Bored With Surefire?

[SureAddicted]

Not it's not. Their largest market is private citizens making private purchases. Even a cursory evaluation of the kinds of numbers they're moving through various retail establishments will reveal this and a fellow from SureFire who posts on these forums even said as much. Lowes is likely as big or bigger of a market than the government. It makes sense, police and military combined are only a tiny fraction of the nation's population. The self defense market alone is bigger.

Is this based on hard facts or something you thought up while you were asleep last night? I read somewhere that this board has around 14-15k members, lets double that. So, there are 30k potential SF customers, and don't forget that isn't just in the US, that is globally. The reason I said 30k is because of guests and the non registered. Lets say out of the 30k, 20k bought SF's. I'm being very generous here. Now lets take into account all the Law enforcement and military who use SF, not just in the US, but globally, I think you know where I'm going with this.

 

[GreyShark]

Is this based on hard facts

Yes. A poster who works for SureFire has suggested as much.

I read somewhere that this board has around 14-15k members, lets double that. So, there are 30k potential SF customers, and don't forget that isn't just in the US, that is globally. The reason I said 30k is because of guests and the non registered. Lets say out of the 30k, 20k bought SF's. I'm being very generous here. Now lets take into account all the Law enforcement and military who use SF, not just in the US, but globally, I think you know where I'm going with this.

Yes, I know where you're going with that and you aren't going to make it very far. SureFires are sold in gun shops and hardware stores all over America.There are over 300 million Americans. Around 80 million of them own guns. Around 4 million of them are NRA members. The combined strength of all law enforcement and all military personnel including the desk jockies in the US comes out to be around three and a half million. There are around half a million concealed weapons license holders in my state. 38 other states are compelled by law to issue concealed weapons licenses to qualified individuals upon request. An additional 9 states may issue concealed weapons licenses at the discretion of the licensing authority. Some states do not require free men to have a license of any kind to carry a concealed firearm. A number of other states allow free men to open carry firearms without any sort of license. The self defense market absolutely dwarfs the government military and law enforcement market in the US.

To put this in better perspective for you, there are four times as many gun owners in America as there are people of any kind in Australia. There are more than 12 times as many guns in America as there are Australians in Australia. Further, Australians surrendered their guns back in the 90's and have enacted new laws to help criminalize self defense. In America we regularly overturn gun laws that run counter to our constitution and support the right of free people to defend themselves from criminal attack. The self defense market in America absolutely dwarfs that of Australia.

I don't have any hard figures on total police and military strength of the entire world but knowing that my country has one of the largest and most powerful in history yet it is only 1% of our total population it is highly likely that there are more Americans than there are police and military personnel of all nationalities combined. Once you consider how many of those foreign soldiers and police come from deeply impoverished nations it becomes more clear that most of them probably couldn't afford a SureFire if they were even available. Once you consider that SureFire sells to foreign citizens as well as police and military the numbers skew even further away from government sales being dominant. Again it's hard to come up with hard numbers for exactly what the third world is equipping itself with but I have a hunch they are carrying a lot more stuff that comes out of China than stuff that's coming out of SureFire.

 

[johndoeslo]

The elephant in the room here that few seem to recognize is that Surefire makes all of its products in the USA. This means that they pay their employees a decent wage and must comply with all the laws and regulations the USA imposes. Companies that produce offshore can offer products at reduced prices as they pay their employees nothing, pay very little taxes, and ship their goods into the USA market without paying any tariff. Even before we start talking about build quality/materials cost, Surefire is at a big price disadvantage.

My second point is that Surefire's build quality is top notch. The philosophy with which these lights are built is to maximize reliability. This eliminates the use of rechargable batteries as an option. Surefire builds their lights to use cr123 primaries because they are the most reliable cells. If you want some testimony about Surefire's reliability, go look at their "true stories" sections for their lights.

My final point is that I believe Surefires can represent high value lights. The key is to NOT PAY RETAIL! If you are smart and buy well cared for used lights you generally pay <2/3 of the retail price. You can then use the light and resell it (perhaps 1-2 years later) for close to what you pay for it. When you buy other brands it is much more difficult to resell them. This is all possible because of Surefire's EXCELLENT customer service and warranty which transcends recipts and original owners.

Best,

John

 

[rmteo]

The elephant in the room here that few seem to recognize is that Surefire makes all of its products in the USA. This means that they pay their employees a decent wage and must comply with all the laws and regulations the USA imposes.
......
Best,

John

So does Mag Instrument.

