In praise of Maglights

This will raise all sorts of hackles I am sure but… In praise of Maglights I say that they probably, in my highly unscientific unproven opinion, have been used by more people, in more instances, to save more lives, and to provide safety illumination and comforting illumination, WITH LESS FAILURES than any other single brand in the history of flashlights. Not only that, but I have used 3 Maglights (I have others but these 3 are have been constant) for going on 20 odd years with NOT ONE FAILURE to provide needed illumination that a 5 minute bulb change did not rectify. And the spare bulb is easily carried and protected in the butt of the flashlight and easily replaced in almost any store.

Two are 5 C Cell lights carried to this day in my vehicles, and the other is a minimag that I carried in the woods for many years hunting. One time and one time only did it ever fail to get me out of the woods safely, and that was my fault as I lost it, and found it the next day where I had sat down for lunch. And this is using that light used almost every single day for at least four months. At the very least almost every night, and on weekends every morning too, for the months of October, November, December, and January EACH year. A AAA minimag had served for almost 20 years for bedside use with no problems too.

Yes, I have replaced the minimag in my hunting gear with an Inova and a headlamp, however, I would NOT feel under equipped with it on my belt any day. As a matter of fact, if I had found the MJLED upgrade before buying other LED lights I may never have done so simply because it would have filled the curiosity which got me into LED flashlights, the wondrous run time I had heard about in LEDs and experienced with my little Photon pocket lights. Do I think they are the greatest light out there today? No, maybe there are better NOW, but at one time there sure was not, the Maglight was a bright shining grail lighting the darkness compared to the lights it came out against, and it can still hold its own in general usefulness, ruggedness, and price against most today. Which is why so many people know that name and few others.

Are they ruthless in business? Sure but so is every other company when they get the chance to be so. The name of the entire game is profit, and that has never changed. If they can crush competition, that is part of doing business, it always has been, always will be. You think that 30 years ago General Motors would not have LOVED to crush Honda so badly they disappeared from the face of the earth? Hate them maybe, but they are no different than any other company in their position would have been.

Maglights, in my opinion have earned themselves a place in the flashlight hall of fame as the number one Manufacturer in history to this point, and they are not done yet, there is more to be seen.

That said, I LOVE some of the new lights by new companies every bit as much as I did my first magical Maglight in the dark days of the red plastic Eveready D and 6 volt light days. I am especially enamored with the Inovas I have purchased since last October, the X1 (both versions), X0 (one accompanies each Maglight in the vehicles), and X03's.


Let the screaming begin...

Nice post. No screaming from me. I agree with much of what you said.

Oh, yeah. Maglite has been such a BOON for the past decade in helping to advance the state of the art. Such a GREAT and HELPFUL company.

Oh, yeah. I just LOVE maglite. <vomiting sounds>

I have to deal with maglites almost everyday here at work and my informed and considered opinion is that they are poorly designed peices of junk in nice aluminum housings. They develope contact resistance like the plague, and are constantly going out of focus and showing off their holes and rings and awful beam artifacts. If I never saw another stock maglite again, I would be very happy.

While I disagree with Mag's business practices, I agree that Mags are alright -- especially for decades-old tech. But me, I need more light in a smaller package than what Mag offers right now.

No doubt Mag will bring the benefits of high-powered LEDs to the masses. But one question remains... will we be complaining in 20 years that Mag "is still using 3W Luxeons"?

Everything is measured relative to something else. I happen to like Mags for what they are, or at least tolerate them. They are "good" relative to cheapy 2C grocery store flashlights, and maybe not so good in comparison to the current generation of incans and LEDs that have evolved.

I am also perhaps the only person at CPF who hasn't accepted the common notion that they sue every company they encounter willy nilly on trumped up patent infringement claims. But thats the kind of crazy talk that might get my mouth duct taped shut, so I won't go there. :nana:

Mags also make nifty hosts:




cheers

I think what you Mag-Bashers fail to realize is that based on Mags track record, when they do release an LED/Luxeon version, it will be top-in-class. Mark my words. Like it or not, they have their sh** together before releasing a product. They will 1) have enough in stock to meet demand and 2) will be built/constructed like a brick-****house.

This is the only place where I've encountered this hatred for Mag Instruments. I'm not sure of its origins or history, but somehow I get the impression that it may be related to legal action that may have been taken against one of the site participants who may also have been a manufacturer.

Lee1959 said:

Maglights, in my opinion have earned themselves a place in the flashlight hall of fame as the number one Manufacturer in history to this point, and they are not done yet, there is more to be seen.

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My Mags sit quietly on my shelf.. Until today.. I Got to a job today, decided not to listen to the typical "do you need a bigger flashlight?" and pulled my Mag 3D from it's permanent fixture on my car seat.
I forgot how user friendly the shape is until I put it back to work today.. I think I am going to mod it to a usable brilliance and stick with it, all the good ones can reside in the depths of my pockets..
I have no problem with the Mag design for work, people are weird that way... Golly mister, you need a bigger light?

