Need some advice. I have purchased the 3-Watt Mag LED for all 3 of my D-Cell Mag's...they're nice becasue of the extended battery life. and still maintain the throw of the krypton bulbs. I was just wondering if the Magnumstar xenon offered more throw? I know it will lessen battery life, but I like having the option of changing my flashlight to suit the situation. (I already have dozens of other lights, SF/Inova/etc., so please keep replys limitited to the Maglite). Anyhelp would be appreciated.
Are you talking about carrying around different bulbs/LED dropins for different situations? In general, assuming the same reflector, more throw requires more light. For more light I'd get a TerraLux dropin if you want LED. If you want more incan light, I'd just make it an ROP. How easy that would be depends on what size the Mags are, of course, but if you're going to be carrying around a Mag and bulbs then a few batteries might not be that much more.
Regardless of what you do, to improve the performance of the Mags with any light source, I would buy
UCL lenses for each, either a
KD or
FM smooth aluminum cammed reflector (unless you're really strapped for cash get the FM one, he did make the originals after all and deserves to profit from his efforts), and do the tailspring resistance fix by sanding two points on the spring, one at the top and one at the bottom, and soldering a copper wire between the two. Should reduce the 100+ mOhms of resistance in the spring down quite a bit.
The UCL lenses will increase the torch-lumens of the light without any increase in bulb lumens, and the aluminum reflectors, particularly the FM ones, should do the same because they'll be more efficient than the stock plastic ones. The spring mod will increase the voltage which reaches any bulb or LED and get just a little more brightness or runtime (depending on which one you're using) out of the same power source.
Unfortunately I can't tell you what battery solution to pursue without knowing what size mags you have. If they're 6D, just buy
3 packs of these and be done with it. They they're 2D, then both
LuxLuthor and FiveMega offer good battery solutions which really come down to personal preference.
