What to look for in a tactical flashlight

[MechAg94]

IMO, 100 lumens is plenty to take out someone's night vision and identify them. I have heard people say that 200 lumens is the max for indoors. At that point or above, the light reflected off the walls is hurting your own vision. Really high lumen lights are more for seeing at distance than indoors.

For a light that you are carrying everday, there are a few things to consider:
1. Is it small enough, light enough, etc that you will carry it every single day. Will you remember it? You want to make sure you have it when you need it.
2. I carry a light in my pocket. If the button gets turned on in my pocket all the time, the batteries will be dead when I need it. I have a small taclight that I like, but after I burned through the second battery, I realized I needed to make a change.
3. Someone above mentioned batteries. Make sure you can find and afford good batteries.
For my daily carry, I bought a Surefire keychain light that is small and uses a AAA battery. It is actually pretty dang bright for a small light. Since it is with my keys, I know I will have it when I need it.

For weapon light, things change a bit. However, I agree that simplicity is king. I really like the Crimson Trace Light Guard for pistols, but there are lots of options.

[Jose_in_Dallas]

I have seen a lot of features tossed around but really don't know what's useful and what's just "bells and whistles" that suck up dollars. For example, are these things needed, or are they just distractions:
* zoom
* momentary on
* high/med/low

* How many lumens are bright enough?

These things range in price from a few bucks to $200 or more, and I don't want to pay for more than is really necessary. It seems all you really need is it to be small enough to fit in one hand, reasonably bright and the on/off button on the end-cap.

Thoughts appreciated.

Not sure what you mean by zoom.

IMO, get yourself a good Surefire light. American made and it should pretty much cover everything you want for a tactical light. Tight focused beam with both a momentary switch (you can buy an optional diffuser beam cover if you need one), optional two stage beam (High/Low) on most models, lockout switch so that you don't accidentally turn it on in your pocket, some models have a two way clip so you can carry it head up or down (E1B, EB1, and EB2 I know offer this), and a great lifetime warranty.

If you balk about the price, trying looking on eBay or on various message boards. I bought a used EB1 from another board for a pretty good price that looked to be in great condition, came with the box and everything, but I couldn't get it to work. The seller offered to refund my money but I decided to warranty it. Surefire took it back, fixed the problem, and for the price of shipping and a weeks worth of time going back and forth (it was a pretty quick turnaround) I got a working light with a fresh Surefire branded CR123 battery. Great customer service and well worth the price I paid (like a little over $100 if I remember correctly).

I've owned probably 8 or 9 Surefires over the years. I've also had a couple of Streamlights (still have a couple of Streamlight headlamps) and a couple of Fenix lights (still have one that's barely bigger than a CR123 battery) and I keep going back to Surefire. They are just that good and you really get what you pay for. The downside though is the majority of them are powered by CR123 batteries. First couple of years of owning them, I used them sparingly because I hated buying batteries. Then I discovered rechargeable 123's. Now I use them all the time and I don't worry about having to buy batteries anymore.

[ELB]

I see that we've moved onto tactics already...

Yes, asking what features a good tactical light should have kind of begs the question "Why that feature?"

Oh, I'm sorry - I must have missed the part of your post about waving the flashlight around where you pointed out where some specific feature of the flashlight made that technique work. Carry on, by all means.

Now I am baffled. ??

[The Annoyed Man]

I went ahead and upgraded our flashlight situation for my wife and myself.

I just received two Fenix PD35 flashlights for the both of us yesterday from Amazon, which was selling them in a combination package with the light, a 18650 rechargeable battery and a 2 channel "smart" charger. I also received a pair of 3400mAh backup batteries for them. Today, I'm expecting a Fenix PD40 for my car, and a 4 channel smart charger for it. The PD40 was bundled with a 4000mAh 26650 rechargeable battery and a USB powered single cell charger, which I can charge from the USB port in my vehicle. I have a pair of 6000mAh backup batteries for it on order, but they won't get here until the end of the month.

It was an investment in preparedness.

[FL450]

[ quote] The downside though is the majority of them are powered by CR123 batteries. First couple of years of owning them, I used them sparingly because I hated buying batteries. Then I discovered rechargeable 123's. Now I use them all the time and I don't worry about having to buy batteries anymore.[/quote]

