High quality P60 with an XPG drop in suggestion

An old friend's son is deploying to Afghanistan on his first combat tour. A bunch of us are working on donating some gear to his Platoon (he's a junior officer). I've been doing the flashaholic thing for a while so I thought I'd send him a light. I have a budget XPG based P60 clone that I use on my helmet for mountain biking. It is the best flashlight I have in terms of quantity and quality of light. I'd like to get Josh a P60 type light with an XPG drop in that is completely reliable.

BTW It has to be compatible with C123 batteries since they seem to be plentiful over there. Compatibility with 18650s would be a nice bonus.

Well you could just get him an actual surefire if that is within your budget. From what I understand the next best hosts are those made by Solarforce which run around 35-40 bucks.

I think this is a good place for you to start:

http://www.sbflashlights.com

There dropins are also supposed to be quite good but if you want something really great you could get him an SST-50 nailbender drop in or a malkoff dropin.

I don't actually own any of this stuff though this is all just stuff I've heard. You should definitely wait for some more suggestions.

My vote goes to the Solarforce L2P body. It's a clone of the Surefire 6P, but better quality in my opinion. It features a flat crenulated bezel (not sharp), Type III Hard Anodization (compared to type II on the Surefire 6P) and a reliable tailcap clicky that has the ability to tailstand. SBFlashlights has it in stock for around $37 shipped. Lighthound did have it for a super good price of around $30 shipped, but they're out of stock. You could get an XP-G dropin from SBflashlights with it or my suggestion would be to try an get a Malkoff Devices M61. The MD M61 is a bit pricey compared to other P60LED dropins on the market, but the quality, functionality and durability is unsurpassed in my opinion.

Surefire C2 (Z41 twisty) + Malkoff. Hes putting his life on the line defending a nation, and hes your friend. Only the best will do.

Don't bother with 18650s if hes not the type to maintain them and they are issued CR123 cells... stick with a 2xprimary CR123 host.

kramer5150 said:

Surefire C2 (Z41 twisty) + Malkoff. Hes putting his life on the line defending a nation, and hes your friend. Only the best will do.

Don't bother with 18650s if hes not the type to maintain them and they are issued CR123 cells... stick with a 2xprimary CR123 host.

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I 2nd that.

What kramer said or get the md2 host with the malkoff drop in and maybe a pocket clip.

i'm not so sure an L2P is the best way to go, performance wise. as i understand it the L2P is just an HA version of the L2, a host that i do have. its pretty lightweight...great if your carrying a lot of gear but not so good for heat managment. you might try getting in touch w/ Mike at opticshq.com. they have special pricing on 4 different items for CPF members right now. one of those items is a P60 host w/ a choice of an XR-E lamp or XP-G lamp. i've not seen either of their lamps in action but i do have one of those P60 hosts and i'm more than impressed w/ its rugged build quality...but that does come at the expense of increased weight.

as far as XP-Gs go, i'm hooked, they're my favorite emitter right now. Thrunite has a couple that are awesome. one puts out over 300 lumens (overall, not OTF) and they just released another one in the last couple weeks that is nearly 500 lumens (again, overall, not OTF). both of them are awesome. there is one catch though...the Thrunite reflectors are a little heavy flood when it comes to beam profile. personally, i think its a little overkill...both of my Thrunite XP-G pills were moved to reflectors w/ sharper beam profiles. from what i understand, Solarforce has 1 or 2 XP-G dropins that are a little more reasonably priced than the Thrunite's plus their reflectors have a sharper beam profile.

good luck and thank you for helping those guys out.

Given that long runtime would probably be very important, I'd throw away any consideration of ridiculously overpowered drop-ins and simply stick with a standard Surefire light.

Though personally I think they'd get a Surefire light as standard issue for free, so it might not even matter.

If we're talking about a welcome back present then I could see the point of this light. Other than that, having 500+ lumens in a combat zone really does nothing other than make sure every hostile in a 5 mile radius knows your exact position(no, I'm not military, but this just seems like common sense).

kramer5150 said:

Surefire C2 (Z41 twisty) + Malkoff. Hes putting his life on the line defending a nation, and hes your friend. Only the best will do. Don't bother with 18650s if hes not the type to maintain them and they are issued CR123 cells... stick with a 2xprimary CR123 host.

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bullettproof said:

I 2nd that.

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Fourthed. (Doubt that's even a word tho...)

Owning & using a number of SureFire hosts and a SolarForce host, the extra $10-$20 for the SureFire is well worth it. 2x CR123's in a classic SureFire 6P (and the standard & bombproof twistie tailcap) with a quality LED drop-in is the way to go.

Kestrel said:

Fourthed. (Doubt that's even a word tho...)

Owning & using a number of SureFire hosts and a SolarForce host, the extra $10-$20 for the SureFire is well worth it. 2x CR123's in a classic SureFire 6P (and the standard & bombproof twistie tailcap) with a quality LED drop-in is the way to go.

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... I have seen SF-C2 incans for as low as $55 on ebay, used but in great cond. ~$70 for them NIP.

6Ps go for ~$45 NIP

stallion2 said:

as far as XP-Gs go, i'm hooked, they're my favorite emitter right now. Thrunite has a couple that are awesome. one puts out over 300 lumens (overall, not OTF) and they just released another one in the last couple weeks that is nearly 500 lumens (again, overall, not OTF). both of them are awesome. there is one catch though...the Thrunite reflectors are a little heavy flood when it comes to beam profile. personally, i think its a little overkill...both of my Thrunite XP-G pills were moved to reflectors w/ sharper beam profiles. from what i understand,

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What reflectors did you choose? Would this be an easy mod, even for beginners?

sfca said:

What reflectors did you choose? Would this be an easy mod, even for beginners?

