Review with pics and beamshpts: G&P Scorpion

Doberman

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Mar 8, 2012
Messages
61
Location
Cologne, germany
Review G&P Scorpin (SterOPS SRFB-10F)
Hi all,
just want to give you a short impression of my new G&P Scorpion aka Sterops SRFB-10F
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As you can see on the first pics it´s not a lightweited stuff edc for the key-chain :)
It´s weight is 2140 Gramm including the buildt in batteires.
It´s 22,5 length and as diameter of 12 cm overall with some smaller areas
The mounted handle is absolutely necessary, it´s not intended to carry the Flashlight in another manner.


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The Flashlight is very well buildt and gives an absolutely solif feeling

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Counterpart to the handle you find a mounting bay with a tripod connector.

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The only parts of the userinterface are the clicky (on/off) and the plug for the battery loader.

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Glass and reflector are made of 3mm minearl glass and alloy.

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One positive thing to mention is that the light is build of standard components.
The battery back consists of a bundle 18650´s, the ballast is a standard 35 watt slim car ballast and
also the bulb is a car bulb (following HB4-9006 Norm).
So you can get cheap spare parts if something brakes but there is also the option to do performance optimizing
for a little money. I do have some friends who put 50 Watts ballasts in and overdrove the bulb with amazing results.
My first tuning was to exchange the existing 6000K bulb with a high performance 4300 K Bulb. The result was a "felt" 15% increase in the amount of light.

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Very service friendly build, you reach easily any of the components
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The Flashlight is delivered in a well build waterproof case with also takes the power supply and a bungee carrying aid.
There is no spare sealings etc. coming with the Light

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The Light is loaded per power-supply; as long as the LED on the supply is red it´s loading; turning to green means battery pack is full.

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With starting the light it takes about 10 seconds to get 80%Output and another 30 seconds to get a stabilized 100% Output.
Thats not to bad for an HID startup.
It´s a typical thrower and as a very intensive spot, but the spill is still strong enough to take it for a normal walk in the night.


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The spot is good for several hundered meters. Last night i enlightet a house 480m away from me and you could still recognize most of the details.
Its more up to the eyes of the owner and the weather situation that limits the distance.
To adjust spot and spill, the Flashlight provides a set (8 pcs.) of steel washers that can be taken out.

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As mentioned before, i changed the bulb due to two reasons.
1) You lose output; 4300 K Bulbs do 3200 lumens while the 6000K bulbs only provide 3000 lumens max.
2) the 4300k Color is much more recognizable for the eye than the 6000 K; so you see "more" light because of the less amount of UV-light.


In conclusio the G&P Scorpion is really an unusual Flashlight in the positive meaning of the word. It´s outstanding in design and an eye-catcher in your hand and
also in your showcase. It´s build from standard components that can be bought and exchanged easily. It´s also a good platform for performance modifications (ballast + bulbs with
higher performance). I will leave my as is, with the 3200 lumens bulb it´s a good compromise between runtime (aprrox 90 minutes) and light.
Depite from that she is not lightweightet and the layout as a thrower also reduces operating range.

I personally do really love this light and will surely take it out into the night more often than other flashlights that i own.
We´ll see when this will change according to the negative aspects of the light (form/weight).

Please find attached some more impressions of the G&P Scorpion and of corse below the beamshots. I Compared it with my magicfire Scorpion HID.

Hope you enjoyed it.

And pls excuse typos; i translated this review qick&dirty from my german review.

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Regards
André

and now the Beamshots:
Scenario 1, in my garden: distance from me to fence ca. 20 meters; from camera to birch tree 45 meters.
Camera to fence: 25 meters
First shot:
MagicFire Scorpion towards fence .

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second shot:
MagicFire Scorpion towards fence located behind camera
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Third shot
MagicFire Scorpion towards birch tree in 45 meters distance:

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First shot:
G&P Scorpion towards fence :

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Second shot:
G&P Scorpion towards fence located behind the camera

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Third shot:
G&P Scorpion towards birch tree in 45 meters distance :

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Next Scenario:
Forrest path 3x the same picture with another focus:
1) towards 45m distance bushes; 2) towards beginning of the forrest in 130 meters distance; 3) middle of the forrest in 135 meters distance.

