Why is it that so many people need McClicky's and Malkoff's?

How come, that it seems to be a booming business, to build products to make SureFire and Maglite better ?

I think you answered your own question... they build products that make surefire and maglite better.

Surefire is a quality brand, and have good reliability, and their customer service is excellent (so i've heard). The lights themselves are fine, but Incandecant versions burn through cells too quickly, dropins cost a lot and the LED versions are just not that good. The colour is pretty meh, the beam quality is so-so, the reliability is okay, but I wouldn't trust them in an emergency.

Malkoff however, has robust, quality dropins that improve on power, , runtime, reliability, beam profile and beam colour. The customer service is probably the best I have ever personally encounted (full replacement in my case), and they are a pleasure to deal with. I would trust a surefire with a malkoff dropin over pretty much anything else I own except for maybe a malkoff in an MD2 body.

As for McClicky's, I use them in my surefire so I have a higher current, soft press, forward clicky on a surefire 6P without having to worry about breaking it.

Yeah I dont get this question.

malkoff makes the best customizable lights available. The Malkof droppins are THE most reliable light engines you can buy. The Mclicky is the best clicky swicth you can buy.

Surefire and Maglite dont make the best light engines or the best switches so someone has to take up the slack and step in and get the job done. The Malkoff maglite dropins are also the best improvement you can make to a Maglite. Maglite has been slow in making improvements and keeping their lights more current. Surefire has switched to personal led lights that cannot be easily modified with dropins anymore .

If you want a military/weapons grade light where the weakest link is the batteries then build a malkoff or Surefire with a malkoff dropin. If you have to have a clicky then get a Mcclicky switch.

I recently purchased my first Malcoff, got the Hound Dog XML with MD2, MD3 and MD4 bodies, a Pila IBC charger and some AW 18650 and 18500 batteries. I made these purchases after extensive review here, and boy am I glad. This is by far the finest flashlight I have ever held in my hand with the best beam I have ever seen in my backyard, down the street, up in the trees, or anywhere else I have pointed it. The reviews were great, the beam shots good too, but to use this light is awesome, and yes, there is a difference that can be noticed, beyond what can ever be found in written words or seen on your monitor, and I guess that is why so many people need Malcoff's and McClicky's.

Surefire makes a damn fine light. It doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, which is what enthusiasts always crave. Hence we have smaller, more agile makers who are capable of addressing our desires for better Surefires by offering upgrades.

Because all the rest of us here are LEOs, secret agents and Marines, regularly busting into crackhouses and totalitarian dictator hideouts and kicking butt and we need the crazy toughest lights on earth to keep us alive.

Why, what do you do for work?

I find the McClicky very reliable and easy to switch on and off. Not too difficult to change the switch, either, with a little heat. The Malkoff dropins are extremely reliable and put light downrange without comarison. Nothing wrong with Surefire. I own a bunch of them.

Simplicity, reliability, FEEL... and one of the most important: WE LOVE 'EM AND CAN'T DESCRIBE EXACTLY WHY !!!

P.S.
Funny question, though...

For those who don't understand the question, it's more a disguised "Why is it that so many people buy SureFire & MagLite, since they need McClicky & Malkoff upgrades?" thread than it's questioning why Malkoff & McClicky in general.

Why, what do you do for work?

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A little background: OP bought one hundred SureFires for his Elite Tactical Squad, most of which failed & SureFire apparently wouldn't do anything about it; then he bought as many from other, cheaper brands, & they've all been perfect (true story). So from his perspective, SureFires need to be upgraded. I'm actually the one person here who prefers the feel of SureFire's stock clicky over a McClicky switch (& haven't had any failures yet), but considering his experience, I think we can all understand where the OP's coming from now.

Grizzlyb said:

Thats a fine explanation of my question. But not 100% right. For starters, I don't know much about the Malkoff drop-ins and the McClicky's, so I wanted to know whats about that. As far as I know, they dont fit in Fenix/Sunwayman/Olight etc, but I understood that they are build for the US lights like Maglite and Surefire. We indeed bought 100 SF's, and 80% of those never failed. So not like You stated "most of which" You know the right stuff but apparently You choose to misinform a little to make Your point ?

