Looking for the Brightest Handgun Mounted Light

Phireglass

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I have checked out a few streamlights and they are pretty unimpressive, ideally i would like to have 500lm but im not sure whats out there especially after 2011, what are your suggestions?
 

cland72

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I think the brightest right now is the x300

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk 2
 

victory

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Surefire announced a 500 Lumen x300 Ultra at shot show a few months back. Not sure when it will be available.

That being said, the current x300 is plenty bright for tactical usage at 170 lumens. 500 lumens is stupid bright for a handgun mounted light and will do nothing but blind you indoors while offering no distinct advantage over the current offering.

Frankly, I can't wait for the Ultra to come out so I can buy some current x300's from the clueless masses on the cheap.
 

victory

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I guess if reliability wasn't a concern you could put something other than a surefire on your handgun...but i think most people putting a light on their gun are doing so for serious purposes.
 

Sgt. LED

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No
Most people put lights on them and put them in drawers and closets without really using them.
Which is fine. Most people aren't having midnight shootouts with home invaders. Thank goodness.
More of an in case of serious purpose purpose. ;)
 
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Echo63

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I thought Oveready made a triple XPG weapon light a little while ago.
If I had a pistol and was looking for a weapon light - this is the one I would pick.
I have a 9P with the 1000 lumen neutral oveready triple in it - and it is a great light - a nice wide flood that reaches out far enough for what I would consider reasonable handgun ranges (50m or so)

The only real problem with the weapon light is you need to use IMR cells, and the runtime is only about 20 mins
(and I would be running one set of cells for training, and keeping a note of how many rounds were fired before they had issues, and a second/third set to actually run the light when needed)
The battering of the recoil may cause issues with the cells, but having good (tested but not fired) cells in it when using the gun "on duty" maybe a good idea
 

victory

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Excessive sidespill is not desirable in a weapon mounted light, neither is that sort of output. The current x300 will easily allow you to illuminate and identify threats at any reasonable distance you would use a handgun.
 

Sgt. LED

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I'm sorry man I dont want to be a pain in your butt in this X300 campaign but on a pistol I want all the spill I can get.
Maybe not massive output because of getting too much reflective glare but sidespill yes.
You can clear rooms a lot faster and with fewer movements when you don't have to wave around a small hotspot. Just plain speed of target identification. Indoors it's all F04 for me.

The light I want depends on what I'm doing. Outside I want some distance as well, especially on a carbine, but still I do want some sidespill there too.

Again not trying to be a pain. Just throwing out my own semi-worthless opinion.
 
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SDM44

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I'm sorry man I dont want to be a pain in your butt in this X300 campaign but on a pistol I want all the spill I can get.
Maybe not massive output because of getting too much reflective glare but sidespill yes.

My Streamlight TLR-1s works perfectly for this. I have both a X300 and TLR-1s, and side by side the X300 is barely brighter compared to the TLR-1s. However, the hotspot is more intense on the X300 and the TLR-1s has a little bit more spill to it. With only a "10 lumen" difference, per the manufacturer's specs, both work really good but for different applications IMO.

I keep the X300 on my rifle since I would use the long gun for longer range shooting and more so outdoors than indoors. Inside my house, I use the TLR-1s since it provides a nice spill and doesn't blind me when I'm shining the light onto a wall 20 ft in front of me (like the X300 does for me). Sure it has the strobe feature but I rarely train with that feature. The strobe models are 160 lumen and the regular/older TLR-1 models were only 110 or 130 lumens, so watch out for those.

IMO, inside of the house (where probably most of your HD use might be), I'd rather have a bright light with a good amount of spill to see all around the area and threat, and not an intense beam directly only onto the threat and no where else.... a bit exaggerated but you get the idea.
 

victory

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I'm sorry man I dont want to be a pain in your butt in this X300 campaign but on a pistol I want all the spill I can get.
Maybe not massive output because of getting too much reflective glare but sidespill yes.
You can clear rooms a lot faster and with fewer movements when you don't have to wave around a small hotspot. Just plain speed of target identification. Indoors it's all F04 for me.

The light I want depends on what I'm doing. Outside I want some distance as well, especially on a carbine, but still I do want some sidespill there too.

Again not trying to be a pain. Just throwing out my own semi-worthless opinion.

Try illuminating around cover/concealment with a light that has a big bright side spill. You bounce the light off the cover, blinding yourself to what is beyond it and illuminating yourself with the splashback.

The splash of the light off the walls with even a tightly focused beam like most weapon lights have (with good reason) in even a fairly large room will give you enough visual information to see all potential threats in the room.
 

SCEMan

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My Streamlight TLR-1s works perfectly for this. I have both a X300 and TLR-1s, and side by side the X300 is barely brighter compared to the TLR-1s. However, the hotspot is more intense on the X300 and the TLR-1s has a little bit more spill to it. With only a "10 lumen" difference, per the manufacturer's specs, both work really good but for different applications IMO.

