Tactical Flashlights becoming stale?

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hmmm, how come no talk about battery change so easy & simple it can be done with eyes closed?

is that even a "tactical" advantage? :thinking:

small, simple & highly reliable flashlight + easy to draw & keep holster + battery change so foolproof it can be done blindfolded & fast. :candle:

Anyone who goes into a tactical situation knowing their batteries are that close to going dead needs to re-think their career.

I wont speak for the Military guys as I'm not in that world, but in Law Enforcement, gun fights are really short. Clearing buildings rarely takes over an hour, which is a good general runtime for a lot of tactical lights.

Even if clearing a building for an hour and a half you wouldn't have the light on most of the time. Flash and move tactics. If you light starts to run dry, just rotate in the stack.

The only guy who will have a light on while clearing anything will be the front man. That way no one else back lights him and gives his silhouette away. Sorry, no spell check and it's 6 am.

Bad traffic stops, bad domestics, bad anything where there is a gun fight will almost never last that long.

It's just really not a concern. I would be more worried that a snap-off tailcap or bezel would come off when I wasn't trying to swap batteries.

 

[Robocop]

Battery changes in the field are common however when you need to change batteries quickly there is no substitute for a spare back up light. Even the most simple of battery changes should not be attempted during a dangerous situation unless it is a last resort......In other words the fastest battery change is to grab your back up light....but that can fail also.

I once attended an officers survival course that was probably one of the best classes I have attended in my 13 years of police work. The first day we arrived the instructors made us place all of our gear in an assigned location with our names on it. They told us it was to inspect all of our equipment before the courses began....however that was not the case.

What they were really doing was tampering with our equipment, without us knowing, in order to induce various failures with our gear. They varied the failures setting up weapon malfunctions by mixing in blank bullets or even unscrewing the tailcaps just enough to prevent contact on a duty light or even removing the battery completely. They disabled laser sights and weapon lights for some officers as well.

My first assignment was to enter a building simulated with known armed intruders. It was a night time event and I was told to assume any target was armed. The targets were activated by remote and on the order I approached the door. As I walked to the open front door I was expecting to be able to set up and enter before coming in contact with any targets. As soon as I unholstered preparing to enter I grabbed my duty light and took about 2 steps towards the door. I heard the target as it was activated swinging into the doorway and tried to illuminate it. My main light was dead due to the unknown failure induced by the instructors. I began backing out of the fatal funnel (doorway) and dropped my main light quickly going to my backup which is a TW4. The sneaky instructors had removed the battery on that also so I had no light at all.

This all happened in about 3 seconds and while I was still moving laterally I remembered all targets were to be considered armed. Without no light I fired one round and tried to lign up more shots just by using the muzzle flash. I got as quick of a sight picture as possible and just began firing several rounds while running backwards. I was maybe 20 feet from the target and when it was all over I fired 7 rounds with 4 hits.

Now this defied all training, or policy, I had been taught as first I did not have enough time to identify my target as a true threat. Second I had no idea if civilians were behind my target and third I was alone with no back up. I was basically shooting blind however the idea was not about target identification, or policy, but more so of surviving with various failures. It was a wake up call for us all attending and a very fun event as well. If I had to change batteries in this event, regardless of how simple, I would have simply been dead.

On a side note the most common failure resulting in confusion from this training was the officers that had weapon mounted lights and lasers. I was shocked to see the reactions of officers who had instructor induced failures to their weapon lights and lasers. Many seasoned officers would produce their weapon upon first contact with a hostile target and when their laser or weapon light did not work it took them several seconds to adjust. You could see them taking seconds trying to find the laser and it was not there....almost as if they had forgotten how to use their normal sights to lign up a shot.

Some times the instructors had placed a dud round in the chamber so the first shot did not fire. Some Officers took several seconds trying to figure it out while others quickly went through normal clearing drills to get back on target...tap...rack...bang as we call it. Point is that we all learned something and lighting was a big part of this class simply as most officers will work some hours in darkness with others going most of their whole shift in darkness.

I really believe todays duty lights are much improved from years past however these improvements are mostly limited to brightness to size ratio as well as battery life and charge cycles. Again I do not feel the market is stale as much as it is topped out at the upper edge of what works. We have had many great lights for years now and it is hard to find something really better to improve on.

 

[Robocop]

I also forgot to add I give credit to the makers of the new 5.11 light for life who were attempting to bring something new to the tactical market. Their new light seemed to be great with the 90 second charge time and while they were trying to freshen up the market first reports are not all that good. If I remember right they had problems with the first run and really do not know the status as of now.

Like I said very hard to follow an already great crowd of lights with something new. In theory it sounded good however in usage it brought nothing new to the scene. I really believe the future trend will be to use battery technology to have smaller lights with the same or better output as full size duty lights with the same runtime also. It seems as if most effort is going towards making Luxeons better suited or liked for duty usage as well. Not really sure how the tactical crowd will see this in say 5 years as incans are still most popular.

 

[ANDREAS FERRARI]

What they were really doing was tampering with our equipment, without us knowing, in order to induce various failures with our gear.

Every first year university student(especially psychology students) have had a Professor or TA do something like this to the class.After the first term-it doesn't work!!!We have a saying up here in Canada-fool me once,shame on you-fool me me twice,I'll kick you in the f***ng balls!

