I disagree with your assessment and have used Maglites for years in all kind of foul and fair weather conditions including the Arctic, Yukon and PNW rainforests. Aside from a blown bulb and the occasional dead batteries (not a fault of flashlight) they are very dependable for the price. A new 2 AA LED goes for $22.00 here...

I have always been curious as to how maglites fare after cold weather abuse so I did a test today to see how the maglites would still work after an hour being submerged in a bucket of snow and ice water.

Two lights, one is an older AA with incandescent bulb, the second is a LED conversion kit. Up until the photo was taken, it has been in my BOB in the trunk of the car in sub zero temps for a month.


Left the flashlight on and submerging them. The outside ambient temp is -6.


A bit more snow and water slushed over top and let sit.


One hour later, out they come.


Though it is hard to tell in the photo, the lights are much dimmer then they were initially, however that is to be expected.


Post submerging inspection shows no water got into the body casing of the flashlights


I have re-assembled the flashlights and they are now once again sitting outside in the same bucket for two weeks as I am curious how they will hold up.

Although YMMV, I am sticking to the maglites for now, they work for me....I will report back in a couple of weeks on the results of the long submerging.