New to flashlights need some help

Alright well im going to be going into law enforcement in a couple years but also work at a place were a flashlight is needed on a daily bases. Ive been looking for 2 days straight as i love gadgets and have found flashlights with laser pointers flashlights with UV etc but the problem is i want something powerfull enough to temporarily disorient someone while also having the ability to be extremely bright say hiking through the woods. Also im looking into something about the size of 1-2'' inch diameter and 5-7 inches long. I got really excited looking at the wolf-eyes products and really excited about the superstorm but can not afford that yet since i am only 20(someday though) Anyways some help or guidence would be greatly appreciated. ohh and keeping the price range between 60-100 dollars would be great too

Welcome. There is an inverse relationship between brightness and runtime, so you may want to decide which is more important to you, or that you need a multi-level light that offers both. Another consideration is a wide flood type of beam or a long range narrow "thrower". Something else to think about before you get a nice light is battery type. If you are already set up with a bunch of rechargeables, get a light that uses that size, if you have batteries available at work, get a light that runs off those. Some lights can use either regular alkaline cells or rechargable ones and some are a little more picky. Another thing to consider is that a great light today, may not be so great when you get into Law Enforcement in a few years, so want to think about a light that can be upgraded. A light like a Surefire G2L/6P ( or a cheaper clone of the same size ) can be fitted with new lamp modules that are incandescent or LED, blindingly bright, or long lasting, throwers or floody, you can add switches to it and on and on. Another light that is a common size with lots of upgrade potential is the basic Mag light. There are a lot of options for either of those lights to keep them current and adapted to what you need or want out of a light. I am sure you will get suggestions for a Malkoff upgrade. Malkoff is a builder of drop ins for lights that is very highly regarded here. You may want to google "Malkoff Devices" and look around at what he has to offer. The more you can describe what you want and how you are going to use it, the better able the folks here will be to make suggestions. The pursuit of the perfect light can consume more hours and dollars than you can imagine. Good luck and enjoy the journey.

I've been a cop for 8 years. I've spent a bunch of money on lights. Here are 2 of my favorites that keep ending up on my belt and in my hand.

1. First off is the Surefire 6P. A sweet light thats bright as heck and easy to tote around. You should be able to find em for $85ish new...or on this forum used for less. You can upgrade it later with a Malkoff M60 LED drop in and get it even brighter.

2. Streamlight Stinger. About the same money but comes with a charger which makes it easier/cheaper to run recharge. Not quite as bright, but plenty good for most police gigs.

I'm in a major crimes task force and your thoughts on "disorienting" light brightness are well founded. I've arrested guys who told me that they were planning on kicking my *** but couldn't see well enough to plan their move. Thats good to hear...but that was actually becasue of my Night Ops Falcata 3 cell which is less that $100 too...a very good light as well.

The Surefire and the Falcata run on CR123s which can get spendy. I would get a minimum of 2 flashlights and keep them ALWAYS with you. The stinger can be your "search the car, general purpose" light and your 6P can be your "we're going into a bad spot where bad guys are going to be upset about our arrival" light.

Spend the money on one now and pick the other one up in a few months. I've never regretted spending extra cash to get better lights, guns or boots....ever!

Good luck,

Bill :thumbsup:

Another question that needs to be answered for your first light is the question: Incan or LED?

In the darkness in the forest, for example, you would be very, very pleased with an incan light.... provided it lasts as long as you need it (or you carry spare batteries).
Because that's the drawback: an incan light with serious output has a serious power consumption
Batteries can be fully exhausted in less than half an hour!
And, you can't choose the power (= light output) as you want: turn it on, that's it.

Then, we have LED-lights. They often come with 3 or more steps in output (and THUS in current consumption!!)
When you need a little bit of light, switch it on using the "low" position.
Need much, or very much light? Just use the medium or high position.
Want to disorient a criminal? Use the STROBE function!

It's all built into for example the Fenix P3D, the Olight M20 Warrior or the Tiablo A9. these lights are small and amazingly versatile. The only drawback is still the horrible colour of the light they have: in the dark, with darker colours (brown, dark green) you will barely have any useful light, and colours are most likely seen very, very strange indeed.