 

[GreyShark]

The elephant in the room here that few seem to recognize is that Surefire makes all of its products in the USA. This means that they pay their employees a decent wage and must comply with all the laws and regulations the USA imposes. Companies that produce offshore can offer products at reduced prices as they pay their employees nothing, pay very little taxes, and ship their goods into the USA market without paying any tariff. Even before we start talking about build quality/materials cost, Surefire is at a big price disadvantage.

I can agree with the idea that it will cost more to make something in America than in China but not for labor reasons. While SureFire does do a certain amount of hand fitting many other production lines do too. The big thing is that SureFire appears to use a robot(cnc) to do most of the manufacturing. The anodizing is done in great big batches. If anything I'd wager that it is our ridiculously high taxes that add more to the cost of their lights than the cost of American labor. If our politicians would stop trying to bleed all the productive people dry America could very definitely be highly competitive in manufacturing for the world market. Historically it has been one of our strengths.

My second point is that Surefire's build quality is top notch. The philosophy with which these lights are built is to maximize reliability. This eliminates the use of rechargable batteries as an option. Surefire builds their lights to use cr123 primaries because they are the most reliable cells. If you want some testimony about Surefire's reliability, go look at their "true stories" sections for their lights.

Honestly I think that's an afterthought. The kinds of rechargeables we're using today just weren't available way back when SureFire settled on the CR123 format. In fact CR123's were rare and expensive back then too and to some extent still are. I don't think you could really argue a CR123 is more reliable than a IMR 16340 anyway, though I would say a protection circuit would be an additional point of failure.

My final point is that I believe Surefires can represent high value lights. The key is to NOT PAY RETAIL! If you are smart and buy well cared for used lights you generally pay <2/3 of the retail price. You can then use the light and resell it (perhaps 1-2 years later) for close to what you pay for it. When you buy other brands it is much more difficult to resell them. This is all possible because of Surefire's EXCELLENT customer service and warranty which transcends recipts and original owners.

Best,

John

I agree 100% with that. SureFire makes beautiful lights and they hold their resale value well. Especially in the case of discontinued but desirable products. I'm a proud owner of an SW01 for instance and I know I paid more for it than it cost new. Otherwise buying used is generally a good way to save a few bucks on a good quality product.

 

[Igor Porto]

Honestly I think that's an afterthought. The kinds of rechargeables we're using today just weren't available way back when SureFire settled on the CR123 format. In fact CR123's were rare and expensive back then too and to some extent still are. I don't think you could really argue a CR123 is more reliable than a IMR 16340 anyway, though I would say a protection circuit would be an additional point of failure.

Surefire uses CR123 because they sell them and make profit from it. They standardized the format for "tactical" lights, just to make money. Period. I'd bet a substantial ammount of their profit comes from selling rebranded batteries to their customers. And the customers actually buy them...

Virtually all other manufacturers make flashlights that can hold either 2 CR123 or a 18650. There are quite a few that takes only 18650s. They look at the larger picture.

If it were any other company, it would be outrageous, dishonest and other bad things. The same goes for the ridiculous 20 minute runtime for a few models and other not so good things (the blue tint on T1A Titans that's worse than the cheapest LED crap I've seen and the beam looks like the floodiest unusable thing on Earth, unacceptable! and worse, it costs $239 ) and people just think it's cool because it says Surefire on the label. Not to say their underpowered lights compared to the competition... yes, they NEED innovation or they'll never get a penny from me.

Like it was said before, if other companies sold their lights in physical stories, Surefire would be dust by now. They can't compete with their high prices.

Of course Surefire pioneered the tactical light concept, design and overall coolness around it. But that's past now.


No flames, just my thoughts.

 

[GreyShark]

I can see why they went with CR123's back in the day. They have a reasonable capacity and twice the voltage of the popular alkalines which means they could drive the bulbs harder. I think the reason they're not making bodies for 18mm cells comes down to the tailcap design. You just can't open up the body without thinning out the tailcap thread area and they're probably not willing to do that. If I were them, and I'm not, I'd just leave the old tailcap design in the dust and come out with a slightly wider version designed to work with 18mm rechargeables. I believe that's what Wolf Eyes has done but I don't own any of their products yet. Primaries are still nice for applications where the draw isn't particularly heavy, the voltage doesn't need to be too high and you want a long run time.

 

[Igor Porto]

Sounds reasonable. But why not create a new tailcap that has the same thickness/resistance but a slightly larger diameter for a 18mm inner diameter tube?

 

[GreyShark]

The problem is on the body's tailcap threads. They would need to make that part of the light body wider which would then require a wider tailcap to screw onto it. It would have to be a clean break with their existing form factor, backwards compatibility would not be possible. Some people do bore the lights out as a work around but they still get the thin sections at the threads and o-rings. It works but it can't be as strong as was originally intended.

