Brinyte T28 Artemis Review: Field Tested in Texas on Hogs (700+ yd)

I'm Ethen. I've been doing product field testing for seven years. I joined Brinyte in March 2024 as a field test engineer. My job is to take our lights into the field, run them through real conditions, and find out where they shine and where they fall short.

This wasn't my first night hunt in Texas. I've been chasing hogs for years. But it was my first time running the T28 Artemis in the field, and my first time trying a setup I'd been curious about for a while — mounting the light on top of my scope instead of on the rifle's forend.

I was running a bolt-action .308 with a high-magnification scope — the kind of setup you use when you want to reach across a field and put a bullet exactly where you want it. I had the T28 mounted on a scope bracket, sitting right above the objective bell. I wanted to see if the beam would line up with my reticle naturally — no offset, no guessing where the light was going.

I got to Granger Wildlife Management Area around 9 p.m. on November 13, 2025. It's about an hour northeast of Austin, and if you've ever hunted public land in Texas, you know the drill: you show up early, you find a spot that looks promising, and you hope the guys who were there last week didn't scare everything off.

November in the Hill Country is a crapshoot. One night it's 40 degrees and clear, the next it's 70 and humid. That night we got lucky — clear sky, no moon, just cold enough that the hogs would be moving early. The air was still. I could hear my own footsteps on the dry grass from fifty yards away, and I was moving slow.

I walked about half a mile into the property, following a dry creek bed that opened into a field of wheat stubble. The kind of spot where hogs feel safe enough to come out and root around, but close enough to cover that they can bolt if something spooks them. I set up on the downwind side, got comfortable, and waited. The rifle was resting on a shooting stick, the scope at medium magnification, the T28 sitting above it like a second barrel.

I sat there for an hour before the hogs showed up. And I mean sat. Not fidgeting. Not checking my phone. Just sitting, breathing, letting my eyes adjust to the dark. There's a rhythm to it — the slow settling of the body into stillness, the way you start to hear things you couldn't hear before. A distant owl. The rustle of something small in the grass. The blood moving in your own ears.

1. The Sounder: 11:15 p.m.

I heard them before I saw them. The unmistakable sound of hogs — maybe a dozen, maybe fifteen — rooting through dry grass along the creek line. It's a specific sound: a low, grunting rumble, punctuated by the tearing of roots from the soil. If you've heard it, you know it. If you haven't, you'll never mistake it for anything else once you have.

I didn't reach for the light right away. I sat there, let them settle, let them forget that anything might be watching. Took a slow breath. It's the kind of moment I've come to appreciate more than the shot itself — that stretch of stillness where the world goes quiet and you're just a ghost in the grass.

When I finally clicked the T28 on, I was on green, still on flood, dimmed down to what I'd guess was about 15% power. The beam was wide and soft — just enough to see the outline of the field without alerting anything in it. The hogs kept feeding.

I started moving in, slow and low. The dry grass crunched under my boots, and I hated every step. In the stillness of the Hill Country night, the sound carried like a gunshot. But the hogs were preoccupied. They didn't even flick an ear.

At about 120 yards, I twisted the head to tighten the beam from flood to spot. The transition was smooth — no clicking, no sudden change in brightness. The Fresnel lens did its job, focusing the light into a tight beam without adding much weight to the head. The hogs kept feeding.

At 80 yards, I rotated the color selector ring to switch from green to red. And that's where I stopped for a second.

The detent wasn't a click. It was a solid, deliberate engagement — like shifting a well-built manual transmission into gear. You feel it lock into place, but it doesn't make a sound that would carry across a field. In the dark, with cold hands, that matters. It's one of those little engineering details that tells you someone actually thought about how this thing would be used at 11:15 p.m. when you can't see your own hands.

The beam shifted instantly. No flicker, no delay, no cycling through modes. Just green one second, red the next. The hogs — still feeding. They had no idea I was there.

2. The Moment: 50 Yards, 200 Pounds, and a Choice

At 50 yards, I dialed the brightness down to what I'd guess was about 5%. Just enough to see the outline of the boar's shoulder. He was quartering away, feeding slowly, working his way along the creek bank. I had a clean shot, but I didn't take it.

I didn't have the right tags for that particular WMA, and I wasn't about to risk a fine for a pig. But that's not the only reason I didn't shoot. The other reason is simpler: I was enjoying myself too much to end it. I was sitting in the dark, the cold air on my face, watching a sounder of hogs do what hogs do, and I was holding a piece of gear that was working exactly the way it was supposed to. There's a quiet satisfaction in that — a kind of contentment that doesn't come often.

I watched them for another hour. The T28 held its beam, didn't flicker, didn't dim, didn't give me any reason to doubt it. I switched between colors, zoomed in and out, played with the dimmer. It was like getting to know a new friend in a language you both speak. By the time I packed up and walked back to the truck, I felt like I understood the light — not just its specs, but its character.