So, you might indeed invest in TWO lights, one being an incan and one LED.

In the case of an incan, I would advise a Wolf-eyes 9AX raider body, in these lights you can put two protected(!) 18500 size Li-ion cells (AW are the best, go for them!) and you might put a Lumens Factory lamp assembly of your choice in it. With 1500mAh battery-capacity you can power a SR-9 lamp assembly for more than one hour. Then, the protection of the battery kicks in and will leave you in the dark SUDDENLY. Better shut it down yourself, after 45 minutes, to preserve the batteries. They don't like to be fully drawn.

As a LED-light, I think I would choose the M20 Warrior. It has a high-efficiency converter, can be used with one PROTECTED 18650 battery and has a very long runtime on the lowest setting. It is a convenient light to use, it has a memory for the last setting used for example. This is not something all lights have! Having to click through all undesired modes first is something, you end up hating, forcing you to buy another one in the end.

As you will be using them very often, make sure you buy the right one the first time! Gather as much information as possible, my advise is just my own opinion, it might not be yours.

Look through this forum for a few hours to learn more about batteries, possible upgrades, and powering options (the incan light I recommend you here, has the possibility to be run on either 3X CR123 primaries or 2X 18500 Li-ions, the M20 Warrior can be used on 1X 18650 or 2X 16340 Li-ion, or simply on 2X CR123 primaries, so you'll always find batteries on the go).


Please let us know what you choose in the end

Timmo.

seatown7 said:

1. First off is the Surefire 6P. A sweet light thats bright as heck and easy to tote around. You should be able to find em for $85ish new...or on this forum used for less. You can upgrade it later with a Malkoff M60 LED drop in and get it even brighter.

Click to expand...

Please do not spend $85 dollars on a 6P! A 6PL retails for about 85 dollars, but can be found on ebay brand new for about $50! Also, I would not buy a 6PL, I would buy a regular 6P. I see them sell on ebay for under $40 brand new! The surefire 6P has a plethora of upgrades available! I would choose an LED in a heartbeat! Some people still worry about tint in LEDs; however, drop-ins like malkoff warm and dereelight warm produce great incandescent like colors with more brightness and less battery drain! LED lights are a win-win-win! :twothumbs

Personal recommended set-ups... In price order! (highest first)

1. surefire 6P with a Malkoff drop-in!

2. Dereelight CLH1

3. surefire 6P with Dereelight drop-in

4. surefire 6P with deal extreme drop-in

5. solarforce L2

post any questions u have about these!

:welcome:

LED lights that people might recommend:

Dereelight CL1H
Dereelight DBS
Fenix TK10
Fenix TK11
Fenix TK20
Novatac 120T
Surefire E2DL
Surefire 6PL or G2L(I'd recommend just getting an incan 6P and get a good drop-in)
Surefire C2 or Z2 with good LED drop-in
Nitecore Extreme
Eagletac T10A2
Eagletac T10L
Eagletac T10C2
Olight M20
Current Streamlight LED lights, the "C4" ones.
Inova T4
Firstlight lights
and some more that I don't remember

There are some LED lights, like the Fenix TK20 or the Malkoff drop-ins, that use a neutral white LED. The tint is somewhere between an incan and a normal LED.

Alright I did a lot of research around this forum then the flashlights website specs so on and heres what i narrowed them down to and i beleive their all in my price range too. I looked at the policing thread and a few other threads. Well heres what i got

Innova: T5 and the X03 yet im not really sure the price range or if i like the design

Stinger: DS LED

Surefire E3D LED Defender / 6P defender / 9p (Gunner and Kicken you both mentioned the Malkoff drop ins after visiting their site it seems really good but are they easy to put in would i after to solder anything together for that?)

