do not look in here if your 'excitable'

Im very close to buying a surefire (used or new, my first) but after a quick look at lightreviews.com i see that they dont get great review numbers compared to the best reviewed on that web site ?

if i / we are to trust lightreviews.com what am i too think?

That's because lightreviews.com isn't reviewing lights for the military, police, etc.

It's a whole other ball game if you add life or death dependability into the mix, or if the light meets the requirements for certain tasks, etc.

Although it is interesting that while people like to say SureFire is great when your "life is on the line" situations. Yet there've always been people on here who have reported faulty SureFire's as well (especially with tail caps).

Now obviously more quantities of other brands such as Fenix, Olight, etc are sold compared to SureFire, but I don't see them having anymore failures than SureFire either. So if you look at the ratio, you could come to your own conclusion.

fairdinkum

Splunk_Au said:

Although it is interesting that while people like to say SureFire is great when your "life is on the line" situations. Yet there've always been people on here who have reported faulty SureFire's as well (especially with tail caps).

Now obviously more quantities of other brands such as Fenix, Olight, etc are sold compared to SureFire, but I don't see them having anymore failures than SureFire either. So if you look at the ratio, you could come to your own conclusion.

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none of those companies outsell surefire, and the surefire failures that are reported are typically sensationalized, compared to other companies since they have such a good track record for reliability, i know when push comes to shove and a light simply HAS to work ill be buying a surefire.

mossyoak said:

none of those companies outsell surefire, and the surefire failures that are reported are typically sensationalized, compared to other companies since they have such a good track record for reliability, i know when push comes to shove and a light simply HAS to work ill be buying a surefire.

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While being sure to wear MossyOak© camo, sipping a Red Bull© energy drink and typing on your Blackberry©? :hahaha:

brad

I can see this thread is heading toward another Surefire bash fest.:ironic:

DigMe said:

While being sure to wear MossyOak© camo, sipping a Red Bull© energy drink and typing on your Blackberry©? :hahaha:

brad

Click to expand...

:thumbsdow

The biggest piece of advice I can give you, is to know your own preferences... what YOU like and want in a light. To a certain extent you have to just bite the bullet and own a fenix, SF, Inova..etc... and use them in order to let your own opinions and preferences develop. Regarding the lightreviews site... heck its just one reviewers opinion, I wouldn't 't give it another second of thought.

To be honest with you though, I have yet to find THE ONE. I have found flaws and minor annoyances with every light I have ever owned, used and demo'd at CPF meets.

But to address your question directly, Surefire lights are nothing special in terms of lumen, lux, run time, color tint or beam pattern/quality. I find them to be pretty average in these regards. The appeal to me is fit/finish, reliability, and lifetime part replacement warranty. FWIW my opinions are based on my 6P and M2 ownership.

270winchester said:

I can see this thread is heading toward another Surefire bash fest.:ironic:

:thumbsdow

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I was joking. I own two SF's myself. I just happened to notice that between his username, his post and his Location he was representing 4 different brand names. Practically the Nascar of CPF.

brad

i think maglite beats em all "when it has to work" its just so simple and durable :twothumbs

now you can close it ...mag beats all :laughing:

There's no inconsistency - look at the three parts of the rating. Build quality ratings are very good to extraordinary, as is the majority opinion. Output ratings are poor to fair, which is true of the lights reviewed there, although newer models have made much progress. And as for value, there's no way around the fact that they cost several times as much as the competitors.

At light-reviews.com, all partial scores are equally weighted. Therefore, if you don't value quality, output, and price equally, they will not reflect your overall opinion of the flashlight.

Since newer Surefires have better output, I think you can take two things away from the light-reviews.com reviews: #1, Surefires are build well, and #2, they cost a lot. Not exactly surprising.

If your primary metric is $ / lumen, SF loses pretty hard.

If your primary metric is indestructibility and hassle free service should something go wrong, SF looks a lot better. (Preferably nothing ever goes wrong!)

Both of these points of view have their place.

I would point out that the second metric, reliability under stress, is a lot more difficult to quantify and a lot harder to sell. The fact that SF is able to do this so successfully should tell you something. Their lighting tools are VERY thoughtfully designed for their target audience. (Which isn't us, unless you also happen to be military or LEO.) If these things are of no importance to you, then SF is not the light for you. You can get a great performing light for a lower price elsewhere.

Im very close to buying a surefire (used or new, my first) but after a quick look at lightreviews.com i see that they dont get great review numbers compared to the best reviewed on that web site?

Click to expand...

Three subjective numbers averaged (literally) together for an overall score. Sounds like a credible rating system to me.

Splunk_Au said:

Although it is interesting that while people like to say SureFire is great when your "life is on the line" situations. Yet there've always been people on here who have reported faulty SureFire's as well (especially with tail caps).

Now obviously more quantities of other brands such as Fenix, Olight, etc are sold compared to SureFire, but I don't see them having anymore failures than SureFire either. So if you look at the ratio, you could come to your own conclusion.

Click to expand...