1: Magicfire Scorpion :
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2: G&P Scorpion:
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Next Scenario:
Street, 225meters to the end; 3 shots: focused at the middle of the distance; focused at the end of the distance, focused 10 meters before person

1: G&P Scorpoin

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2:MF Scorpion :

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Next Scenario :
Forrest in 135 meters distance, G&P left; MF right


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Two really outstanding HID flashlights, not really compareable (Thrower vs. Flooder).
G&P is much better in throw, but still gives enough spill to use it as "normal" light.
The MF Scorpion has a good flood with also recogniseable throw-characteristics and is much smaller and lightweightet than the G&P.
I do love them both :)

Hope you enjoyed the pictures .
Rgds
Andre

P.S.: All pics taken with the same parameters (Samsung NX100, ISO 100, aperture 9, 6 sec. time in garden and 10 sec. in the forrest, wide angle 20mm, JPEG)
P.P.S.: don´t use pictures without permission.
 

missionaryman

Enlightened
Joined
Oct 20, 2005
Messages
955
Location
Sydney, Australia
Hi André, nice review thank you for sharing.
Where did you get this light?
Do you have details of the bulb you replaced with and the 50w ballast that you know others have successfully used?
 

Doberman

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Mar 8, 2012
Messages
61
Location
Cologne, germany
Hi missionaryman,
thanks for watching the review.
I got that light from ebay UK, you can find it when searching for G&P. If you are interested in more details, pls send a pm.
The replacement bulb i bought was also from ebay; if you search for the standard of that bulb you will find hundreds of offers in any color temperature (beginning 4300 K ending 10.000 K). Mostly any car ballast named SLIM will fit into the G&P (once should compare sizes and mounting points to be sure).
My thoughts are still that a bulb exchange should be the only optimization to keeping the balance between outcome&runtime. If i´d change the ballast i´d also change the batteries to enlarge capacity also.
Despite from that the output is stunning even in the 35 watts version according to the 10 cm (~4inches) reflector.

Regards
André
 

get-lit

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jan 22, 2007
Messages
1,216
Location
Amherst, NY
What inspirational design and construction. The maker was obviously passionate about this piece of art. Very nice.
 

Eric242

Flashlight Enthusiast
Joined
Jul 18, 2006
Messages
2,931
Location
[-Mad in Germany-]
Nice review Dobermann!

The light is available for quite some time now, about 5 years (although I can´t tell if it has been altered by the manufacturer since then). People wouldn´t touch the light because back then BugOutGear_USA started an interest thread at the CPFMP for a group buy but decided not to go through with it because of the reviews his demo light got from two CPF members. The thread unfortunatelly does not exist anymore. The availability of spare parts from G&P was one of the reasons. I guess nowadays parts are more easily available, even if not through G&P.

Eric
 
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Doberman

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Joined
Mar 8, 2012
Messages
61
Location
Cologne, germany
Hi Eric,
thanks for your thoughts. Yes, when searching the CPF for information about this Flashlight i also found some hints leading to a negative review according a G&P HID. I ment to found out that the review was leading to the G&P 771 HID Flashlight and not the GP-680 (this one), but again, i am not quite sure. There was a group buy for the 680 in a german forum, i´ve been talking with some owners and they were all pleased according to build quality, stability, reliability. And so am i with my flashlight. Can´t identify a negative point so far thus the light is very new with me (about 5 hrs of runtime). I can´t imagine that there has been made changes to the general setup. With opening the Flashlight you can see that it is made only of standard-components that you could get nearly everywhere, which again makes me think that the former review covered potentially another flashlight. As i use all of my lights on a regular base, time will show.

Regards
 

dkongkill

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Joined
Apr 4, 2011
Messages
31
Hey Doberman, Thanks for the review. I have been looking at this light for some time now because I love the body style and the upgradability of it. Since you posted the review how has the light held up until now? Im really thinking about picking one of these up but they are a little pricey haha. :broke:
 

Doberman

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Mar 8, 2012
Messages
61
Location
Cologne, germany
Hi dkongkill,

G&P Scorpion is still working fine and is very reliable. Love the tight spot most of all my HID´s. In this area it´s even outbeating my PH40.
Still very pleased with the extraordinary design of that HID.
 

dkongkill

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Apr 4, 2011
Messages
31
That's amazing! I'm almost certain I'm going to be getting this light soon. I have a couple more questions if they aren't to troublesome to answer. How long would you say the battery lasts? Do you think it would be possible to swap out the stock 18650 bundle pack and put in 18650s with a higher mah rating? and lastly if your willing to open up the light and let me know I'm wondering what the dimensions of the ballast is. I'm planning on swapping in a 50w and would like to know if the ballast i have is to big for it. Thanks for any info Doberman!
 
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