Surefire M3

[m4a1usr]

Sure looks like one of Dave's by looking at the end of the reflector where the pill screws into. My own version has a longer/deeper pill section. Another way to tell is if the pill will unscrew. All of the ones I have gotten from Dave have the pill glued in.

 

[mcm308]

Sure looks like one of Dave's by looking at the end of the reflector where the pill screws into. My own version has a longer/deeper pill section. Another way to tell is if the pill will unscrew. All of the ones I have gotten from Dave have the pill glued in.

I wish I knew the specs. XML emitter maybe. On 9 volts of primary power.. it throws a wall of white light. Pretty impressive from the Z46 head. I want to get 2x AW17500's to run it on.

 

[Greenbean]

I wish I knew the specs. XML emitter maybe. On 9 volts of primary power.. it throws a wall of white light. Pretty impressive from the Z46 head. I want to get 2x AW17500's to run it on.

I need to get me a couple 17500s as well.

I recently acquired this guy and added an SW-02 to it. However I don't want to put a lot of CR123s in it. Amazing throw and hotspot.
I love it. I also just received a nice titanium bezel with tool and can't decide if I want to try it out on this one or another.

I need to have one of my M3 bodies sent to be bored for 18s as I have plenty of the 18500 cells around.

 

[mcm308]

I need to get me a couple 17500s as well.

I recently acquired this guy and added an SW-02 to it. However I don't want to put a lot of CR123s in it. Amazing throw and hotspot.
I love it. I also just received a nice titanium bezel with tool and can't decide if I want to try it out on this one or another.

I need to have one of my M3 bodies sent to be bored for 18s as I have plenty of the 18500 cells around.

I'm not a fan of boring out the bodies. I'm going to stick an M3 head on an M4 body and use 2x16650 batts and see how that goes.

 

[Greenbean]

I'm not a fan of boring out the bodies. I'm going to stick an M3 head on an M4 body and use 2x16650 batts and see how that goes.

I wonder if that's why they seemed to stop boring the M3 and M4 bodies. However I haven't looked into AW 17500s yet so the capacity is probably enough for me to not worry about it.

 

[mcm308]

I wonder if that's why they seemed to stop boring the M3 and M4 bodies. However I haven't looked into AW 17500s yet so the capacity is probably enough for me to not worry about it.

I dont know..but my concern is what is the actual wall thicknesses before and after boring? Especially at the thinnest points like flat sides and the finger spot on the M3 tubes? Can it still be used like a hammer or club after boring? Probably but how much strength is lost?

Yes, the M4 body is different then the M3. The M3 just has that feel to it but being able to run my 2500mah cells in the M4 tube is nice..

I haven't done it yet but will update when I do. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has done this..

I still want 17500 cells for the M3 tube.

 

[fivemega]

Weakest part of barrel after boring is under O'ring groove of tail side. You don't need to worry about flat sides of body.
Obviously, removing some material from barrel will loose some strength but still good enough for regular use.
Capacity of 18500 cells are almost 40% more than 17500. So boring of body will increase your run time considerably. If you don't need or use or happy with that extra run time, then forget about boring.
Same thing apply on M4 too. Maximum capacity of cells to fit in unbored body is 2500mAh and maximum capacity of cells to fit in bored out body is 3500mAh

 

[Greenbean]

Good point FM,

I think I'm going to contact PW and see about getting an extra M3 body bored and my one M4 body done as well.

 

[Greenbean]

Well I was able to acquire a cheap older M3 bezel, AND was going to put a Ti bezel on it for the fun of it but once I got the retaining ring out the head I found the threads have an ever so slight dent in them so the Ti bezel can't be installed. Argh

Guess I am going to try and boil a newer M3 head as I can't get myself to boil the KX9-A.

I do think I want an XM-L or XP-L three level variant built my CL for this older bezel.

 

[sween1911]

Can you carefully CAREFULLY bend the bezel back out so the Ti ring fits? That's a bummer. My oldschool M3 bezel is chewed up around the edges as it's had a GGG TID mounted on it a few times.

 

[Greenbean]

Honestly it doesn't bother me in that I also recently acquired a great deal M961 weapon light and basically I sold the weapon light part and kept the M3 bezel (newer style) and broke even, so I got the M3 bezel for free! Wohoo!

I'm going to biol it as it's a third unit and i can afford to experiment on it.

The older M3 bezel comes apart very easily, no heat needed or anything, just used a strap wrench and the tool and apart it came. I may look into the GG&G TID as I eventually want to make this the light to keep in the truck and also give it an updated XM-L2 unit from CL.com

 

[Greenbean]

OK, SO I was successful in boiling the head I had as an extra and two things happened,

I got it apart easily, BUT how in the heck do you place the rubber washer under the lens as you can't pre-wrap it on the lens because it doesn't fit inside the front bezel.

I can't for the life of me get it in correctly to be able to screw down the Ti bezel.

Oh and in trying the Ti bezel on the older ribbed head I cracked the lens bad so if anyone has a link to where I can get a new M3 lens I am needing one of those now.

 

[sween1911]

Greenbean,

Check out Flashlightlens.com for a lens. I feel your pain, I broke the lens on my M3 trying to swap out the original reflector and foam with an LED unit. I got lucky and someone on here just happened to have a spare.

I have a Nailbender XML2 2.8-6v unit on the way to me for my M3. After struggling with ideas about boring, I finally got my hands on a couple 2500mah 16650's which will work great with a spacer. I currently have his Nichia module, which has the best tint ever, but I want to use a single LiIon and get some more horsepower out of it.