Kestrel
Flashaholic
My very first P60-type Surefire, actually; after getting on CPF I first wanted to use a Malkoff M30 & 2xAA's, which I had fun with for a while. Then an M60 & 2x AW17500, when I started with LiIon rechargeables. Later I got into the Moddoo XP-G Triples - so of course wanted the extra capacity of 2x18500 - and had the light bored by a machinist friend.
But, it didn't go perfectly, and was bored a little oversize at 18.8mm - leaving relatively little wall thickness IMO. I used the light (rather carefully) for a number of years, wearing out two sets of 18500's before finally getting onto the 18650 bandwagon. And then the light was set aside; no real reason to keep using what might be a relatively fragile light.
A few years ago on CPF, I heard about inexpensive carbon fiber tubes from an eBay seller. So I ordered a few 18" lengths, and had another machinist friend turn down a section to form a /precision/ slip fit into the C3 bore. The ID of the carbon fiber tubing was 17mm - a perfect fit for CR123's.
One small catch was that the 17.0mm ID was too narrow to take even the Z41 insert as shown:
No problem, I then converted the standard SF Z41 tailcap to a McClicky to get around that issue. Worked great.
Last weekend I finally got around to epoxying the CF tube into the flashlight body:
Now it's a primaries-only emergency light; not a problem since this is the host I wanted to use for my Malkoff M61NLLLL - an excellent pairing for CR123 primaries, compared to my high-output lights & their 18mm LiIon cells. (And a somewhat-better fit to 2xAA, since the LLLL module also runs well with them.) Bombproof for sure - it's most likely far stronger now than even an unmodified C3.
Thanks for reading,
But, it didn't go perfectly, and was bored a little oversize at 18.8mm - leaving relatively little wall thickness IMO. I used the light (rather carefully) for a number of years, wearing out two sets of 18500's before finally getting onto the 18650 bandwagon. And then the light was set aside; no real reason to keep using what might be a relatively fragile light.
A few years ago on CPF, I heard about inexpensive carbon fiber tubes from an eBay seller. So I ordered a few 18" lengths, and had another machinist friend turn down a section to form a /precision/ slip fit into the C3 bore. The ID of the carbon fiber tubing was 17mm - a perfect fit for CR123's.
One small catch was that the 17.0mm ID was too narrow to take even the Z41 insert as shown:
No problem, I then converted the standard SF Z41 tailcap to a McClicky to get around that issue. Worked great.
Last weekend I finally got around to epoxying the CF tube into the flashlight body:
Now it's a primaries-only emergency light; not a problem since this is the host I wanted to use for my Malkoff M61NLLLL - an excellent pairing for CR123 primaries, compared to my high-output lights & their 18mm LiIon cells. (And a somewhat-better fit to 2xAA, since the LLLL module also runs well with them.) Bombproof for sure - it's most likely far stronger now than even an unmodified C3.
Thanks for reading,
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