LED thrower as weapon light?

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ErinMT

Newly Enlightened
Joined
Apr 18, 2008
Messages
7
Hello everyone, great to be here. LOVE this forum, even though I hardly understand anything you guys say with the hundreds of new details to learn.

Anyhow, here's my question. I'm building up an AR15 and want to put a real nice long distance and retina smashing light on it. I'm going to use a rail interface flashlight mount and inside it I want to put a...

Well, I don't know what to put. I know what I want the light to do, but which light to get to do it is a mystery to me.

I'm looking for somehting that will give enough light in a moderatly light urban setting to identify if someone is holding a weapon at 200 feet.

Something like the effects this light produce.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxkA4wXo3_0

I have a Surefire E1B for emergency use and searching so lack of flood doesn't matter much to me.

I saw that and thought, perfect! But I also saw some of the comparrisons of Tiablos, Rapidfire Spear, LumaPower... And just don't know what does what.

A big need is a switch that allows momentary activation and then a click to constant on. I don't know if this is called a forward clickie, reverse clickie, or what. All I know is I like the way the switch on my SF E1B works and would like my weapon light to work the same way.

It needs to be tough, it's going to get banged around a bit.
Color of the emited light doesn't matter to me. A blueish or yellow tint is fine.

If it can take Surefire or other store available CR123As that's a big plus. If higher end batteries will really make a marked improvement in performance I'm more than willing to invest in them. But if we're talking 10% improvment in usage, I'll be satisfied will the SF123s.

I'd prefer it not be too thick. I would like it to be able to fit in something like a Surefire M79 light mount or maybe an aimpoint optic sight mount with some shimming. Hell if the light is worth it I'll strap it on with a hose clamp.:twothumbs

Colors don't matter, it will be getting Krylon bath anyway.

As far as looks go...well I'm kind of partial to the Tiablo A9 and the LumaPower MRV.


I would really appriciate any assistance you ladies and gentlemen can provide. :thanks:

Erin.
 
The Surefire E2D LED is the first thing that comes to mind. It's basically just like your E1B, but runs off of two SF123 primaries and is a lot brighter. Surefire rates it at 120 lumens, but most people around here believe it to be more.

Another option is a plain-jane 6P, with a Malkoff M60 (www.malkoffdevices.com). Malkoff's LED pills are truly astonishing.

Remember: large quantities of practice ammo is the best accessory of all.
 
The e2dl would not work. The recoil will cause the batteries to lose contact and switch back and forth from high to low... the KX2C would solve this problem as it only has a high mode, I believe the KX2C comes with the new scout light. It would fit your purposes perfectly
 
Thank you for the info guys, I really appriciate it.

Something I flat out failed to mention is I'm on a budget of about $230 maxtotal for the light and mount. Hence my interest in the $70-150 Tiablo/Deereelight/LumaPower lights.

As much as I like the scout light(have a friends on my desk in front of me) I flat out can't afford the little devil.
 
ErinMT said:
Thank you for the info guys, I really appriciate it.

Something I flat out failed to mention is I'm on a budget of about $230 maxtotal for the light and mount. Hence my interest in the $70-150 Tiablo/Deereelight/LumaPower lights.

As much as I like the scout light(have a friends on my desk in front of me) I flat out can't afford the little devil.
Click to expand...

Hmmm....I'm pretty sure you can get a SF Scout for under $230, maybe not with the KX2C, but you can add that on later. Take a look at AR15.com and some of the other "gun" boards. There are always Scouts popping up from time to time.
 
FWIW I am running a LaRue Tactical offset 606 mount on a KAC rail with a VFG and the light I am running is a Surefire 6P with a Z59 clicky cap and currently a Malkoff M60W, but I am planning on trying a 1.2A DereeLight drop-in because it uses a mirror reflector and I am mainly after throw.

For an out-door weapon mounted light I STRONGLY recommend a "warm" LED like one of Deree's Q3's or a Malkoff M60W with the Q2. The little bit more light/throw from a "cool" LED is not worth the contrast and smoke/fog/mist penetration you give up.

ETA: Oops. that mount is $100 by itself. Maybe try my setup with a cheap mount?
2yug55u.jpg
 
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N/Apower said:
For an out-door weapon mounted light I STRONGLY recommend a "warm" LED like one of Deree's Q3's or a Malkoff M60W with the Q2. The little bit more light/throw from a "cool" LED is not worth the contrast and smoke/fog/mist penetration you give up.
Click to expand...

That is something I'd not taken into account. The dereelights are climbing my list fast.

So for throw, size, power, cr123 use, and durability, would this be a good choice?

DBS V3 w/ 3SM Cree XR-E WC Q5 (SMO) with a WH/R2 upgrade.

I have almost not idea what all those letters and numbers mean.

I read on the Dereelight site that 3SM is a 3 stage selection of full power, half power and five percent power. That sounds handy as hell as long as I can set the power level without having to push the button a dozen times. This how she works?

Cree XR-E is the model of LED, yes?