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I thought it was 80% failed. I just wanted to make sure everyone knew the (true) story, so they'd know where you were coming from. Either way, 20% is still too high- what did S.F. have to say when you told them about all these failures?

tolkaze said:

I think you answered your own question... they build products that make surefire and maglite better.

Surefire is a quality brand, and have good reliability, and their customer service is excellent (so i've heard). The lights themselves are fine, but Incandecant versions burn through cells too quickly, dropins cost a lot and the LED versions are just not that good. The colour is pretty meh, the beam quality is so-so, the reliability is okay, but I wouldn't trust them in an emergency.

Malkoff however, has robust, quality dropins that improve on power, , runtime, reliability, beam profile and beam colour. The customer service is probably the best I have ever personally encounted (full replacement in my case), and they are a pleasure to deal with. I would trust a surefire with a malkoff dropin over pretty much anything else I own except for maybe a malkoff in an MD2 body.

As for McClicky's, I use them in my surefire so I have a higher current, soft press, forward clicky on a surefire 6P without having to worry about breaking it.

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I am just confused in your statement about surefire and malkoff. With surefire: tint, beam quality are so so. Would those matter in an emergency situation? With the other one, what can a good CS do in an emergency situation?

As a fan of MCClicky's and Malkoffs I would like to answer that as best as I can in regards to my perspective. I'm a big fan of the Surefire C2/M2. Its not just because it's got the Surefire logo on the side or because its made by Surefire. Matter of fact I'm not a fan of the new Surefire models. I almost feel like there is the New Surefire and the Old Surefire. The Surefire C2/M2 (and others) are masterpieces of design and aesthetics. Every time I look at one it brings a smile to my face. Kind of like looking at a nice car or a simple yet elegant product.
My first car was a 1985 Jaguar XJ6. I bought it in extremely good shape, the leather was well kept, the front part was repainted after getting into a minor accident. I used to get complements on this car from a lot of people from all walks of life, ages, races, genders. Lots of girls complemented me on it, the Marine on guard duty on the base were I was stationed at, the Customs officer in San Diego, the senior citizens one day when I pulled up to the 7-11, the middle aged black lady at the library, the last GF I had before I met my future wife, my future wife, well you get the picture.

The Surefire C2 with an FM35 filter and other SF flashlights brings the same reaction from people across all walks of life. Many Surefire lights are popular because just like my Jag it brings that appreciation for beauty from people plus they are reliable. Not only that buy they are well built. However just like my Jag had problems with the motor and the transmission they have some shortcomings. I would have loved to have gotten an efficient modern engine and a transmission from a Lexus or similar car and transplanted it to my jag.
Sadly that was not possible and my jag had to go after spending way too much money on it.
Now a Malkoff drop in brings new life and a modern engine into a nice looking and well built flashlight. Surefire has inspired a lot of other flashlight manufacturers with their aesthetics. The fact that there are many clones and copies of their products speaks a lot about their designs.

As for the Maclicky's well I think some people prefer the stock form of their switches and having a tactical clicky. I'm not a big fan of twistys. However I was not bothered enough to justify buying a MacClicky. However I recently bought an M2 that had one in it and I like the way they operate while keeping my M2 in stock form.
Of course other people use it for different reason like to run high amp drop ins.

Mmmm.... Malkoff. I've only got one Malkoff, an MD2 with M61 module and H/L ring. It's not the brightest light I've got, it's not the prettiest, or the one with the best runtime (still very impressive off a single 18650), but every time I click it on I know it's the best light I've got.

And it's not the hype. It's just so much better in every aspect than any other light I own. The only other light I've got that assures me of it's reliability is my TK40, it's been used a LOT and works like new after almost two years and fair bit of abuse. It's still not in the same league as my Malkoff.

Grizzlyb said:

How come, that it seems to be a booming business, to build products to make SureFire and Maglite better ?

