Surefire 6P Battery life

I saw the guys from bugoutgearusa.com at a recent gun show and bought a LED module for my 6P from them. Although not marked, they tell me it is an R2. I was told that this module will increase battery life from about 1 hour to more than 3 hours. Other companies that I've seen, Lighthound for one, claim 1.5 hours of battery life for similar units. Can there be this much difference or are some of these claims exaggerated?

About lumens. Are there different ways of measuring them? Surefire claims that the stock 6P puts out 65 and the claim for my new LED module is 230-250, depending on which document you are reading. The LED is definitely brighter and whiter but it doesn't look like anything close to 4 times the output of the stock bulb.

Thanks for your help!

First, what type of drop-in did you purchase? From where? Can you post a link to it?

Second. Battery life is dependent upon many things. Remember that you cannot pull 100% of the energy in a CR123, usually ~80-90% before voltage drops too low to use. It also depends upon how efficient the driver is. Most cheap drivers use cheap components, keep that in mind, so efficiency may be lower than 80%. It also depends upon the forward voltage of the LED in the drop-in. Sometimes they are lower than others. Multiple modes of output also allow for longer runtimes.

Third. Yes, there are different ways of measuring them. Most companies refer to bulb lumens, others don't. A good rule of thumb with bulb lumens is take the number of bulb lumens, and subtract ~25% of that number. that should give you a rough estimate of Out The Front (OTF or Torch) lumens. That is assuming that the LED is also driven at a rate to provide that output.
Surefire rates there lights as OTF lumens, and usually severely underrates them. In actuality, I think the bulb in the 6P has measured 90+ OTF lumens in tests. It is also well focused.
Human eyes percieve light in a logarithmic manner. Not linear. Even if your stock 6P bulb and the new drop-in were focused exactly the same, and the drop in was truly 4x the output of the bulb it would only appear twice as bright. Another general rule of thumb: all other factors being the same, it takes about 4times the output to appear twice as bright.

You can also not compare the hotspots of the beams. The beams are probably not focused the same way, and even if they were, it wouldn't tell you much. A much more effective method of differentiating output is a ceiling-bounce test. Basically you go into a dark room, and shine the lights at the ceiling (one at a time). Then look around the room and see how well it is illuminated. Then switch to the next light.

+1

The run-time of LEDs varies greatly depending on the power consumption. Low power LEDs that put out about the same as the P60 will run anywhere from 5 hours to 11 hours depending on the efficiency of the driver/LED. A higher output LED will have a lower run-time just due to the higher consumption. For example, the one you got or an M60 from Malkoff will put out a lot more light than a stock P60 but the runtime won't be that much longer because the LED is pulling almost as much amperage from the batteries as the P60. The best of both worlds, run-time and brightness is a high-powered LED with a very efficient driver, like a Malkoff.

John_Galt said:

Surefire rates there lights as OTF lumens, and usually severely underrates them. In actuality, I think the bulb in the 6P has measured 90+ OTF lumens in tests.

Click to expand...

MrGman's results in an integrating sphere show a Surefire 6P bulb in a host without a lens briefly managing 87 lumens, with 75 after warm up and battery voltage sag. With a lens in place, he measured 80 lumens peak and 68 lumens after warm up. Surefire makes great lights, but 90+ OTF lumens just isn't going to happen with a stock incandescent 6P.

There are plenty of LED emitters that are pushing 200-250 lumens. So I would probably buy any claims to that effect.

Battery life, depends on what they are measuring. I know for awhile surefire was claiming that the 6P LED (maybe it was just galls) would last 11 hours. That was probably true, but at hour 11 you were getting no where near the max output. So one company may be stating the run power at near max output, others just might be giving you the total number.

Thanks for the info guys!