it meant going into the cloud. Of course ash and radioactive fallout are two completely different things, so studying maps now will give you some idea of where to head if you know the location of the source.
There are iPhone/Smartphone options where a little wind meter taps into the headphone output port. Or a bluetooth solution like a Weatherhawk, or Pasco Scientific. And stand-alone devices like the handheld Kestrel and Oregon Scientific anemometers.
5. Radiation Monitor or Geiger Counter: Radioactive materials as part of fallout from a nuclear blast will follow the path of the wind. So two pieces of intel are needed; first, you need to know if there is an uptick in radioactivity or not. There are minimalist solutions that just change color when the radiation level increases. And more sophisticated devices that sound an alarm. The problem with those first two levels of radioactive indications is they are non-specific, non-directional, and non-quantitative. Moving up the ladder another rung is a stand-alone meter like the yellow 1950s civil defense Geiger Counters. However, while state-of-the-art 60 years ago, many more options are available today. And if you are planning on using “Old Yeller” you better have a five-gallon bucket of D batteries!
Companies like Vernier Technologies are a great source for a choice of on-the-run Radiation Meters, with a Bluetooth option talking to your iPhone. And a quick trip to the Amazon.com will give you plenty of choices starting at a buck and a half (that’s $150 to the rest of you).
6. Potassium Iodide tablets: When out shopping, you might want to pick up some potassium iodide pills to protect the thyroids of you and your loved ones. According to the PubChem open database of information about chemical compounds,
"Potassium Iodide is a metal halide composed of potassium and iodide with thyroid protecting and expectorant properties. Potassium iodide can block absorption of radioactive iodine by the thyroid gland through flooding the thyroid with non-radioactive iodine and preventing intake of radioactive molecules, thereby protecting the thyroid from cancer causing radiation. In addition, this agent acts as an expectorant by increasing secretion of respiratory fluids resulting in decreased mucus viscosity."
So stop wondering about it and just get the pills.
Final Shot
The last thing you want is to try and get your act together when the news report sounds like a Tom Clancy novel. You must assess the situation. Make a decision. And go. Not figure it out. Lay out some options. And then go shopping. The window of opportunity is smaller than almost any other catastrophic man-made event. There are no major surprises here. A nuke could fly through the air exploding over somewhere in the USA. and won’t matter one bit if we turn North Korea into bacon. The damage here is done, so the rest is up to you. If you don’t believe me, please watch the classic movie from 1983 called “The Day After.”
