Replacement/Alternative for AW 17500?

Morning everyone -

My go-to light is a Malkoff m91b in a surefire 9p with 2x17500 (protected AWs). The cells aren't super old, but today I went to charge them and I noticed that one of them is charging at about 20% of the usual rate. Changed chargers, same result. So it's time for new cells. Went to find AW's sales thread here, and it's closed . Checked at three online retailers I've used for AW cells -- all out of stock or the item page gone. Anyone know what happened? And...

What's a p17500 user to do?

A bit of searching reveals a few threads discussing this, such as ...

https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/441752

RTD vape has them in stock

fivemega said:

You may want to think about boring your 9P to use pair of protected 18500
Much higher capacity, good quality, readily available cells and lower prices.

Click to expand...

I thought about this years ago, mostly b/c of the dramatic difference in capacity. The biggest downside of my 9p setup is how often I have to charge it (and since it goes from full lumens --> dead, I'm occassionally caught by surprise if I underestimated my usage).


I know overready offers the service. The reason I haven't done it is concern about durability. This light has been dropped down stairs, on concrete, used to prop fire doors, etc. Does anyone know if the boring to 18mm significantly affects the tube strength? I don't want to make it easy to split or bend....