Surefire A2 for police work?

hootjm

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Hello all, I'm glad I found this site. It looks like there is a ton of information here.

I looking for a light that would be good for DUI stops. Are there any officers on here that use the A2? It seems to me the led would work well for the HGN test. Right now I use my stinger or E2E and neither seem to be idea for that purpose.

Thanks
 

Dadof6

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Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus test. Its the test that the officer has you cover one eye while he has you folllow his finger with the other eye. Depending on how intoxicated you are, the eye starts to jerk at a certain degree of movement.
 

turbodog

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He said the led part of the light. They'll run a long time on a set of batteries. Cost would be minimal.


jayhackett03 said:
i would think you'd want a rechargeable flashlight for very frequent use like that.
 

hootjm

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Thanks for the responses.

I'm not really worried about the costs. My concern is I need to see the movement of the eyes without creating a blinding effect when using a light. That can be hard on a dark road with no street lights. Hope that clears up my question a little.
 

greenLED

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hootjm, welcome to CPF.

I know of other LEO's using Pila GL3's. Those come with an optional LED tailcap on one end (for low light needs) and an incandescent lamp on the other end (very bright). Pila lights are built tough, and they have the advantage of being able to run on primary 123's or li-ion rechargeables.
 

MarNav1

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I'd think an A2 would work well , maybe an X5 too. You could bring it up to the edge
of the eye without blinding them.
 

Illum

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MARNAV1 said:
I'd think an A2 would work well , maybe an X5 too. You could bring it up to the edge
of the eye without blinding them.

good call, but at night if you wait long enough...or if the driver had been drinking or drugged, you may have to worry about dilated pupils, in that case, even a X1 would sting, let along X5

i know cuz i zapped myself accidently after i returned from the eye doctor...:ohgeez:
 

joema

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hootjm said:
...Right now I use my stinger or E2E and neither seem to be idea for that purpose...
The A2 incandescent beam is roughly similar to your E2E; maybe a little brighter. However it's regulated for constant output as the batteries fade.

The A2 LED output uses three 5mm LEDs, producing a broad floody beam, useful for close range tasks. They'll run for about 20 hr to 50%, which greatly stretches battery life.

The A2 is a little longer than your E2E, but still quite compact.

I don't know how well the LED output would work for the HGN test, but they'd work fine for checking papers at traffic stops.
 

Badbeams3

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In my opinion an A2 is way overkill dollar wise for this purpose. I would chose a small light with a bright spill beam. Perhaps a Fenix L0P-SE...for example.

Ken
 

onlinewarlord

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I normally use a bright rechargeable setup in a Surefire G2 for doing HGN, and it seems to work fine for me.

It's not so much the power of the light, it's the angle that you hold the light in relation to your subject.

While I have never used my A2 for doing HGN I assume that the incan bulb would work just fine, but no better than your E2e... The leds in the A2 are probably too weak for this task, not only that but the color rendition will not be what you're used to when looking at eyes on a traffic stops or FSTs.
 

Long John

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Hello hootjm and welcome to CPF:)

Since you are not looking for a light with max brightness, I would take a look at the Fenix L1T. Small little light with two brightness levels, running with one AA-cell. Cheap and worth the money.

Best regards

____
Tom
 
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