my first surefire impression, please comment!

I just got my first surefire light, it is a 9P. While the craftmanship of the light is very good, the beam quality and the brightness is not as good as I expected. First, the beam shape is not circular at all, it has a uneven oval shape. Carefully inspect the P90 bulb assembly, I notice the P90 bulb is not exactly in the center of the reflector, I guess it is the reason why the beam has a uneven oval shape. Secondly, the P90 bulb dont feel any brighter than my Streamlight scorpian, further more, it is not as white. I am truely disappointed with the beam quality and brightness with a light in this price range.
I was planning getting more surefires and accessories in the future, such as the Z3 and Kl3 etc, but if this is the kind of quality surefire give, I probably won't.
My question now is that am I just not lucky this time with the 9P, or this is what I should expect from Surefire. Please comment, any advice and suggestion will be helpful. And thank a lot

The oval shaped beam is very common with the P-series lamp asemblies. As for the output, that's tough to say without seeing it, but it should be a nice white light with more of a flood type output than a Scorpion.

--dan

eelnoraa...I agree with you on the oval beam. My Z3 had that "problem", I had been spoiled by an E2E's beam and "expected" the same quality of photon distribution!

So I put a KL3 on it!! Now it's GREAT!! (always have the "cruddy" old head if I need it...)

Originally posted by eelnoraa:
...I notice the P90 bulb is not exactly in the center of the reflector...

Click to expand...

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Sometimes the bulb won't be centered in the reflector, they are usually positioned so that the filament is in the center.

-YC

eelnoraa: it sounds like your batteries are dead.
I had a SF D3, wich uses the same P90 lamp as your 9p, and it was MUCH brighter than the
Scorpion. Try a new set of batteries, and call
me in the morning.

BTW you need to get an e2!

I agree. Put fresh batteries in both and then go outside. Illuminate distant objects and then judge.

I agree with the last 2 posts. My G2 is brighter than my Scorpion & the 9P is noticeably brighter than that. Some of what the 9P does is put out a larger quanity of light, but it's also brighter. TX

I had the same impression of my C3 even with new batts. I think its that the Scorpion can focus to a much tighter beam. Only when the Scorpion is turned to a little more flood does the P90 really shine. Think of the SF as a purely tactical light where the Scorpion as a situational light. I wouldn't trade for either but I carry the Scorpion ALWAYS.

I guess it's just a difference in lights. My Scorpion at its tighest focus is much more of a flood than any of my 6V Surefires. TX

Sadly that oval shape seems to be very common in the standard bulb for the 9P and even the M3 has a oval shape to it.

The high output bulbs are a nice round beam, but of course you only get 20 minutes of runtime.

I've always been unimpressed as well with the standard 9 volt bulbs. I've seen some that are better than others but almost all of them I've seen have that oval shape to them. I'd guess it's due to the filament shape required. The 6 volt bulbs don't seem have this problem in either the normal or high output bulb.

As to the scorpion I'd say mine on it's tightest beam is just slightly brighter than my 9P with it's normal bulb. It's also a more white light, however that's probably because it has ~ 1/4 of the bulb life of the surefire. Mine blows away any of the 6 volt surefire's I have with the p60 bulb in it. The P61 is pretty close but of course at 1/3 of the runtime.

Todd

eelnoraa,

I just got a C3 and had the same impression as you. It is not much brighter than my ole 6Z but the beam shape was a real disappointment. I was expecting a nice round beam but I got an egg shaped one. It seems this is a characteristic of the P90's based on other's posted experiences. I wish I could send it back but I need a host for my KL3 which I've been waiting for for over 5 weeks now. I just hope the waiting is worth it as I would have a $150 doorstop otherwise.

I would agree that the 9P beam is pretty bad looking. I am also one of those lucky ones that has a scorpion that focuses tighter than a P60 and puts out whiter light than my P60, P61, P90 etc. The 9P will put out more light than the scorpion, but it will not look like a lot more. The P91 on the other hand looks a lot better and is noticeably brighter than the P90 but your run time is only 20 minutes.

The KL3 is a nice option, 7 hours of regulated light from 3 123 cells but it does make for a big LED light to lug arouond.