 

[sORe-EyEz]

Anyone who goes into a tactical situation knowing their batteries are that close to going dead needs to re-think their career.

It's just really not a concern. I would be more worried that a snap-off tailcap or bezel would come off when I wasn't trying to swap batteries.

so true!!

that says it all, but still, i do believe form aids function. just as there are flares to aid grip, a bad design can make or break a product. or am i wrong on this too?

 

[Patriot]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Patriot

You probably read Robocop's testimony in which he couldn't get his M6 to turn on.

Lightraven
Actually, I'm the idiot, not Robo. That University of California degree paid for itself. Not an engineering degree, obviously.

So sorry, Robocop and Lightraven for getting those two stories mixed up and misquoting. Please forgive the mistake. I'm going to go edit my post to prevent new readers from getting confused. EDIT: now fixed.

Also, thanks again for sharing the story and I don't believe anyone here thinks you're an idiot Lightraven, especially not myself.

 

[Lightraven]

Not a problem (for me, but Robo probably didn't need that reputation in the flashlight community.)

I'm still working on mastering the M6. Damn lockout! So confusing!

 

[Robocop]

If I remember correct the problem I had during that pursuit was not a light related issue as I had trouble with my radio. I got switched to a secondary channel and had trouble fumbling with my radio controls trying to find my home station. I think it was more of a user error rather than equipment however our current radios now have a lockout feature to prevent this situation.

So to add to it my problem was not with an M6 however it was with my radio controls......Heck I wish I had an M6 to play with none the less...

 

[Patriot]

That's ok, you made up for it with your light-less, firing retreat at the officer survival training camp. Even though they said it wasn't "textbook" it was probably the right thing to do since the nature of the scenario sounded to be all hostile. You get the gold trophy in my book!

Great story!

 

[shuter]

Patriot - You make a clear, strong and logical argument. Well put.

 

[Force Attuned]

hmmm, how come no talk about battery change so easy & simple it can be done with eyes closed?

is that even a "tactical" advantage? :thinking:

small, simple & highly reliable flashlight + easy to draw & keep holster + battery change so foolproof it can be done blindfolded & fast. :candle:

This stresses the importance of having a back-up light.

 

[Patriot]

Patriot - You make a clear, strong and logical argument. Well put.

Why thank you shuter. The others had all the great experience examples, so perhaps I was just able to squeeze them into a thought paragraph.

 

[PhillyRube]

They become tactical when wearing 5.11 tactical gear. I mean when I wear 5.11, I wear the underwear, socks, shirts, under gear, uniform, watch, boots, gloves, glasses, hats, and of coarse the Smith and Wesson M&P since omb express switched over to them. I wear all of this on duty at night. IMO the M&P is much more tactical than the Glock. I read books on how to have the tactical mind set to give me that advantage mentally.
I am ready.....

 

[frank13]

If the lumen is up to 500+ lumen, the runtime of a tactical flashlight is limited to a short lasting. Why not managing to make some improvement on the batteries?? If the lumen is Too low(like below 10 lumen), i do not like it.:shakehead

 

[Robocop]

I believe there have been improvements in batteries however even so that has also seemed to slow lately. For years I carried a Surefire Commander and the B90 cells had issues at first. I got the new cells and carried that light for years without any failures.

Even so it was a simple 3.7 volt set up for about 75 minutes of use on each charge. When the new wave of batteries hit I found many lights that were set up for a 9 volt set up with the same runtime and size. Now we have multi 18500 or 18650 set ups that give great runtime and output. The lamps have also moved forward a little with Lumens Factory coming to mind. It seems as if they have good consistent tints with reliability also very well. There are still a few who are offering incandescent products however most of the technology is going towards luxeon these days.

I am not sure what the tactical market will be for incans in 5 years however there is no doubt luxeons will advance....be it by means of more efficient emitters or battery technology.

 

[M@elstrom]

LED emitters have an edge over their incandescent rivals when it comes to bulb life & durability... in the future I'd like to see an emphasis on emitter tints for better CRI

 

[Robocop]

I do believe that the warmer tinted luxeons will catch on even more so in the future. Maybe it will be that trend that provides the next boost to the tactical crowd. I will say that my opinion towards luxeons for duty use is slowly changing.

While I do agree incans are better suited for most urban environments, due to ambient lighting, I am very happy with one of my duty bag lights. My friend Owen (also a member here) gave me a 6P with a warm tinted Malcoff drop in and I really like this light. The tint is great and with the diffuser it works great for searching the interior of a car or even a small building. I notice this warm tinted version does much better with ambient lighting....my other back up luxeon lights lose alot of their punch out in the open.

I am also feeling like the multi die emitters may catch on and bring the luxeons closer to the front of the tactical market. They do put out some big numbers and with reflectors advancing as quickly as luxeons maybe we are headed for some big things in the future.

 

[M@elstrom]

I do believe that the warmer tinted luxeons will catch on even more so in the future. Maybe it will be that trend that provides the next boost to the tactical crowd. I will say that my opinion towards luxeons for duty use is slowly changing.

+1 :thumbsup:

In my workplace the trend towards LEDs from the original '3D Maglite standard' is gaining momentum... output, size & weight being huge deciding factors