I love Modlite. They are pushing weapon lights forward. They’ve helped bring the conversation around lights to focusing on candela over lumens, and now we’ve got better lights, one of which being the Havok.
The problem Modlite has is its price. They make highly powerful, well-made lights that command a premium. This puts a lot of their models out of the average user’s budget. Police officers who need lights like this have a hard time justifying a $350 light on a police officer’s salary.
Modlite seemed to recognize that need and released the Noxon line. These offer the same candela focus and modern design with a much lower price point. The Noxon Havok offers you a rifle-sized light for about $180.
The Havok comes in a couple of configurations: the Core and the Mini. Core is standard, and Mini is, well, mini. They offer a G1 and T1 head configuration.
The G1 emphasizes a balanced light pattern with both flood and throw. The T1 focuses more on throw to maximize range. The model you see here is the Havok Core with a T1 head.
- T1: Offers 680 lumens with 69,000 candela.
- G1: Gives you 1,350 lumens with 54,000 candela.
Inside and Out the Havok
The Havok series of lights takes a few steps to be cost-saving. They do not include a mount or a pressure switch. We get a clicky rear cap, and the Havok uses the classic Scout mount established by Surefire.
There are tons of Scout mounts from a lot of companies. You can get a used basic Surefire model for nearly nothing, or purchase a high-quality, modern option for around $40.
It’s compatible with Surefire pressure switches, of which there are an abundance of options. Selling the light as stripped keeps the price low and allows you to pick what you want to outfit the light as you want it.
You get a battery and a charger to top it off and get it running. The battery is a 18650, which is powerful, easy to charge, and again, common, so you can hot-swap them with ease. The Mini uses the smaller 18350.
- The 18650 provides 75 minutes of battery life.
- The 18350 provides 35 minutes of power in the Mini.
As you expect from Modlite, the light is made entirely of metal with a fully potted light engine. Fully potted means the electronics are coated in epoxy and don’t just rely on solder. This massively increases its durability and resistance to falls, drops, and, of course, recoil!
Mounting the Havok
At the mention of recoil, I always think of a shotgun. Shotguns are the best way to beat the hell out of your weapon lights. So much so that if I’m training in a daylight environment, I remove the batteries to keep them from smashing into each other and breaking.
Dedicated forend lights like the Surefire DSF and the Streamlight Racker are a bit better than separately mounted lights. I mounted the Havok to my Mossberg 940 JM Pro Tactical. It’s my go-to home defense platform, and I used a Truckee handguard with M-LOK slots and an inline mount.
This light isn’t all that appropriate for a shotgun. The T1 offers you a lot of range and a focused beam. It matches a rifle more than a shotgun, but the shotgun was perfect to test recoil and see if those fully potted electronics can take a beating.
To The Range
I ran through 100 rounds of full-powered buckshot, 100 rounds of basic birdshot, and 15 slugs. I went with the semi-auto 12 gauge to maximize the rate of fire. We dropped eight rounds at a time, running two and three-shot drills, reloading, and going again.
Midway through, my Scout mount had loosened on the Truckee handguard, but the light was still going strong. After a little more thread locker and some torque, I finished my day. The light remained running without a single flicker noted.
I shot during the day, but used a camera with the light on to watch the beam to see how it stood up. The camera doesn’t lie, and the Havok remained strong. It soaked up all that recoil and let it ride.
The Beam
Modlite’s T1 head throws a highly focused beam that reaches out well over 100 yards. At 100 yards, I could see my steel targets with excellent PID (Positive Identification). This style of beam and this powerful a light needs a magnified optic to take advantage of the light’s overall power.
The beam has an easy-to-see hotspot and minimizes spill. That focused beam cuts through the darkness and provides an extreme degree of visibility at longer ranges. The spill you get still makes it useful up close for the most common uses.
While it’s not made for a shotgun, the Havok, even with the T1 head, would be perfectly suitable for home defense. The G1 head would be a little more appropriate and optimized for a shotgun, but the T1 can do it.
The Havok gives you the lumens and candela necessary to reach out, but also to deal with photonic light barriers. Fog, smoke, snow, and even other light sources can render weapon lights moot. They create a barrier that’s difficult to shine through.
When you throw this level of candela behind the lumens, it cuts through those barriers. This gives you a light ready for any environment and whatever the environment can throw at you. It allows users to successfully identify threats and improve situational awareness.
The Havok
A weapon-mounted light is a life-saving tool at the end of the day. It provides proper PID and limits danger to anyone involved in a violent situation. The Havok gives armed citizens, police officers, and anyone else a capable weaponlight at a great price.
I think this is a smart move from Modlite and would love to see the lineup continue. We have the Modlite Hog, maybe we can get a Piglet?
