Curious: why is "tactical" defined as focused beam?

highseas

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I may be wrong, but my impression is that when people talk about "tactical" lights, they mean lights that mainly have a focused beam, with a smaller side spill, as opposed to a floody light. Is my understanding correct? If so I am curious as to why it is so defined? Put differently, why are floody lights not "tactical". What does tactical really mean anyway? Thanks.
 

djblank87

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I may be wrong, but my impression is that when people talk about "tactical" lights, they mean lights that mainly have a focused beam, with a smaller side spill, as opposed to a floody light. Is my understanding correct? If so I am curious as to why it is so defined? Put differently, why are floody lights not "tactical". What does tactical really mean anyway? Thanks.


The beam of a light honestly has nothing to do with whether a light is tactical or not. The majority of people that use lights in tactical situations will say they want an equal balance of throw and flood.

In here the opinions will always very on beam characteristics but tactical operators like a good equal balance.
 

Mercaptan

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Tactical is a floofy buzzword from the firearms community that has also leeched into the light and all-around gear community.

Type of beam is dependent on mission profile. If you are doing search and entry in close quarters, room sweeping I'd never want a pencil-beam. Flood all the way.

Outside? Maybe if you want to use visible light, there are much nicer alternatives without alerting anyone to your presence.

That being said, one of my favorite quotes is:

"Superior gear will never make up for a lack of training or attitude."

Tactical isn't in the 'hardware,' but rather it lies in the 'software' - the one utilizing the device.

That being said, most companies will try to sell tactical lines, and most will be productive. God, I just bought a shotgun that says "Tactical" on the side of it. I guess this also makes me a mall-ninja. *Sigh*
 

Gator762

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I'm starting to hate products using the buzzword 'tactical' in it. I don't want to be confused with the goofy mall ninja when it comes to a flashlight. :sick2:

Tactical is a floofy buzzword from the firearms community that has also leeched into the light and all-around gear community.

Type of beam is dependent on mission profile. If you are doing search and entry in close quarters, room sweeping I'd never want a pencil-beam. Flood all the way.

Outside? Maybe if you want to use visible light, there are much nicer alternatives without alerting anyone to your presence.

That being said, one of my favorite quotes is:

"Superior gear will never make up for a lack of training or attitude."

Tactical isn't in the 'hardware,' but rather it lies in the 'software' - the one utilizing the device.

That being said, most companies will try to sell tactical lines, and most will be productive. God, I just bought a shotgun that says "Tactical" on the side of it. I guess this also makes me a mall-ninja. *Sigh*
 

JNewell

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Type of beam is dependent on mission profile. If you are doing search and entry in close quarters, room sweeping I'd never want a pencil-beam. Flood all the way.

That's really the nub of it. The KX2c is a bit of a mystery to me, since it's supposed to replace the KL4 as a weaponlight head...
 

gallonoffuel

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:crackup:

That's hilarious on a multitude of levels.
The only thing better would be a nuke that says "tactical" on the side ;)

Off-topic:

I fail to see why engraving Tactical on the side of a tactical shotgun is funny. Maybe it is, if you assume all firearms are tactical, but that is not the case. The same receiver for that family of shotguns might also have Sporting, Skeet, Trap, Competition, Field, etc, etc.

Mercaptan, what'd you get?
 

kromeke

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Some ad copy reads like a Tom Clancy novel.

I'm not a big fan of Dave Barry, but he did give us the "tactical field burrito"
 

fineday

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I'm also wondering how can a light be defined as a "Tactical" light. Seems nowadays manufacturors like to announce their products as "tactical".

In my opinion the key of a "tactical" light is the switch, which have to have the "click" function, that's to say you can turn on the light by slightly pressing down the switch but not fully, so one can let the light to blink as they want ---- maybe sending Morse Code? I'm not sure.
 

Flashlight Aficionado

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FN Striker-6 tactical light from page Mercaptan linked.

FNM0107mb.png


Still trying to figure out if it is a twisty or a clicky.
 

Double_A

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I may be wrong, but my impression is that when people talk about "tactical" lights, they mean lights that mainly have a focused beam, with a smaller side spill, as opposed to a floody light. Is my understanding correct? If so I am curious as to why it is so defined? Put differently, why are floody lights not "tactical". What does tactical really mean anyway? Thanks.

Surefire defined the "tactical light" industry. Read up on the history and founding of the company.

Surefire lights in general have fixed focus beams with lots of floodlight sidespill. The quote jNewell used in his post

"Type of beam is dependent on mission profile. If you are doing search and entry in close quarters, room sweeping I'd never want a pencil-beam. Flood all the way."

Is right on the money.

It's typical of a newbie to come on the board here and say something like "I want an eye searing beam that will reach out 800 yards and light up a tree" They almost never need it, it not practical they just want bragging rights (which is ok ) I usually recommend a laser pointer ;)
 

MrGman

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Tactical is what tactical does.

If you can use it to a willful strategic advantage to achieve the purposes you wanted to achieve, you can call it tactical.

Impressing one's friends is not tactical.:poke:
 

GeneralTsao

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Everyone is jumping into the tactical bandwagon lately and they seem to be doing pretty well.
I think tactical lights are the ones aimed for the LE market but rather people are taking the wrong message because it's being diluted by poor marketing strategies from the manufacturers.
 
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