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Both SF and Mag especially, have massive customer bases and product / brand awareness.
So out of everyone who has a few flashlights laying around the house those that have these brands showed a disposition to have wanted something 'better' or what they perceive as quality - compared to the average incandescent flashlight.
Besides the market potential for offering an upgrade, the Mags size and aluminum body for heat dissipation, it was a good choice as a starting point to shoehorn in the emerging & now cost effective electronics / led's / and misc parts (existing reflector) without too much startup costs.
Surefire offered an audience that demonstrated that they would pay a premium price for performance. It must have been only logical that they would want & pay for a premium upgrade.
When a company gets to a certain size the business becomes price sensitive to keep retail sales going, I'm guessing that at first the numbers didn't add up to offer an all out performing LED and that all of the above worked together to allow the Malkoff's and McClicky's etc to get a big foot in the door.

Fast / Cheap / Good = Pick any two.

So could there be a Malkoff for the other big non US build lights in the future? (Fenix, Jetbeam, Sunwayman etc ?) (or is the Tactical Light world changing to fast)

leon2245 said:

Either way, 20% is still too high- what did S.F. have to say when you told them about all these failures?

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Effectively they did nothing.
After the first complains the Dutch Company that is the SF importer told us He'll send the 2 broken clickys back to SF for replacement.
After 6 months we got 1 replaced. In that time there where already 6 broken to add, and we send those back. We never got anything from SF again.
Now, from the 100 lights about 40 are still in use on the officers. The last time I checked about 25 from the other 60 are working and used during training sessions.
So I was not accurate. The number is 65 working 35 broke down.

Today I spoke with one of the biggest suppliers of Lights in Holland.
They seem to have gotten the same problem with the SF E2e (2005/2008 series).
They had a 100% failure over those Years. Some where replaced and failed again. After 4 years none is working.
This says nothing about SF 2011. It was the early days of the Tactical hype. Other lights where probably as good or bad as any.

Grizzlyb said:

So could there be a Malkoff for the other big non US build lights in the future? (Fenix, Jetbeam, Sunwayman etc ?) (or is the Tactical Light world changing to fast)

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I've wondered the same thing. People are already using Malkoffs in Solarforce hosts and I've seen some MacCklykys installed in some Solarforce tailcaps if I remember correctly.
The thing about Malkoffs though is that he was not the first to build aftermarket or only entity to build drop ins for Surefire. The P60 after market was already there. Ultrafire, Lumens factory, and other companies were already building drop ins and other products for Surefire and its clones. I think Gene started building his parts from DX parts in the beginning and took off from there.
I've been wondering for awhile now what's going to happen to the P60 aftermarket now that Surefire its pretty much discontinuing its P60 hosts. I get the feeling that unless another manufacturer picks up on the P60 host market, innovation and products for this line may decline significantly. Solarforce might make a good candidate if Surefire doesn't step in to stop them.

As for the other big non US build flashlights who knows if Malkoff will build things for them. I've had a few Fenix lights and they don't seem to be easily modded. For the price you could just buy another flashlight when technology changes. I don't see too many people collecting Fenix or Jetbeam flashlights. They are buy and get rid off lights once technology changes.

Kraft said:

Surefire offered an audience that demonstrated that they would pay a premium price for performance. It must have been only logical that they would want & pay for a premium upgrade.

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Well said.

Grizzlyb said:

So could there be a Malkoff for the other big non US build lights in the future? (Fenix, Jetbeam, Sunwayman etc ?) (or is the Tactical Light world changing to fast)

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There are 3 challenges here...

Most of these brands (and newer SF stuff) are not designed with flexibility in mind. Even the P60 'drop in' platform was accidental, based on a particular lamp design. Even heads are often not user removable.

A big part of the magic of the P60 platform is that many models (and lines of models) use the same (physical) lamp. These brands start from scratch with every line, so even without issue 1, there would not be enough owners of the same design to warrant a production run.

Mods are price sensitive. Few want to invest many times the value of a light, making it better. Even the McClicky is a poor seller when it comes to $8 Solarforce setups.

All, Thanks for the inside on this.
It is not that I am interested in the Malkoff or McClicky upgrades for the complete team, that would be to expensive and have no real need.

But just to experience all the pro's and con's for myself I would like to order these upgrades and see what they do.
I still have some P60's and enough E2e's, and Maglite's laying around.