O LIght m20 Warrior seems very good and i like the design and has a long runtime but i couldnt find the specs for the length and width

Eagletac T10C2 seems like a good flashlight but i couldnt find to much about it it looks to throw out the most Lumens out of all the flashlights i looks at but the

well hows that list look for right now thank you for the help so far and please criticize this list let me know which ones are good and which ones are dismall

and here is a list of what i care about from most important to least
-price around 50-100 dollars can be a bit more
-length 5-7.5'' width 1-2''
-brightness
-range
-runtime around 8 hours

any others thanks again just getting into this its confusing to look at and seatown thats a major reason id want a flashlight that is dissorienting because my job right now i have to contain people without using to much physcial force and there are times were that could have come in handy thank you

Alright i did a lot of research from the information you guys gave me and looking around this forum and found the policing thread and a few others and took some information off of those to narrow my list of lashlights.

Alright here is what i got so far

Innova: T5 and XO3 although the lights seem very nice i am not to sure if i like the design

Stinger: the DS LED

Surefire: E2D LED Defender/ 6P Defender/ and 9p (both gunner and kicken mentioned the Malkoff drop ins. I looked at the site and i t looks like they really power up the surefire flashlights. Its something i would be interested in but how is the assemble would it be eay would i have to solder anything.

Olight M20 Warrior it looks really good throws off quite a bit of light and has a long runtime

Eagletac T10C2 Another good looking light has the high amount of Lumens from the flashlights i looked at in my price range

Anyways please criticize this list and add any others i figured it would be wise to add what i kind of want in a flash light from most important to least

-Price 50-100 dollars can be a bit more
-Length 5-7.5 inches
-Brightness
-Range bright up close but can shine for quite awhile
-duration something along the lines of 8-12 hours of runtime

Gladius?

the malkoff drop-ins require no soldering! you simply replace the old bulb with the new bulb. very simple! and do u need 8 hours of runtime on high? that would be very difficult to find. there are many flashlights that offer a low mode that will run that long, but nothing that will run that long on high!

I have an Eagletac T10C2. Excellent light for the price. Very powerful- lights up everything in front of you. Highly recommended.

https://www.eagletac-store.com/product_info.php?cPath=103&products_id=611

Alright just got out of class and i got really excited looking at the Surefire P6 defender and the Malkoff M60W Warm Tint Beam but it goes over my budget by 70 bucks.

Now before i looked at that i narrowed it down to the P6 Defender OLight M20 Warrior Premium and the Eagletac T10C2

I dont think i will be able to do the Surefire with the dropin just because of the price someday though once i get done paying college loans i will be able to but any suggestion on those 3 above?

Law Enforcement in a couple of years...

Humm, I'd suggest a light that is easily upgradeable like the Surefire 6P or other P60 accepting drop-in because there will probably newer LEDs that will come out and used in P60 type drop-ins so the lights that accept the P60 type drop-ins will be really easy to upgrade.

The other ones will usually require soldering to upgrade.

Do you just want to get a feel of how much light these type of lights put out and how they feel like in the hand? How much durability do you need?

Well, I don't see how the surefire 6p malkoff version is over your budget, but if that is the case, May I suggest a Solarforce L2?

they can be found many places, here is a link to a review

http://www.light-reviews.com/solarforce_l2gs-r2/

and they can be found on ebay for cheap! plus the bulb that comes with the light is decent quality! If you want to upgrade to a malkoff later it will fit just fine! Also, If price is an issue, look into the dereelights! I think you would be much better off buying a 6p/solarforce l2/dereelight or somthing simmilar so that it can be upgraded easily and cheaply in the future!

The Dereelight CL1H V4 is within your price range and accepts the P60 drop-in and can also use the 18650 Li-ion battery. Also has a clip.

If you search around for lower prices, you should be able to get the 6P and the Malkoff within your price range.(you don't need the P60L drop-in of the 6PL to swap in another LED drop-in)

Alright i decided to order the eagletac T10C2 with the optional strike bezel for the price range, review videos ive seen and havent really heard any bad reviews about it. My next light will be a surefire 6p defender for sure than get a powerfull drop in for it or the m20 premium. I really liked the runtime of the m20 premium on the lowest power as it would have worked perfect for my job were i would have to periodically turn it on and off for 3 hours straight but my gut instinct told me to go with the eagletac product for now. Thank you all for you help now the hard part is waiting for it to get here.

Is there anything i should know about the T10C2 like maintanence, handling, etc...