Funny, I was just thinking today as I set down a Mag light that the form factor is nice. Of course, it was a Mag85.

Arguing in favor of Mags makes me thing of this: The Jeep Grand Wagoneer was an awesome vehicle. It was produced almost unchanged for decades. When it was developed, it was possibly the most competent 4x4 passenger "wagon" available. If you needed to go in the snow, or traverse rough trails, you couldn't ask for more than a 360 V8 Grand Wagoneer or is sister the Jeep Cherokee.

REALITY CHECK: The Jeep Grand Wagoneer was superseded by the technology and design improvements of competitors by roughly 1980. They did not stop building the things, however until 1991. Buy the time someone bought one in 1991, they were buying an outdated piece of junk with inferior electronics, poor design, terrible quality control, and a high rate of failure.

But wait! Didn't I just say that the Jeep was awesome? It was, in 1975. Just like a Mag light. Same vehicle, different time. If Mag stopped producing their standard lights today and went to modern form factors and technology, and a decade or so passed, the "early" or "original" Mags would be viewed with the same nostalgia and reverence as the long defunct Jeep.

The remaining Grand Wagoneers in excellent condition now sell for BIG MONEY. (see www.wagonmaster.com - you won't believe it) - but aside from the nostalgia of driving one, they are....sorry....JUNK! If you take issue with this, let me also say that I love them, though they are junk, and if you don't believe me, buy one, call me when it is broken down, or the rear window falls down into the hatch or some other nonsense, and I will hold your hand. Don't forget to put a D cell Mag light in the glove box - they go together perfectly!

I've owned a lot of mags, but in hindsight their performance has been less than satisfactory.

1) I had a 2D that failed. As it turned out the bulb was bad. I put in the spare bulb, but it was bad also.
2) I had a couple more 2D's, but they were unreliable. Turn them on and they might come one, or they might flicker. Shake them a little and they might work some more, but as you move the light around they might go out.
3) I was on my roof trying to spot an animal that was stuck in my chimney. The mag beam was so awful that I couldn't get enough consistent light on the animal to even tell what kind of animal it was. (I was using binoculars also.)

I'm much happier now with my Pelican M6 LED.

I can understand why they've been slow to change to LEDs if they make money selling replacement bulbs. They're a business.

What I can't understand is why they don't put a dimpled or faceted reflector in their lights! It would make them so much better, and the cost would be a bout nothing, surely?

The cost of retooling is hardly nothing. As a matter of fact it can be a pretty expensive endeavor. Much as I'd like to see a textured reflector on them as well; it would certainly make the incandescent Mag lights more usable. Changing to a textured reflector in my Stinger made a world of difference at the sacrifice of a little output.

meanwhile said:

What I can't understand is why they don't put a dimpled or faceted reflector in their lights! It would make them so much better, and the cost would be a bout nothing, surely?

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There are a few issues and thoughts I have here. And if you have some time, I'd recommend actually reading this huge post since I like to think I've spent some time contemplating matters.

1. All the "they should drop their current lights" guys are FOS when it comes to the large ones. C/D cell, PR-bulb flashlights are still sold in huge numbers, most makes of them pretty bad. Mag still makes the best. And I say that owning every competing light from 1968 to '84--nowadays no one else makes high-end lights in that market segment.

2. The Mini Mag-Lites should have had an LED version no later than a couple years ago. I feel the delay was mostly caused by Mag waiting for the Lux technology to shake out, and the fact that anything new they made would have to be instantly available in huge numbers. That took building a new factory to do that and not get in the way of current production. The "old" Mini Mag is still a good deal at $10 no matter how you slice it.

3. The Solitaire should have been totally replaced by LED 5+ years ago. It had no right to exist. I can't belive they haven't killed the useless thing off.

4. The reflector issue is apparently purely a result of Maglica's (and by extension the company's policy) desire for brightness and throw. Beam quality isn't an issue for them. But in all fairness, the competing fixed-reflector lights made in the late '70s (when Mag came out) offered pretty spotty quality.

5. For Brighteyez: Mag Instruments has an exeedingly long history of legal action. A lot of it was fully justified (suing Brinkmann and Streamlight in the '80s--they were just asking for it), a lot of it was very questionable (like the Arc issue, the one that most CPF members think of), and some have absolutely no defensable legal basis (ones I'd rather not talk about.) While I guess I still have to put Mag's legal wing in the "evil" catagory, I believe a good part of the litigious nature comes right from the top. Maglica has shown in interviews that he's obsessively worried about people "stealing" his ideas.

6. Something for _everyone_ here to keep in mind: The large Mag-Lites are getting close to 30 years old, the Mini-Mag and Magcharger are over 20. Regardless of who they sue or how they advertise, no one could sell anything that long without making a decent product. Look at the Magcharger--it's still nearly state-of-the-art in its market.