I will add caution to those considering LI rechargeable batteries since the subject was mentioned.
1. Rechargeable 123 batteries(RCR123)are not the same voltage as CR123 primary's(Non- Rechargeable), 3.8 volts vs. 3.2 volts thus many flashlights cannot accept RCR123 batteries
2. Many flashlights that use 2 CR123 batteries can use rechargeable 16850(Width+16mm, Length=850mm) batteries which are equivalent to 2 Cr123 batteries joined together but not all 168550 are created equal. many are cheap Chinese cells wrapped in fancy wrapping. I only recommend batteries based on Panasonic or Sanyo cells.
The wrappings are different thicknesses by a fraction so some cells might not be able to accept 16850's.(My Four Sevens tactical can only accept 14850's).
Then their are flat tops and button tops, protected and unprotected cells. Some button tops can be too high and some flat tops wont make contact, some protected cells shut down with the high start up current of some lights.
3. Recharging multiple batteries at one time of unequal capacity or unequal capacity left can be highly dangerous.
My point being please do your due diligence before delving into the LI rechargeable battery world.
Candle Power forums has a link to 'Battery University" which is a wealth of information.
Below is a link to the battery forum on candle Power Forums and Battery University.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/for ... -batteries

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/arti ... _batteries
Now back to are regular scheduled programing.

[Jose_in_Dallas]

[ quote] The downside though is the majority of them are powered by CR123 batteries. First couple of years of owning them, I used them sparingly because I hated buying batteries. Then I discovered rechargeable 123's. Now I use them all the time and I don't worry about having to buy batteries anymore.

I will add caution to those considering LI rechargeable batteries since the subject was mentioned.
1. Rechargeable 123 batteries(RCR123)are not the same voltage as CR123 primary's(Non- Rechargeable), 3.8 volts vs. 3.2 volts thus many flashlights cannot accept RCR123 batteries
2. Many flashlights that use 2 CR123 batteries can use rechargeable 16850(Width+16mm, Length=850mm) batteries which are equivalent to 2 Cr123 batteries joined together but not all 168550 are created equal. many are cheap Chinese cells wrapped in fancy wrapping. I only recommend batteries based on Panasonic or Sanyo cells.
The wrappings are different thicknesses by a fraction so some cells might not be able to accept 16850's.(My Four Sevens tactical can only accept 14850's).
Then their are flat tops and button tops, protected and unprotected cells. Some button tops can be too high and some flat tops wont make contact, some protected cells shut down with the high start up current of some lights.
3. Recharging multiple batteries at one time of unequal capacity or unequal capacity left can be highly dangerous.
My point being please do your due diligence before delving into the LI rechargeable battery world.
Candle Power forums has a link to 'Battery University" which is a wealth of information.
Below is a link to the battery forum on candle Power Forums and Battery University.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/for ... -batteries

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/arti ... _batteries
Now back to are regular scheduled programing.[/quote]

Very good point and my apologies for leaving that out.

[FL450]

[ quote] The downside though is the majority of them are powered by CR123 batteries. First couple of years of owning them, I used them sparingly because I hated buying batteries. Then I discovered rechargeable 123's. Now I use them all the time and I don't worry about having to buy batteries anymore.

I will add caution to those considering LI rechargeable batteries since the subject was mentioned.
1. Rechargeable 123 batteries(RCR123)are not the same voltage as CR123 primary's(Non- Rechargeable), 3.8 volts vs. 3.2 volts thus many flashlights cannot accept RCR123 batteries
2. Many flashlights that use 2 CR123 batteries can use rechargeable 16850(Width+16mm, Length=850mm) batteries which are equivalent to 2 Cr123 batteries joined together but not all 168550 are created equal. many are cheap Chinese cells wrapped in fancy wrapping. I only recommend batteries based on Panasonic or Sanyo cells.
The wrappings are different thicknesses by a fraction so some cells might not be able to accept 16850's.(My Four Sevens tactical can only accept 14850's).
Then their are flat tops and button tops, protected and unprotected cells. Some button tops can be too high and some flat tops wont make contact, some protected cells shut down with the high start up current of some lights.
3. Recharging multiple batteries at one time of unequal capacity or unequal capacity left can be highly dangerous.
My point being please do your due diligence before delving into the LI rechargeable battery world.
Candle Power forums has a link to 'Battery University" which is a wealth of information.
Below is a link to the battery forum on candle Power Forums and Battery University.

http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/for ... -batteries

http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/arti ... _batteries
Now back to are regular scheduled programing.

Very good point and my apologies for leaving that out.[/quote]
Sorry Jose_in_Dallas. the quote did not referance you as the OP.
I tried to quote only what I was refering to but that did not work out to well

[mloamiller]

Another great light for a reasonable price is terralux. I edc their TT2, single aa. I keep several of their t 300 2x aa in vehicles

Do these have the "momentary on" feature?

[Richbirdhunter]

I have the Surefire Fury, I've had it for years I keep it by my bedside table I forgot how much it cost but it works as good as the day I bought it and it works great

[WinoVeritas]

I've got the TerraLUX TT-5 - fantastically awesome flashlite. Caught it on sale at DVOR for <$65 awhile back.