Surefire......can someone please tell me?

What makes this like a 400 dollar + light. It runs 120 lumens for only 20 minutes. I was looking for another light for my AR. Currently have a M20, just browsing around the web for other options. I am perfectly happy with the Olight, just bored looking at some other lights. What is so special about Surefire? I realize their quality is probably awesome, but a 400 dollar light that runs 20 minutes????? I can run 90 lumens on my M20 for 12 hours

http://www.batteryjunction.com/surefire-weapon-rifle-m952xm07.html

Deja Vu!
You can gain a lot of info using the search function.

It is an Incandescent, which will limit the possible runtime compared to an LED like your Olight.

You won't really understand the price difference of a Surefire until you use one, especially in a situation where you need it to work first time every time, on demand.

The lifetime warranty and coverage of the product, as well as the fact that it is American made also adds to the overall price.

Like SureAddicted stated, I suggest you do some searching.

Another way to look at it is like this. Ferrari's are expensive, but they still have a huge market, and for it's reasons.

There should be a sticky as to why surefires cost as much as they do...I think I've seen 100+ threads on this subject..

Its a valid question, but we need a sticky to post a link to when these questions arise.

DimeRazorback said:

It is an Incandescent, which will limit the possible runtime compared to an LED like your Olight.

You won't really understand the price difference of a Surefire until you use one, especially in a situation where you need it to work first time every time, on demand.

The lifetime warranty and coverage of the product, as well as the fact that it is American made also adds to the overall price.

Like SureAddicted stated, I suggest you do some searching.

Another way to look at it is like this. Ferrari's are expensive, but they still have a huge market, and for it's reasons.

Click to expand...

Yeah it's gonna work the first time, but only for 20 minutes? In a self defense situation, fighting off a bunch of bad guys in the dark, the last thing I want to do is switch batteries. My Olights and Fenix's work the first time, every time for 20 times as long, for 1/5th of the cost. I've beat the crap out of my Olight in carbine courses and in training and it has yet to fail me.

In a real tactical situation (think SWAT etc) you don't leave your light left on to be positioned by the bad guy, you use it momentarily to identify the bad guy, and target them.

I really suggest searching, and finding out what Surefire focus their products on.

I've searched, I still cannot find an answer. Will these lights just blow lights like the TK11 out of the water?

Well i think the obvious factor is the quality. Customer service and warranty increase costs. American made (higher labor/R&D costs) increase costs.

On top of higher production costs compared some of their foreign competitors, it comes down to simple economics. Top brand name products come with premium prices because people like them, people trust them, and people are willing to pay that premium price to have that particular product. Not everyone is willing to pay that premium price when they can get something brighter for cheaper. And that's perfectly fine. Who doesn't want a bright light? But the people that are buying surefires I'm sure are not buying them to have the brightest light available. Some buy them because of the quality and they want a light they can trust. Some buy a surefire for the name, just to say they have a surefire. Whatever the reason, the demand is there to support surefire's prices.

Can you find brighter lights for the cost? Absolutely.
Are surefires overpriced? That is completely subjective.

I have only a couple of surefires and a bunch of other lights. I have lights that are wayy brighter than my surefires. I have lights that run wayy longer than my surefires. Do i regret buying my surefies? Not at all

Let's see how long this thread lasts...

DimeRazorback said:

the fact that it is American made also adds to the overall price

Click to expand...

Where does it say that surefire lights are made in usa?

I went looking for this info a couple months ago, but couldn't find it. So I figured they make their lights in chinese factories like almost everyone else. Not true?

-Jeff

drmaxx said:

Let's see how long this thread lasts...

Click to expand...

Another Surefire vs. Fenix thread.

Quick! Kill it! Kill it before it runs underneath the stove!

uplite said:

Where does it say that surefire lights are made in usa?

I went looking for this info a couple months ago, but couldn't find it. So I figured they make their lights in chinese factories like almost everyone else. Not true?

-Jeff

Click to expand...

No where physically on the product does it say "Made in USA". (as opposed to my 2 older mags for example). At least my 6P, M2 and G2 do not. However, the US military could not issue them if they did not comply to the Berry Amendment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_Amendment

I like my SFs because I like the bomb proof reliability and mechanical simplicity of the Z41 switch. Theres also something satisfying about owning a USA made product thats manufactured in my home state. With companies outsourcing foreign labor more I like the idea of financially supporting a USA-based USA manufacturing operation. I suppose thats part of my newly discovered maglite appeal too.

If you are trying to justify it all based on $$ / Lumens & lux, then your'e right it makes no sense.

Where is the "I want to put a shotgun in my mouth thread" at?

I want to start giving out that link to all the new trolls.

And you are not fighting bad guys for 20 minutes, or probably 0 minutes in reality.
If you are happy with them then just keep your Olight and your Fenix and leave the Surefires alone. Maybe even try another forum?

Sgt. LED said:

Where is the "I want to put a shotgun in my mouth thread" at?

I want to start giving out that link.

And you are not fighting bad guys for 20 minutes, or 0 minutes in reality. If you are happy with it then just keep your Olight.

Click to expand...

nickanto said:

What is so special about Surefire? I realize their quality is probably awesome, but a 400 dollar light that runs 20 minutes?????

Click to expand...

To some degree you answered your own question.

In general, if a product's price doesn't make sense to you, and yet the product does indeed seem to sell, then perhaps you are not the intended buyer for that product.

Another point - amazingly enough there are more considerations to illumination tools than brightness and runtime, although those are certainly serious considerations. There is also quality and reliability, which you mention and then immediately discount. That's fine for you - but perhaps others rate those qualities more highly.

Maybe the special forces (or whoever buys these lights) is totally price insensitive - it's not like it's THEIR money after all - and it's worth it to them for what might seem like small improvements in reliability. Perhaps some organization has standardized on these, and even at $400 per light, it's just easier to keep buying them than to change over to other lights, or deal with the logistics of having several different lights deployed. Maybe there's some standard or specification that Surefire can assert they meet that Olight can't meet. (Maybe Olight COULD meet that spec, if only they knew about it!) That standard might be completely meaningless to you and me, but be worth $400 to the customer for this light.

Although I don't think this is the case with SF, there isn't anything wrong with having a product that has NO benefit over it's competition other than merely being an expensive and hard to obtain status item. (OK, it's possible that for many of us on this forum that actually sort of IS the case for SF, but I don't think their target audience is price insensitive for this reason.)

Anyway, I'm not a firearm user, but I think it's hard to make an incandescent light be weapon mounted and not go , so that might well be part of the reason in this case.

BTW, the M20 is a nice light, I have one.

nickanto said:

I've searched, I still cannot find an answer.

Click to expand...

Understanding this first might be a better use of your time/energy:

How to SEARCH CPF
https://www.candlepowerforums.com/threads/127532

Closed