V3=Version 3? Better than the last version I'm guessing? :thinking:

WC and WH still have me lost, as well as R2, but what little I read showed people like the R2.

And SMO means a smooth reflector as opposed to OP(Orange Peel textured).

I get all that right?:huh2:
 
ErinMT said:
That is something I'd not taken into account. The dereelights are climbing my list fast.

So for throw, size, power, cr123 use, and durability, would this be a good choice?

DBS V3 w/ 3SM Cree XR-E WC Q5 (SMO) with a WH/R2 upgrade.

I have almost not idea what all those letters and numbers mean.

I read on the Dereelight site that 3SM is a 3 stage selection of full power, half power and five percent power. That sounds handy as hell as long as I can set the power level without having to push the button a dozen times. This how she works?

Cree XR-E is the model of LED, yes?

V3=Version 3? Better than the last version I'm guessing? :thinking:

WC and WH still have me lost, as well as R2, but what little I read showed people like the R2.

And SMO means a smooth reflector as opposed to OP(Orange Peel textured).

I get all that right?:huh2:
Click to expand...

I am a noob too, but I sure would not want a multi-mode, in fact, that was part of my criteria. I don't want to fumble. On/Off. Period.
 
Good point. More moving parts, more things to go wrong.

So then this would be a better bet.
DBS V3 w/ 1SM-2 Cree XR-E WC Q5 (SMO) + WH R2

:eek: So many letters!
 
ErinMT said:
Good point. More moving parts, more things to go wrong.

So then this would be a better bet.
DBS V3 w/ 1SM-2 Cree XR-E WC Q5 (SMO) + WH R2

:eek: So many letters!
Click to expand...

That is what I would get, except the DBS will not fit in my LT606 mount, the Surefire 6P and G2 was what this mount was designed for as maximum size that will fit. And it fits perfect. Thus I went with a 6P and a Malkoff M60W drop-in and have also purchased a 1.2 amp 1SM-2 Q5 A3.

I would very much recommend the Q5 A3 over the R2. The R2 will be brighter and have a HAIR more throw, but the Q5 A3 will be the better of the two for what you are trying for. To put it in perspective, my 180 lumen Malkoff M60W did better for me than my 230 lumen Malkoff M60, which I sold.

The difference is that when you shine it out to 100 yards, the normal white/cool R2 will make everything look the same color. So yeah, you could light up a person in a black shirt and jeans in a field, but what about in a stand of trees? They would blend in MUCH better if you hit them with the R2, which mutes the color in everything than they would with the almost incan like A3.
 
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Thank you very much. As soon as I have the $ I'll order one through the market place and post a review. :thumbsup:
 
ErinMT said:
Thank you very much. As soon as I have the $ I'll order one through the market place and post a review. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

PM user "Flashcrazy" He has been very polite towards me, indulged numerous "noob" questions, and though I have not yet got my light from him, I can tell that he will stand behind the product. He is a licensed Dereelight dealer.
 
N/Apower brings up a good point. There are some major differences between the higher output LED's (Malkoff M60) verses the warmer drop-ins (M60W). My team recently did some training, in conjunction with our fire dept, doing some room clearing while they flooded this abandoned house with smoke. We were wearing are SCBA gear and it became very difficult to see anything through the thick smoke. Using my M60 was the equivalent of using your vehicle high beams while driving through very thick fog. It made things worse. The lower output M60W made things some what manageable. Just my .02
 
jjk1285 said:
The e2dl would not work. The recoil will cause the batteries to lose contact and switch back and forth from high to low... the KX2C would solve this problem as it only has a high mode, I believe the KX2C comes with the new scout light. It would fit your purposes perfectly
Click to expand...
Ahhh, very good to know. Thanks!
 
Looks like you may have already made up your mind on your new gun mount light. I'm sure you won't be disappointed.

Whenever I'm asked to recommend a thrower, I always go to the Sunlite Eagle 8w. I have one and am very impressed by it. It has "Tactical" written all over it. Sunlite even sells the pressure switches for it. It throws over 600 ft and is 300 lumens bright. I have a photo of it touching a building 1000ft away.

Visit www.powerledlighting.com

Yes, they are spendy, but they come with unsurrpassed versatility in upgrade and interchangeable options. I did a small review on this light, you may have seen it.

I recommend the Eagle 8w 100%.
 
I'll be subscribing to this thread to hear the answers, but my research has led me to the following points I'd like to consider along this same topic......

1) I hear there were some E2DL's that were single stage and not dual output. These are similar to the KX2C headlamps, but with the recoil issue....single stage, and a bit cheaper if we can find a E2DL with the single output might be a solid weapon light. This is essentially a scout light...but might be cheaper?

2) LED lights are probably better for flood and efficiency, but from a distance, tend to throw a whiter light, which might make Incandescent better because the contrast is better with them. Is there any incandescent lights that would compare to option #1 in throw?

Anybody have any FOR SURE thoughts on those two ideas? Knowing the answers to these questions will definately help me closer to my decision.

Thought it might be of interest to anyone reading this thread too :thumbsup:
 
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