So basically I'd say it's a case of SureFire wanting to remain backwards compatible at the expense of being able to run on modern power sources.

 

[Robocop]

I believe SF sales enough lights at their current price point to not be too worried about what others are doing. I understand they sale lights in many retail shops and they do have a large customer base in the private sector. From what I have seen I believe their private citizen sales are more of the lower end lights such as the E1E.

When you get up into the more expensive weapon lights and more costly hand held options I do not see many average people buying those from the Bass Pro Shop.....it is even very hard to find the more costly stuff locally in stores anyway.

I am 40 years old and have been playing with lights personally for over 20 years. I have been using them professionally on duty for almost 13 years. In my 40 plus years I have only seen a few average citizens with a SF light and of those they are usually the E1E or cheaper G2 Nitrolen models. All of the much more expensive SF products I have seen were owned by police friends and military people I know. Of course I know some CPF members who are neither police or military and they have plenty of the higher end stuff.

The CPF people are a very small part of SF sales and as such I again say I believe the majority of SF higher end sales are to police and military. They may sale a huge amount of cheaper models to the general public however I feel the bulk of their profits are from the police community and their more specialized products.

One of the best lights I ever owned was a SF Commander and in all the years I used it they never changed the design. Sure others came and went and at times I did feel bored with them. It took me a while to realize why they left well enough alone and it was simply because their products worked and worked well for the users.

I guess to sum it up and remain on topic I will add that I can see how most average customers, or even flashaholics, would grow bored with SF. To that market section it may seem as if they are not keeping up with the other trends. To the larger speciality customer base of police and military we are just fine with their current products as they fill our needs perfectly without needing to change.

There have been many times the flashaholic side of me gets angry with many makers when they do not offer what I wish to see in a light. It took me a while to realize that some makers do not cater to my flashaholic wants and focus more on first what sales for them and second what works for their larger customer base.

 

[Sgt. LED]

Great post, sounds like a good time to wrap this thread up. End it on a resonable and logical point.

 

[cbxer55]

I have not bought another Surefire since I bought the U2 back in January 2006. It has performed flawlessly since then. If that makes me bored with Surefire, so be it.

However that being said, whatever light I decide to buy next will be a Surefire, mainly because they are Made In The United States.

No more made in china for this cat. I do not want to see china be the next manufacturing superpower. We in the U.S. need to learn how to make things again, make them affordably, and purchase things Made In The U.S. or we will never recover from this economic downturn we are in. We cannot succeed as a nation of servicers, flipping things to each other.🤢

So even though I want to purchase an olight m30 really bad, it will not happen, ever.

I am a Surefire fan, and have eight of them to prove it. The only reason I do not have more is due to the exceptional U2. I just cannot see a reason to replace it with anything else, except the newer version that has longer run-times.

 

[GreyShark]

When you get up into the more expensive weapon lights and more costly hand held options I do not see many average people buying those from the Bass Pro Shop.....it is even very hard to find the more costly stuff locally in stores anyway.

That's an interesting subject but unfortunately I don't think we have much data on which specific products they sell to who and how many of their higher end lights are even made per year. Maybe we could extrapolate though. We know certain items are issued to the military, maybe somebody can look those numbers up. If somebody can find how many of those specific models are manufactured every year that can fill in a little more of the picture. Obviously some specific products will always appeal more to some specific markets and some products just won't be produced in large numbers at all. For instance IR illuminators will undoubtedly skew heavily to the military market.

As for the rest, well, all I can say is have you ever been to arfcom? I don't know what their total membership is but they have 2,200 members online right now and it's 1am Eastern time. Arfcom is one of the big sites but there are many, many more where that came from. You'd be surprised how many Millennium and Scout series weapon lights, M3's and others are in private hands. Then of course there is no shortage of people who figured out a P60 is a P60 so they use a G2 with a mount. As I recall the 6P was originally designed with a one inch body specifically so it could be mounted to a weapon with common scope rings.

The CPF people are a very small part of SF sales and as such I again say I believe the majority of SF higher end sales are to police and military. They may sale a huge amount of cheaper models to the general public however I feel the bulk of their profits are from the police community and their more specialized products.

I'm not so sure about that though it depends on their business practices. For instance a Glock or M4 costs much less when sold to the police or military than a Glock or AR-15 sold to a private purchaser. Uncle Sam usually gets a discount. And again, that isn't what the poster from SureFire suggested. I mean consider it from even a production standpoint. A common hardware store 6PL has way less machining and way less metal in it than an M6. The 6PL is faster and less expensive to produce. A P60L has got to be much cheaper to produce than U2 Ultra's guts. A G2 must be even cheaper. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the more high end stuff were actually loss leaders, it's a common practice.

