LED shotgun light

I'm looking to buy a shotgun for home defense and would like to mount a light on it.

As I have not purchased the gun yet, I'm open to any suggestions. I'm currently looking at the Mossberg 500 and the Remington 870 with 18 1/2 inch barrels.

Surefire has a neat forend mounted light the 618FGA, link below

http://www.opticsplanet.net/surefire-weaponlights-618fga.html

but it's an incan. (not that there's anything wrong with that ) I'd rather have an LED.

Can this light be modded or does someone make a similar item with a good LED head, kinda like an Inova T3?

The 870 Remington is very easy to use a TLR-1 LED light mounted. $100 for the light, about $15 for the Streamlight Rem 870 bracket. 90 minutes regulated bright white light, great hot spot, and useable side spill. Easy to detach and use handheld for tasks not requiring 00 buckshot...

Paladin

I prefer a barrel mount and a pressure switch. This way you can move the light forward and around and you are less likely to bang your hand into the light while cycling quickly. Also The Knoxx recoil reducing stocks (which are great) don't work well with the integrated surefire lights since they rearward movement provided by the stock bangs the light hump into your hand.

How about a picture of your "forward and around" mounting with wiring, etc.

Be sure to state how much it weighs. The TLR-1 weighs about 4 ounces. And of course explain how the slide mounted pressure switch is less in the way than the SL mount, especially in regard to accidental light activations. I have yet to "bump" the TLR-1 inadvertantly. The SL mount can position the light at 3, 6, or 9 oclock in relation to the magazine tube.

My remarks are based on 30 years of 870 ownership, and I have seen many barrel mounts which allowed "slippage" to occur, especially when firing "max dram eqiv." loadings.
Paladin

The Surefire forend really is the way to go IMHO even if it is incan. That being said the Surefire is really just a shock isolated 6P or 9P so, technically you should be able to mount a L5/L6 head on there and it should work fine. Now that being said Surefire doesn't offer any gurantees as to the reliability of this setup as it was not specifically designed for this kind of harsh duty but if I were to guess I would think the L5/L6 head would hold up admirably.

Chris

That Surefire setup takes the P60 module, so perhaps it can take any P60 upgrade, ie, one of the numerous drop-in LED modules from Surefire and others?

As far as other options go, I have a Wolf-Eyes 6-something (Sniper tube, 3W LED, remote pressure switch) on my Mossberg (new Wolf-Eyes lights have a Cree option). I have it in a barrel mount attached to the mag, and as Paladin said, there is some slipping. There's also a rail mount for Wolf Eyes lights, which should be much more secure than the barrel mount. So if you put a rail on your whichever gun you get, like that Streamlight one Paladin pointed out or the Surefire below...

And personally, I really hate that pressure switch...too much chance of it being turned on or off accidentally, as Paladin said. I've done both numerous times. So if you go with a light other than the Surefire, I'd go with just a normal tailcap switch if you can reach it, which looks like it'd be pretty easy with one of the rail mount options.

I notice Surefire also makes foregrips with Picatinny rails for both the 870 and 500 ( http://www.surefire.com/maxexp/main/co_disp/displ/carfnbr/312/sesent/00 ), so that should really open up some options.

Note that SureFire's as yet, unreleased updated version of the KL5 (known informally as the KX5) is specifically designed to be a replacement to the Z32 Shock Isolated Bezel of SureFire Classic WeaponLights. I suggest you get a SureFire shotgun forend WeaponLight and update it with a KX5 when they are released.

Al

Here's the mount I had on my 870:



It's super-solid... that Pelican M6 LED was damaged by recoil and the mount didn't even budge.

Brownell's has it here: http://www.brownells.com/aspx/NS/store/ProductDetail.aspx?p=1537&title=TACTICAL+SHOTGUN+MOUNT

Get a mount and attach a StreamLight TLR-2 Weapon light.
http://www.lighthound.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1747

That one is the poop of LED weaponlights, 3w luxeon + green laser
Would maybe be even better if someone mods it with a Seoul P4

Meduza said:

Get a mount and attach a StreamLight TLR-2 Weapon light.
http://www.lighthound.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1747

That one is the poop of LED weaponlights, 3w luxeon + green laser
Would maybe be even better if someone mods it with a Seoul P4

Click to expand...