3. Specs at a Glance

Here's what the T28 actually delivers, based on the official specs and what I saw in the field. The white spot numbers are impressive — 700+ meters of throw at 125,000 candela. In real terms, that means you can identify a target at 300-400 yards on a clear night. Green and red have less throw, but that's fine — you're not using them for long-range ID anyway.

What these numbers don't tell you: how the light feels in your hand, how the switch responds, how the Fresnel lens beam looks on dirt and grass instead of a white wall. That's what the rest of this is for.

4. What Worked in the Field

Rotary Color Switch

This is the headline feature. Rotate the ring and you switch between white, red, and green LEDs instantly. No unscrewing, no swapping, no fumbling. In the field, this meant I could scan with green at 200 yards, switch to red at 80 yards, and switch back to green for tracking — all without taking my eyes off the sounder. The detents are positive enough to feel through gloves, and the rotation is smooth but not loose.

Stepless Dimmer

The tail switch provides smooth brightness control from 2% to 100%. No preset steps, no sudden jumps. I started at minimum and dialed up slowly — the hogs never spooked because they never saw a sudden change in light. This is the feature I didn't expect to care about. After using it, I wouldn't buy a hunting light without it.

Zoomable Fresnel Lens

The T28 uses a Fresnel lens — a thin, lightweight alternative to a traditional aspheric lens. It's the same type of optical system you'd find in a lighthouse, scaled down to fit in a handheld light. The Fresnel lens allows for a 6° to 70° continuous zoom, which means you can go from a tight spot beam for long-range identification to a wide flood for scanning a field, all with one twist of the head. The trade-off? The lens is thin and light, but at tight focus, it produces concentric ring artifacts in the beam — a characteristic of Fresnel optics. On a hog at 200 yards, you won't notice them. On a white wall at 10 yards, you will.

I used flood for walking and scanning, spot for identifying targets at distance. At 70° flood, the T28 lit up a massive area — I could see 50 yards in every direction without sweeping the rifle. At 6° spot, I could pick out individual hogs at 200+ yards.

Battery Life

Four hours of mixed use, and the battery still had plenty of charge. The 21700 5000mAh cell is a big upgrade from the 18650s in older hunting lights. More capacity, longer runtime, and you can swap in a standard 21700 if you need to — you're not locked into a proprietary battery.

5. What Didn't — And What You Should Know

No light is perfect. Here's what I noticed about the T28 that you should know before buying.

Fresnel Lens Beam Artifacts

At tight focus, the T28's Fresnel lens produces visible concentric ring artifacts — a series of circles that look like tree rings. This is a characteristic of Fresnel optics. It's not a defect; it's a trade-off for having a thin, lightweight lens that can zoom from 6° to 70° without the bulk of a traditional aspheric optic.

Does it matter in the field? No. At 200+ yards on dirt and grass, the rings disappear into the background. If you shine it on a white wall at 10 yards, you'll see them. But that's not where you use a hunting light. The Fresnel lens also accumulates dust more easily and is harder to clean than an aspheric lens — something to keep in mind if you hunt in dusty conditions.

Independent reviewers at 1Lumen noted the T28 "produces a nice, uniform beam without any obvious donut holes" and that the light is "a great size and fits well in the hand" (archived Jun 2025). They also called the smooth anodization "a great quality feeling."

Weight and Balance

At 222g with a 54mm head, the T28 is heavier and bulkier than a typical single-color light. On a lightweight rifle, you'll feel the difference in balance. With the scope-mounted bracket setup, I noticed it more at first — a bit of extra weight above the bore. I got used to it after about 20 minutes of walking and scanning. It's the kind of thing that bothers you for the first five minutes and then you just adjust.

IP66, Not IP68

The T28 is IP66 rated. Dust-tight, protected against powerful water jets. It'll survive heavy rain, mud, and hose-down cleaning. It is not designed for submersion. Don't drop it in a creek. If you're a waterfowl hunter or regularly cross deep water, this might not be your light.

The Dimmer Has No Markings

The tail rotary switch has no markings. In total darkness, you can't tell whether you're at 10% or 50% brightness without looking at the beam. You learn to feel the rotation after a while, but it's a minor inconvenience. I'd like to see some tactile markers on the next version.

6. The Verdict: Who Should Buy the T28

Buy the T28 if:

• You hunt multiple predators (coyotes, hogs, deer) and need different colors for different scenarios
• You're tired of carrying three separate lights or swapping modules in the dark
• You value silent operation — the dimmer and rotary switch make zero noise
• You want USB-C charging and a 21700 battery for all-night runtime
• You want a zoomable beam for both scanning wide fields and locking onto distant targets
• Your budget is around $90–110 and you want the most versatile hunting light in that range
• You want to mount the light on your scope for a perfectly aligned beam with your reticle

Skip the T28 if:

• You only hunt one species with one color — a dedicated single-color light will be lighter and cheaper
• You're obsessive about beam quality at all distances — the Fresnel lens artifacts at tight focus will bother you
• You need submersion waterproofing — the T28 is IP66, not IP68
• You're building an ultralight rifle and can't afford the 222g weight and 54mm head size

7. Frequently Asked Questions