Ditto here. I also like spill indoors in tight quarters. I've run over 300 rounds of .45 ball thru my Paraord P16/TLR-1s without a glitch.
 

Sgt. LED

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Ohhhhhh come on now, you know it's all in how you use what you have and how you train lol
There's never one right technique or one right product. :)
 
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hron61

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i have a streamlight tlr-2 on my g30 and inside its plenty bright.
i have it set up so the laser and the light come on together, it really exaggerates (lights up) the target extremely well.
 

SDM44

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They break

I haven't heard of any stories of people saying they break. I haven't check on these forums, but I'm on multiple firearms forums and I've never read any issues about the TLR lights 'breaking' in any way.

They work fine for me. I'm on my 3rd one right now (2 on handguns, 1 on AR pistol). I've put thousands of rounds through each handgun (including a good 1000 rounds of each through low/no light courses) and a little less than 1000 rounds on the AR pistol with 5.56 rounds. They all still work and shine just fine.

My only gripe about the TLR lights is the anodize finish isn't as nice or good as the X300, and you notice this if the light stick out in front of the muzzle. My Glock 19 has this problem so you can see where it's worn a little bit from the powder blast, but it has no affect on the light itself, just on the finish.


The OP or anyone else can get whatever light they want. I'm just giving my 1st hand experience with the TLR-1s light. I can give more details on the X300 light I have, but to be honest I don't use it as much.
 

Jeffa

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The current x300 is plenty bright for tactical usage at 170 lumens. 500 lumens is stupid bright for a handgun mounted light and will do nothing but blind you indoors while offering no distinct advantage over the current offering.

Frankly, I can't wait for the Ultra to come out so I can buy some current x300's from the clueless masses on the cheap.

+1 I use the Streamlight TLR-1 but it is the older 120 lumen version. My next will be the SureFire x300. Weapon lights that are too bright do have a habit of blinding in smaller rooms/areas.
 

cland72

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I'll throw in my .02 and say that my two TLR-1 lights (older nonC4 models) have had zero issues. I've used them on a .223 carbine, pistol, and 12ga autoloading shotgun all with positive results.

eta: regarding the discussion of flood vs. throw in a handgun light -- if you're looking for 500 lumens of throw, you're not really using the handgun correctly IMO. If you need that much throw, you should be taking that shot w/ a rifle, not a handgun.
 
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TEEJ

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In practice, the primary desire to not have spill is for combat/combat-like scenarios where you don't want to illuminate your position, or your buddies' positions to your sides, etc.

That is a valid concern, and there are lights that are best suited to this role.

OTHER than that, there is no real advantage to having to view a large room a little at a time through the moral equivalent of a paper towel tube.

:D

IE: If there IS some guy hiding, and you are sweeping the light all over, not knowing if anyone is there or not...if he IS there, he SEES your little patch of light sweeping around, and, knows when to duck when he sees its coming towards him.

He can shoot you while you are doing all this if he's armed of course.

Additionally, in real life, if using a flood light, you have light beyond the "cover" anyway...its more like you flipped on the light switch and its daylight.

If you still had a narrow beamed spot light with too much power for the range, sure, you'd get bounce back/glare...but the POINT of a floody beam to is give a wider, more diffuse lighting of the area, which DOESN'T, in practice, cause these problems.

So, for some of the dogma that's out there, much of it was provided in TRAINING, training designed and/or sponsored by those with a vested interest in people BELIEVING that 100 lumens is more than enough, no matter what, etc.

The 3D LED Maglight for example is ~ 131 lumens, but throws ~ 364 meters. If you use one because it was issued, etc...you cannot see much at a time...you are playing "connect the dots" with the light, trying to stitch together a picture of what's out there.

The little patch of light is all you see out there, you are blind to what lays in the dark periphery.

If you were instead issued a Surefire Fury, it has a nice floody beam that still has throw to it...and you could see some of the periphery/search more at a time/give the other guy less time to shoot you, etc.

If the guy was 300+ meters away, and prone, etc, you may or may not be able to pick him out from the scrub, etc with the Fury, even if the diffuse light reaches that far....there may not be enough Lux.

If you had a Fenix TK70/SF Hellfire HID, etc..., you would see the guy, and the guys in wait to his sides as well, and take in the entire field/positions as soon as you flipped the lights on...and if the guys out there have weapons trained, you then know to flip the lights back out pronto....

As opposed to them picking you off while your narrow beam looked at all the empty areas.

:D
 
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SDM44

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There are a couple of known reputable vendors that are selling the X300's right now for $192. PM me for a link as I don't want to violate any rules by posting a link to a company's website selling them.
 
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