7. As I continue to ramble...Without getting into new and very volatile markets (tactical lights, bleeding-edge LEDs) what could Mag have done until recently? Think back to 10 years ago, the time period so many CPFers throw out. At that point the Mini-Mag was already over 10 years old. But what else was out there? Nothing, in the larger flashlight market. Even in the fringes not much was happening. Sure, Surefire was making tactical lights, but almost no one else was and SF's from 1996 are considered collectibles now. The only LEDs used in any flashlights were still limited to keychains or dim multi-arrays. I'd say that until 5mm LEDs got much better, much recently, and until Luxeons get hugely popular, there wasn't a huge improvement to be made in Mag-Lite flashlights. They could have modernized some things, but nothing worth shaking up an established product line.

8. Still going...Mag actually has updated their model line twice. First was in 1982 or so (major switch changes in D/C cell lights) then again in 1990 (everything was modernized for ease of production and maintenance.)

9. And still going...Mag actually has spent a lot (_lot_) of money in R&D. But what has this R&D produced, you might ask? Production techniques, pure and simple. Even though the original Mags were top-shelf designs, the company's success is due to stunningly efficient modern manufacturing. Chew on this: When Mag came out in '79 a 4D was around $25. That's nearly $70 in today's money! If you think a 4D Mag-Lite at Home Depot is outdated for $19.99 with batteries, just think how you'd feel if it was $69.99. They also happen to have a no-nonsense lifetime warrany--that's more than most companies in their segment can say.

10. Now that I think of it, there is one old-school flashlight design left from when Mag started. Brinkmann has a couple designs that were originally GT Price products. A 5-3-2 is something like $30 retail and the design is cheap and failure-prone compared to Mag.

11. At this point you're probably thinking "Man, what a Mag-Lite suckup." Well, you're wrong. The company's legal actions drive me nuts and make most flashaholics angry, they have fallen behind the times, and their advertising is a BS machine. However, and this is a big "however", if you really get down to business a billion-dollar company is about making money, not about making cool stuff. If they make money selling fossilized flashlights, it's their right and they do damn well at doing it. There are CPF members who sell stuff with over the top hard sells but no one complains.

12. Hmm, anyone still reading this? I forgot what it was about, anyway.

Thank you, ABTOMAT. That was very informative. I didn't have a clue about their history.

ABTOMAT said:

8. Still going...Mag actually has updated their model line twice. First was in 1982 or so (major switch changes in D/C cell lights) then again in 1990 (everything was modernized for ease of production and maintenance.)

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What was changed in 1990?

The bodies and bezels were all changed. A head from a pre-90 light will not work on the smaller diameter body of one of the current light bodies.

carrot said:

Thank you, ABTOMAT. That was very informative. I didn't have a clue about their history.


What was changed in 1990?

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I love Mags too but let it go bro

Some well thought out posts in this thread. basically you make a light that is as versitile and well made as a maglight for $16 and i would bet that people would buy it, WAIT no they wouldnt because mag has been making lights such as these for a LONG time running and have prooven themselves to to the world at large. We flashaholics are a rare breed im afraid.

Mag85 mag74 mag31 magleddropins mag100 USL mag35 magBLAH BLAH BLAh! the list goes on forever! If mags were so horrible WHY ARE WE ALL BUYING THEM and throwing in bigger engines? if you think that maglights are lame consider the cost of having someone custom make you an alluminum body with quality equaling a mag ..... $16 sounds great ..... If you dissagree with their bussiness practices that is understandable but you cant argue that they make a bad product.

And they are made in the USA. SF, well, yes, but that's a whole different price league.

carrot said:

Thank you, ABTOMAT. That was very informative. I didn't have a clue about their history.


What was changed in 1990?

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Pre-90 Mags had a wider, heavier barrel. The inside had a machined shoulder at the postive point of the first battery. The switch was inserted from the head-end, until it met the shoulder, and secured with a big threaded pin nut around the bulb tower. Rotational indexing is by a set screw in the middle of the button.

Post '90 Mags have a smaller barrel that's smooth inside. There's a groove inside for a snap ring where the front end of the switch is. The switch is instered from the tailcap end until it rests on the snap ring. Indexing is still by setscrew, and the screw also keeps it from dropping down the barrel. Force from the batteries is taking by the snap ring, where previously it was the pin nut.

I don't know how much machining/assembly time they saved, but it's a more elegant design that does the same function as before.

In case anyone's curious, the original 1979-81 Mag was pretty similar to the 82-90 version. The main difference is a switch that has more parts and is held together with screws, and a larger ill-fitting switch button with a metal retaining spring.

What did I use to clean out the shed tonight? A 2D Maglite. Why? Because batteries are cheap, last a long time, the light works great and is plenty bright with a Dorcy Xenon bulb and I don't have to worry if the next time I turn it on for a few seconds it won't come on because the batteries are now too dead or the bulb blew.

I also used a River Rock 2AAA LED light which came in handy as well, but the Mag provided the best light.