The Lisuns at 80 cents were an awesome deal and performed pretty well according to Kevin. I hope you'll get some more. The DP's at $1.00 are a good deal too, but I'd rather not pay 25% more for 5% additional runtime. At $1.00 per cell there's less differentiation from Surefire cells at $1.25 so I'd probably buy Surefires unless I happened to be placing an order with Arc for other stuff at the same time (which I realize is Arc's intention, but I already bought two Arc LS's and am not likely to buy more anytime soon, nice as they are).
I know I've heard of DOA Surefire cells and vaguely remember hearing that of Tekcells so maybe that kind of problem is inherent to 123's. The Tekcells (according to Kevin) do have less runtime than either Lisuns or better-known brands. I've used a couple Tekcells in my Arc LS and they do work fine (except for the lower runtime) but I probably won't buy any more because they don't work well in higher current lights (e.g. Surefire lights). I don't own any such lights right now, but might get one sometime (Arc LS5?), which is why I'd rather buy SF batteries that are known to work well at such current levels.
I hope you are NOT testing individual 123 cells before shipping them to customers. Any use of a 123 apparently greatly reduces its shelf life. The way I heard it, brand new 123's from the factory apparently have some kind of oxide layer that keeps them fresh for up to 10 years. But as soon as you put the cell into a light and test it, the oxide layer burns through and the cell can go dead in just a year or two. I've definitely noticed 123's going dead in my UKE 2L with just a few minutes of use and 1-2 years of idleness.
