Looking for my perfect light

I am a newbe to this forum but it looks like my kind of place. My father, grandfather, and I are always buying new lights and compairing them on the holidays. I am now in search of the perfect light.
Right now I am using a cheap aluminum light with a 3w led powered by 3 AAA. It is pretty good, but I would like it to reach out a little farther. I don't normally use it for long periods of time, size is important as I carry it a lot. I use it in the field at night and shine it around the edges to see what all is out there as well as where I am walking. I like the AAA batteries because they are cheap, but would really like to have a light that is rechargeable.



Lastly I do have a weaver mount for this that I milled out so I can mount it to the rail on my gun to shoot skunks or things at night, but this is not very important to me, and I can build another one to fit the new flashlight.



Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, and custom ideas are welcome also as I am a mechanical engineer and am used to this kind of thing.

Here are some popular recommendations:

Streamlight ProPolymer Luxeon 4AA: Runs on alkaline, NiMH, or lithium AAs, very bright, very regulated, very tough. Available at fox-intl.com for around $35.

Surefire A2 Aviator: Low-powered LEDs plus a high-intensity REGULATED incandescent. Around $150.

Night-Ops Gladius: 3W regulated LED, very bright, strobe, variable intensity, 0.8-80 lumens, 1" wide body for mounting. Available at strategosintl.com for around $200.

Give us a price range, usage, etc., and you'll get more detailed recommendations.

Hello Kirker912 and welcome at CPF

A few more ideas:

Barbolight U-04: Rechargeable, bright and robust dive rated light,

Aleph3: with different body lenghts and batterie configurations to use,

HD45: Like the Aleph out of production, also good thrower and to find in "Custom and Mod B/S/T" forum,

Elektrolumens "Little Friend", Trilux light with 4xAAA cells, bright too.

Best regards

____
Tom

Welcome to CPF!!

I like to recommend looking through www.flashlightreviews.com as well as www.lighthound.com. These are great places to start.

Thanks for the fast responses i will have to start looking through those. I am looking across a field probably 200yards.

200 yards?! Kind of insane for a pocket flashlight, if you ask me. The HD45 and Streamlight Propolymer Luxeon are probably the best throwers from the recommendations thus far. Personally, I prefer the Surefire A2 or the much cheaper Fenix L2T for a pocket light. They won't throw 200 yards, but are still fantastic for most people's uses.

You said size is important and you want light up a field up to 200 yards?

So perhaps I understand you wrong and you want a large size of light

And weapon mountable?

The perfect light does not exist so every light is compromise.

To get some ideas take a look to the links Oddjob postet:thumbsup:


Best regards

____
Tom

You might want to measure that field again. I don't think you'll find a hand held flashlight that will reach 200 yards. Minimally, you'll probably be looking at one of the 100 watt plus halogen spotlights or one of the HID spotlights, and quite honestly, I don't know how much light might be left at 200 yards.

Kirker912 said:

Thanks for the fast responses i will have to start looking through those. I am looking across a field probably 200yards.

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Kirker912 said:

...I don't normally use it for long periods of time, size is important as I carry it a lot. I use it in the field at night and shine it around the edges to see what all is out there as well as where I am walking. I like the AAA batteries because they are cheap, but would really like to have a light that is rechargeable...

Click to expand...

Get the Streamlight Strion. Very small, very powerful, rechargeable. It's incandescent: http://www.flashlightreviews.com/reviews/streamlight_strion.htm

If you want to stay with LEDs and want good throw and rechargeability, the LED Logic Striker VG has about the best throw of a single emitter LED light, and Batteryjunction.com offers it with a recharger kit: http://www.batteryjunction.com/ledlostvgtaf1.html

If you're serious about 200 yards throw in a small light, you'll need to investigate HID lights. One of the cheapest is the Amondotech Illuminator: http://www.amondotech.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1129 It's not flashlight form factor, but it's fairly compact, inexpensive, and much more powerful than most non-HID flashlights.

There's the SureFire M6 or SF.10X Dominator to look at. Then you have ElektroLumens. But 200 yards is—well, like what Brighteyez stated above.

Hope you find what you're looking for and Enjoy!

You could always get some rechargable nimh AAA's to put in that light of yours. They work fine in a light i have like that.

I think FR's highest-throwing LED is the Dorcy 3W lantern. I have one, and it's a pretty solid light, although the beam is pretty irregular. I don't mind too much, though.

The Gladius And the Streamlight ProPolymer have the same throw. The Night Ops Gladius is smaller and has Many Levels of brightness. A light also that is a good thrower is the LEDlogic Striker VG, This light has INSANE amount of throw and Very Good Output This is probably that farthest throwing LED flashlight you can find. You can get one for about $130

The field is actually 200 yards, but I do not have to have it like daylight at that distance. I am just looking to identify animals or other things that are out of place there. The cheap light I use now is enough to light up the eyes on animals pretty well but it doesn't do much more than that at that distance. I am not disappointed with the light, but any improvement over this one would be a great help. I am hopping to get some good ideas and a good idea of what I am looking for before this weekend when I am going to a gun show. There is usually a guy that has a table full of nice lights but I never really knew enough about them to consider spending a lot of money on one.

A streamlight TL3 would be your thrower, but the bulbs have the tendency to fall out and not go back in.

I assume you will be using a scope on the rifle. A maglite 2C with the 3 X 123 mod would be ideal for this setup. If you are keen on an LED light then you could use the 2 cell 3W LED drop in from maglite.

Bopanna

Do you think the 3 x 123 mod would be as bright as some of the other lights? I assume it would be cheaper. So far in the factory lights I think the Streamlight strion sounds good. Comparing it to the others it seems to put out a little more light. How long do the bulbs normally last in that?
I do like the led idea and the led logic striker vg seems to fit this bill, but I am just wondering how it would compare. Also are the rechargable batteries for this light any good?

Surefire make so many different models that it's hard to pick one of those. I think several different models sound good, but once again just trying to find the one that will serve me best.

Hi Kirker,

Take a look at these two threads which describe the Mag 2C mods.

http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=131067&highlight=1499

http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=94740&highlight=1499

If you're interested in the Striker VG take a look at this one for sale at great price.

http://candlepowerforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=129846&highlight=striker

Have fun!
Bopanna

I will definatly to a mod to a 2c mag light when I get back from flordia, and I will still try to pickup one of the other flashlights, probably the striker. I really hope they have a good selection at the gun show tomorrow.