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I believe only DX has these for a P60 size head, if not I would've gone with a more high quality one.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.5937

Since it's pretty much hit or miss, I'd probably have to order 5 of these to get a good one. But the ridiculously floody beam of my Thrunite OP reflector might be a good enough reason to try. Though I've heard that the hotspot of an LED emitter will looking like a square with these. Might be worth it though.

My suggestion would be the thrunite xpg 1.5A. It's very bright and it range from 2.7-9V. You can use 1-3 cr123. Perfect since those batteries are plentiful over there. I think I will stick with primaries since rechargeables will take time to charge.

sfca said:

What reflectors did you choose? Would this be an easy mod, even for beginners?

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i'm leaving town and can put up some pics of what i do if you think it helps. as far as XP-Gs go, most of the XR-E D26 reflectors don't work well. the beam pattern just doesn't look right, sometimes more floody than the Thrunite reflectors, but rarely better. i did purchase an MC-E dropin from DX last fall and was pretty disappointed...however, the reflector that came w/ that is awesome for XP-Gs. ironically enough i took a Thrunite reflector from one of my XP-G pills and drilled it open because its the only 26mm reflector i've found that doesn't leave an obvious donut w/ an MC-E...great little flood light now.

anyways, i bought an XP-G dropin off CPFM along w/ an L2...i'm positive it came from DX and its my favorite reflector for the XP-Gs. now my 1.5A XP-G is w/ it. its not very complicated, i'm not even sure i would call it a mod...if you can change the batteries then you can do this. you do have to be careful not to overtighten the pill or you may pop the emitter loose. even if you have the pill in properly then overtightening the light as a whole when you reassemble it may cause enough thread movement btw the pill and reflector to cause it to pop loose. i lost my Dereelight XP-G this way as well as the DX version. XP-Gs are more prone to this problem because they have a much wider output angle and lower profile than the XR-Es, MC-Es, SSTs, etc. to compensate for this they have to be mounted higher on the pill which makes them more vulnerable to being damaged or bottoming out on the reflector when being tightened. i frequently will make a small ring out of copper wire or aluminum foil and then place it up underneath the reflector, above its threads. it acts as a spacer and if you get the spacing right then the edge of the brass pill will bottom out before anything else does. get that right and your lamp should be as resiliant to shock as ever. just make sure that your spacer us pushed as far up against the inside of the reflector as possible or it could create a bypass and short the lamp. your spacer doesn't even have to be metal really...thats just what i've been using.

Noctis said:

I believe only DX has these for a P60 size head, if not I would've gone with a more high quality one.

http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.5937

Since it's pretty much hit or miss, I'd probably have to order 5 of these to get a good one. But the ridiculously floody beam of my Thrunite OP reflector might be a good enough reason to try. Though I've heard that the hotspot of an LED emitter will looking like a square with these. Might be worth it though.

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i've got one of those...its awesome!!! but not very good w/ XP-Gs...i've tried everyone i've ever had w/ it and it just doesn't look right but it throws like mad w/ an XR-E. it damn near throws on par w/ my Tiablo A9.

Solarforce has SMO's for their XP-Gs but i've not seen them...i should think that would sharpen the beam profile over the Thrunite's OP.

Email Gene Malkoff at www.malkoffdevices.com and explain your situation. He will be out of stock on most of his stuff, but I beleive he can put something together for you quickly since it is military/service related. His stuff is bomb proof. When your life is on the line, Surefire and Malkoff is the only way to go.

stallion2 said:

i've got one of those...its awesome!!! but not very good w/ XP-Gs...i've tried everyone i've ever had w/ it and it just doesn't look right but it throws like mad w/ an XR-E. it damn near throws on par w/ my Tiablo A9.

Solarforce has SMO's for their XP-Gs but i've not seen them...i should think that would sharpen the beam profile over the Thrunite's OP.

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x2... its a nice mid-throwey reflector for an XRE but with my XPG it leaves a doughnut hole in the middle.

kyhunter1 said:

Email Gene Malkoff at www.malkoffdevices.com and explain your situation. He will be out of stock on most of his stuff, but I beleive he can put something together for you quickly since it is military/service related. His stuff is bomb proof. When your life is on the line, Surefire and Malkoff is the only way to go.

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+100 here, that's a great idea. :thumbsup: I'm sure Gene would have something lying around to ship out for this critical of an application, he is a very good person to deal with.

don.gwapo said:

My suggestion would be the thrunite xpg 1.5A. It's very bright and it range from 2.7-9V. You can use 1-3 cr123. Perfect since those batteries are plentiful over there. I think I will stick with primaries since rechargeables will take time to charge.

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Where can i get the 1.5A version. I can only seem to find the old 1.0A version.

Re: sources for 1.5A Thrunite XP-G

anonymoususer said:

Where can i get the 1.5A version. I can only seem to find the old 1.0A version.

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The original, 2.7-9V version is available at
http://www.illuminationgear.com/145071.html

and

http://flashlightconnection.com/ThruNite-Flashlights-c30/

A 2.7-4.2V version is due any day. Unlike the 2.7-9v, it will deliver its full rated brightness on a single lithium-iron cell.