I'm an SF addict, and a "believer". They're the only light I'd trust my life too in that situation...but I will admit, that there clickie tailcaps (especially E-series) are there achilles heel. Not that a large number of there (E-series) clickies fail, but they fail more than anything else. If I'm going to deploy to the desert, or am 1.5 miles into the earth, I will have an SF twisty on me (probably 3 or 4 actually), and all other brands will be left at home, unless I need to provide lights to someone else. They are that reliable, and iI wouldn't trust my well being to another light. Hope that helps, OP.

SF, if you're listening, bring back the E-series twisty!!!

gswitter said:

Three subjective numbers averaged (literally) together for an overall score. Sounds like a credible rating system to me.

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Thanks for the mocking.
Everyone has difference preferences, so the rating system does have flaws. But everything must start somewhere. And I think for an average person (NON flashaholics), its doing ok. But I personally prefer Selfbuilt's reviews.

I don't have any statistics, so I can't say much about each brand's failure rates. But for the price people are paying for the SF's, they BETTER be more reliable.

But lets face life, we all know this is simply down to probability, everything WILL failre at a point. For people where their lives are on the line depending on the light, I can understand how they think (hope?) paying more = lower failure rate (hope that's true for them), but for the "everyday" flashaholic, its simply not worth the premium IMO.

Whats more? If i didn't get things wrong. ALL Surefire lights uses CR123, could that be the trick to their "extra reliability"? *wink*
Either way, you're paying more for the tool AND the food.

So is SF's premium worth its minor superiority in built quality, lower output, less function, and perceived superior reliability? :thinking:

You guys can do the choosing.

Cheers.

angelofwar said:

I'm an SF addict, and a "believer". They're the only light I'd trust my life too in that situation...but I will admit, that there clickie tailcaps (especially E-series) are there achilles heel. Not that a large number of there (E-series) clickies fail, but they fail more than anything else. If I'm going to deploy to the desert, or am 1.5 miles into the earth, I will have an SF twisty on me (probably 3 or 4 actually), and all other brands will be left at home, unless I need to provide lights to someone else. They are that reliable, and iI wouldn't trust my well being to another light. Hope that helps, OP.

SF, if you're listening, bring back the E-series twisty!!!

Click to expand...

berry580 said:

Thanks for the mocking.
Everyone has difference preferences, so the rating system does have flaws. But everything must start somewhere. And I think for an average person (NON flashaholics), its doing ok. But I personally prefer Selfbuilt's reviews.

Click to expand...

Seriously? For an average person, isn't attributing a "value" score to *any* of these lights a pretty questionable proposition? Most people DO NOT understand the value of good lights. I know of very few non flashaholics who'd consider a $50 flashlight ANY kind of a value. (At a certain point, price doesn't matter - $100 or $1,000,000, doesn't matter 'cause they ain't gonna pay it!)

Real life example: another forum I frequent is an astronomy forum. These people are in the dark a lot, out in a field, in the middle of nowhere quite often. More than that, they have VERY peculiar lighting needs - they need dim, variable brightness red lighting, to preserve night vision. (This is critical, getting your eyes dark adapted again to the level where you can really appreciate faint objects takes at least 30 minutes.) Will most of these folks pay for a really high quality light? Nope, despite the fact that it will be a tool they use all the time, for years.

I don't think the reviews on light-reviews are too bad. They are biased in a certain way, but that's fine, it's identifiable and consistent. They seem fair minded. I suspect their values line up with a fair number of their readers. It is hard to fault someone for a heavy weighting on performance / dollar. That isn't MY ultimate criteria, but it does matter, and it is a perfectly sensible criteria for a person to have. (If everything else is equal, it is the OBVIOUS criteria.)

In the case of a SF light, you are paying for a light that is very likely overbuilt for most purposes most of us will put it through. Whether this is a good thing, or a bad thing, is 100% a personal choice.

berry580 said:

Thanks for the mocking.
Everyone has difference preferences, so the rating system does have flaws. But everything must start somewhere. And I think for an average person (NON flashaholics), its doing ok. But I personally prefer Selfbuilt's reviews.

Click to expand...

I never liked the "point" type of rating system.. personally wouldn't be able to decide at all. it all bogs down to personal opinion sometimes.

One thing that has always irked me about Surefire (and I am an ardent fan) is that for all the engineering they invest in their lights, they choose not to publish reliability figures, technical specs, or component specs. Most people don't care but I like to know; I still wonder why they do not bother. A company that publishes reliability figures (based on sound engineering estimates and experimentation) instills a sense of confidence in their engineering process and resulting quality.

Anyhow, I still look forward to their new offerings and keep a small budget aside especially.

I wonder, if I call Surefire and ask, will they provide this information? :thinking:

monanza said:

One thing that has always irked me about Surefire (and I am an ardent fan) is that for all the engineering they invest in their lights, they choose not to publish reliability figures, technical specs, or component specs. Most people don't care but I like to know; I still wonder why they do not bother. A company that publishes reliability figures (based on sound engineering estimates and experimentation) instills a sense of confidence in their engineering process and resulting quality.

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Surely they must provide this to the military - their biggest customer?