 

[DHart]

The price spread compared to other lights... I would pay more for the Surefire name...if it was more reasonable. But to me their way too high priced...

Also as others have pointed out...they really try and force you to stay with the 123 batt.... I am one of those who are moving on into the future with Li-ion.... I know rubbing sticks together will still start a fire...but I use a lighter. And I also uses Li-ion.

About the way I feel as well. And there are so very many really interesting, appealing new models of flashlights coming out now that make Surefire not so exciting anymore. Makers like Nitecore, Liteflux, JetBeam, Fenix, Eagletac, RA, 4Sevens are doing things with lights that are very appealing and priced so you can buy perhaps two or more of them for the cost of one Surefire.

And while I think CR123 is a good power source under certain circumstances, I like having a fresh li-ion power source in my main lights at all times, not a primary cell that has been partially depleted but still has some life in it. And I don't want to be tossing depleted primary cells left and right. I only keep CR123s and other lithium primary sizes as an emergency/back-up stash for a time when for some reason I can't use or recharge my li-ions.

Li-ions are it for me... I'm a huge fan of li-ions for powering my flashlights. And I stick mostly with lights that can be powered by a single-cell li-ion (16340, 14500, 17670, 18650 etc.) In this regard, most Surefires are a dead end road when it comes to powering options.

One glaring hole in the Surefire line up is a well-featured AA-size light that will run on 14500, NiMH, AA lithium, as well as the lowly alkaline. A light which offers multiple output levels, very small compact size, a brilliant high all the way down to a squeeky loooow low. One example of this is the Quark AA which by virtue of it's size, powering options, and levels/modes options makes it one of the most versatile, useful, flexible lights one could hope to have - especially in a bad time when scavenging for cells only comes up with the lowly AA alkaline. But in normal times, the 14500 is THE standard cell of choice for being able to start every day with a fully charged, very potent light. Sorry, but the ICON ain't doin' it for me. 🙁

I do power my Surefire L1 with li-ions, but my E1B can't run well on them. In fact, I never use my E1B anyway as I prefer the Quark123, QAA, Q123-2, D10, LF3XT, JetI Pro and Jet III-M, and L-Mini II lights.

My other Surefires (Z2 Combatlight, E2, E1e) have all been converted to run other-brand lamp assemblies (Malkoff, Solarforce, TLS, Dereelight, LumensFactory lamp assemblies) and running on only li-ions now. For additonal 6P lights, now I buy Solarforce L2 and L2m as I feel their quality is excellent, they're Surefire lego-able for aftermarket drop-ins, and 1/4 the price.

SO basically, I started out with Surefire lights and then in the last year, and now have moved ahead into buying numerous competing brands with more innovative features, UIs, sizes, powering options, and much lower prices.

Surefires are great quality lights, but they have lost much of their appeal to me as compared to much of what the competition is offering at much more appealing pricing.

 

[lrp]

Very well put Dhart, I feel the same way!!

 

[Igor Porto]

I do not want to see china be the next manufacturing superpower.

They won't be, they already are.

 

[Outdoors Fanatic]

I'm bored with my lack of money to support my SF addiction.

 

[strinq]

They won't be, they already are.

True that, and with ever increasing quality. Evident in all products they're producing.
There are loads of rubbish, but there's an increase in gems.

 

[Blindasabat]

I'm considering getting more bored SureFire. I have a 6P bored to 18.5mm, but an 18650 bored C2 is calling my name. I just ordered a set of 18350 Li-Ion cells so I can run 18650 or 2x18350 as required.

 

[DHart]

I'm considering getting more bored SureFire. I have a 6P bored to 18.5mm, but an 18650 bored C2 is calling my name. I just ordered a set of 18350 Li-Ion cells so I can run 18650 or 2x18350 as required.

Why bore a Surefire tube... risking too thin areas around the o-rings and threads... I think the body is thin enough as is.

You don't need to bore a Surefire body (unless you must have the Surefire logo/look)... have you considered the 18650 Solarforce L2 flashlight? No boring required. Perfectly compatible with Surefire heads and tails. 18650 cells fit perfectly. In fact the Solarforce L2 head is actually nicer than the Surefire 6P/9P head in that the lens retaining ring is stainless steel instead of plastic! I still prefer the Surefire forward clicky switch, however. So, you could buy a complete L2 flashlight for around $30 including R2 lamp assembly and then pop on a Surefire Z-41 or Z-59 tailcap and not have to risk thin threads areas with boring out a Surefire tube. Save your precious Surefire tube in stock form... or sell it on the Marketplace. I believe one is much better off with an L2 18650 body than with a bored-out-paper-thin Surefire tube.