Holsters & Lanyards for our lights (what do you use)

We spend all this money on these high power flashlights, I would like to see the HOLSTERS and LANYARDS you guys use for them, and your reasoning (benefits) for using them.

Particularly for the TACTICAL TYPE LIGHTS (Jetbeam III Military, Olight Warrior, Fenix TA 21 etc.)

What ya got? Post them pics! :kewlpics:

I just use the holster that comes with the minimag sometimes. Pretty simple, i'm sure you guys know what it looks like. I'd like to find a better way to carry it, it's a pain to get the light back in sometimes.

I bought some paracord, cordlocks, swivle clips, split rings and zipper pulls made my own better than most of the crappy ones that come with the lights

I've tried many different types of holsters for the many makes of lights that I own that I must have spent a small fortune on trying to find the perfect one. However, for my purposes the Surefire V70 just has to be the most long lived and most useful. Fabric holsters usually only survive a year or more on my duty belt before becomming too tatty and unreliable. I also find that velcro tend to quickly loose its grip and puts you at risk of loosing the light. The best fabric holsters are usually the ones with simple button snap closures. The Surefire V70 however seems to just about live forever and holds my Malkoff powered G2z very securely whilst allowing a fumble free access and reholstering. I also don't have any issues with decontaminating the V70 if it gets badly soiled so all in all it meets my needs perfectly.

I personally feel that most manufacturers are extremely bad at thinking about how their products will be carried once they have designed it. It would be great if one of the larger manufacturers of high end lights put more effort into how their latest and greatest designs will be holsterd as it does seem to be a bit haphazerd as it is?

Zeva said:

I bought some paracord, cordlocks, swivle clips, split rings and zipper pulls made my own better than most of the crappy ones that come with the lights

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I do the same thing and most the time I can use the cord that comes with most lights I just add a few little extra things to it like a cordlock and swivle clips with a zipper pull.

For my small lights I've made some "finger pulls" out of rawhide or paracord. Larger lights get wrist straps, either those supplied with the light or ones I've made from paracord. Very seldom use holsters except to protect a stored light.

Geoff

I wish more lights (e.g., Zebralight SC30, RA Clicky, Inova T4-MP ...) provided lanyard attachment points.

+1 on making my own. I never really liked anything that came with any of my lights, so I went down this road. I came across an idea in one of Stormdrane's posts here. I thought - I want something similar for a lanyard so I figured out how to do it. It not only looks cool (which I guess is subjective), but the braiding enables you to hook it to itself at any location. So you can size it to your wrist, use it with a small AAA lite in your front pocket like you would use a chain wallet, hook it to a belt, bag, whatever. Really flexible. To me a flashlight without a way to attach a lanyard is worthless. Sorry for my bad no contrast blurry pics :shakehead but you can at least see what I have done.



For my uses normal paracord is too bulky. These are made with something called Type I paracord from supply captain which is about 1/3 the thickness of the usual paracord.

On the holsters, same deal. I bought some cordura 1000 thickness material and have been playing around with that. It's pretty tough if you don't have the right equipment though, you can stitch by hand but that gets tedious after a while. I'm starting to think about buying some leather and going that route, but of course there is a learning curve there and not sure I have that kind of time right now. Simple smooth lights you can get away with a nylon sheath of some kind, but if you've got some larger hosts with gnarly knurling on them - probably only leather will do. I have looked on CPF and have not seen anybody offering to make custom leather holsters. I'm sure this would have a lot of takers, but the time investment to make a single hoster seems to be large. So in the meantime we make use of cheesy $5 holsters.

JKPinPDX said:

We spend all this money on these high power flashlights, I would like to see the HOLSTERS and LANYARDS you guys use for them, and your reasoning (benefits) for using them.

Click to expand...

I generally don't use holsters or cases, except for storing the light for protection of the device. I use a lanyard at times, but take it off as needed since it can get in the way sometimes. I generally don't drop things, so I'm not too worried about damaging my lights.

Hi Guys

I have a TK40, Dunno where to buy a holster, can someone please point me to a website to purchase one. must have international shipping because i live in South Africa.

Thanks

+1 on home-made solutions...

I make my own lanyards, they look better and I make them the length I want (google macrame and you'll likely find something you'll like)

I made my own holster for my TK40 out of leather. I even made an extra attachment to wear it lower on my leg (Lara Croft style) to free up space on my belt for the other 4 to 10 flashlights that might end up there when I go camping (now I just have to make myself heavy duty suspenders). I'll have to post a pic sometime.

I made these and others for my lights. The clip is for my Ra Clicky lights but it's not attached at the moments. The short lanyard hangs the light above all of the other stuff and dirt in my pockets keeping the bezel clear. The Grimloc stays on my belt loop.



I've also used a lanyard for the Clicky lights without the clip. Here's an a picture I posted a while ago. The lanyard is attached to the light body- not the clip. I've also used just a small split ring built into the Turks head so you can clip to the light body. This eliminates having to keep a lanyard attached when not using it.

Some great ideas and good ideas for lanyards etc. Unfortunately if you wear a uniform regulations mean that a holster has to conform to certain standards and requirements and most of the home made stuff just doesn't cut it.

I keep my Jet III-M in a Maxpedition 5" flashlight tube (OD Green), which I just received yesterday, with an attached Niteize S-biner #4 (also OD Green).

My Nitecore NDI is simply attached to a square braided paracord lanyard with a mcgizmo clip.

I'll try to get some pics up later.