Funny...there's no mention on that site OR on StreamLight's site about that being a green laser. Given the difference in cost, I would think they would be sure and make a big deal of it, if it were true. So I think it's a red laser.

Besides, who wants a weapon light that gives away your exact position? (Remember that green laser beams are much more visible than red.) Furthermore, green lasers are inherently less dependable than red lasers, simply due to their internal construction.

Yep, I'll bet it's red.

Get the Remington 870. The Mossberg has a plastic trigger guard and the Remington is aluminum. I have the Surefire 618FGA on my Rem 870. I wanted the system disable switch to kill everything. Without it, laying the shotgun down and having something press against the bar pad will turn on the light.

It can use the LED drop in Lamp modules that fit the 6P. You can also use the KL3 head if you'd like.

I changed my L60 housing to the L90 so I can run 9 volt lamps for more output.




Njoy...

Note that shown in the photo is the L90 Lamp Module
(there is no LU90, although there's an LM90 which is the Millennium Series version of the L90)
(Also, the Millennium Series LU60 Lamp Module is different from the Classic L60 Lamp Module which comes standard on the "6V" Classic WeaponLights)

I agree that having the full FGA version with constant-on/off rocker and disable rocker switches as well as the momentary on/off pressure switch is the best way to go. Having the system disable (LockOut) ability is very important in my opinion.

Al

I stand corrected. Thanks Al.

Post edited.

Njoy...

qarawol said:

Get the Remington 870. The Mossberg has a plastic trigger guard and the Remington is aluminum.

Click to expand...

The trigger guard on my 870 is definitely plastic. I still think the Remington is superior, though.

WHAT!?

I have two Rem 870's and both are aluminum.

What gives?

Njoy...

vtunderground said:

The trigger guard on my 870 is definitely plastic. I still think the Remington is superior, though.

Click to expand...

qarawol said:

WHAT!?

I have two Rem 870's and both are aluminum.

What gives?

Njoy...

Click to expand...

870 Magnum VS Express would be my guess.

Paladin said:

How about a picture of your "forward and around" mounting with wiring, etc.

Be sure to state how much it weighs. The TLR-1 weighs about 4 ounces. And of course explain how the slide mounted pressure switch is less in the way than the SL mount, especially in regard to accidental light activations. I have yet to "bump" the TLR-1 inadvertantly. The SL mount can position the light at 3, 6, or 9 oclock in relation to the magazine tube.

My remarks are based on 30 years of 870 ownership, and I have seen many barrel mounts which allowed "slippage" to occur, especially when firing "max dram eqiv." loadings.
Paladin

Click to expand...

Sorry I didn't know you have owned 870's for 30 years , but a surefire forend or your setup would not work for me. I had a surefire that bashed my hand with the knoxx stocks. The best light I can think of would mount far back on the barrel and about 11'o clock, so that the balance would be nuetral and more importantly you could illuminate your front sight. Momentary pressure switches are the way to go or you make yourself big bright target.

The light is a pentagon by the way with some kind of clamp that came with the whole setup it. I have shot a lot of 3 gun matches with it on... no problems. It weighs about 9lb 3oz..joking. Really I have no idea the whole shotgun is pretty damn heavy, but I use the light for a barbell when I take it off so I am pretty strong...joking again. Streamlight makes some neat stuff too, but I'll dream for someone to come up with a pressure switch adaptation for the lumapower line.

qarawol said:

WHAT!?

I have two Rem 870's and both are aluminum.

What gives?

Njoy...

Click to expand...

The police models (my police 11-87)and wingmasters traditionally have been aluminun, but my Marine model is plastic and all newer expresses I have seen are plastic. I really don't see the plastic trigger guard being a problem unless you really just don't like plastic on guns (glockaphopia). In fact Wilson Combat uses express models as the base for their buildups.

Thanks to everone for all the ideas.

I think I'm going for the marine 870, and the Surfire forend w/ an LED drop in.

Greg

The Marine Magnums are nice I have had one for a long time. The surefire forends are nice too. If I do one again I will find a way to mount the light on the side of the receiver even if I have to have a custom mount made. I was thinking of attaching a picatinny rail to the side of the receiver and using a heavy duty scope mount to hold a light. Instead of the sidesaddle I would utilize a buttstock shellholder on an AR type stock instead of a sidesaddle (Knoxx spec. ops)