Bought my first surefire - Now looking for an LED dropin for it

I was down in Melbourne on the weekend and checking out camping stores while the wife and kids were clothes shopping and I found a "6p" that was sitting amongst all the cheap "Made in China" torches that are usually on display. The 1st price sticker was $199.00, the 2nd $ 159.00 and the 3rd $109.00. I ended up offering them $100.00 and they said YES. I was stoked.:twothumbs:twothumbs:twothumbs My first surefire and hopefully not my last.
Now, which LED drop-in to put in it. I have read through the P60 drop-in sticky and am leaning towards a XP-G R4 or R5. I will also be getting the body bored to accept 18mm batt's. Are any of the Drop-ins optimised for 1 X 18650's or are they more set up for 2 X li-ion? Any advice would be much appreciated.
Pete.

Re: Bought my first surefire!

Hi 4D223.

I just got my SureFire 6P Defender. Tried to stick with the stock drop-in and it was ho-hum. Tried a few other drop-ins but ended up getting a Malkoff M61 from a local supplier and now it's WOW!

Best drop-in I've got by far. Pretty damn bright, lot's of throw and lots of spill.

Very nice!

Re: Bought my first surefire!

Hello Pete!

Nice choice in a quality light!

I have upgraded my 6P's with the Lighthound Cree R5 P60 drop in. Very bright with a long throw. You can find it here:


http://www.lighthound.com/Lighthoun...for-SureFire-and-other-Flashlights_p_965.html

Have fun!

Re: Bought my first surefire!

Hi Pete, and welcome to the Surefire addiction! :tinfoil:

6P was my first Surefire as well. I am quite sure it will not be your last. All my Surefires except from the first (black 6P) are armed with a Malkoff dropin.

Regards, Patric

The SF 6P is a very good choice - there is an excellent selection of LED dropins available for it, particularly ones that use the XP-G emitter.

I've renamed your thread title slightly to better reflect your topic - LED dropins are a popular subject here.

Good choice for first light.

4D223 said:

[...] leaning towards a XP-G R4 or R5. I will also be getting the body bored to accept 18mm batt's. Are any of the Drop-ins optimised for 1 X 18650's or are they more set up for 2 X li-ion?

Click to expand...

That's one of the great things about the XP-G - there are a number of excellent dropins using that emitter that run very well on a single large LiIon like the 18650.

My recommendations are Malkoff, Anto, and Nailbender. The high end of the market is currently dominated by the Moddoo XP-G triple, but there is also an upcoming Quad XP-G by VanIsleDSM.

4D223 said:

The 1st price sticker was $199.00, the 2nd $ 159.00 and the 3rd $109.00. I ended up offering them $100.00 and they said YES. I was stoked...

Click to expand...

I don't understand... The 6P and 6PL have MSRPs of $62 and $89. How do they get away with charging over double? Why were you stoked?

Almost everything in Australia is sold for rip off prices... it's just how it is.

Hence why I purchase from elsewhere the majority of the time...

One of the few things I have found are cheaper in Australia are Oris watches, from a specific dealer where I buy mine

+1 to a Malkoff single XP-G drop in of any flavour. There are a bunch of different flavours - some neutral to cool, some warm. The M61 and related are the high output versions. To give you an example of runtimes available to an M61, off a single good quality 18650 like the AW 2600 or 2900 mAh 18650's you expect more than 2 solid hours of output ~260 lumens. The light will warm only slightly, a testament to the heat sink built into the Malkoff drop in, in combination with the SureFire host.

I'm actually doing this right now on single new 2900 mAh. Just past 3 hours of runtime now and its only fairly recently that I can detect a difference in output. Sometime in the past 30 minutes it dropped some, I'd guess it has been putting out 170+ lumen over the last 30 minutes and is on its way to 100-120ish lumens now, based on periodic comparisons between hot spot and spill of known lights with fresh cells.

If what you need is slightly lower output and much longer runtime, then the M61L is for you, or a warm version of that.

(Maybe a series of gifs to follow once I'm done, in the M61W thread)

If what you need is the high output for longer, you can look at doing some SureFire lego to extend or replace your 6P's body and add a second 18650, or just carry the spare cell on your person (much cheaper).

There are a few products out there you can recommend to anyone and know it'll virtually always turn out well, and Malkoff is one. Definitely check them out and the other suggestions Kestrel gave you, they are all highly regarded here.

Wow pretty lucky to have bought it for $100AUD. I put a Malkoff M61W in my 6P and it's cruzing along just fine (I'm running it on CR123's); I got my malkoff locally in brisbane.

Bought my first 6p (from the local PX) yesterday and in the same position....subscribed.

Looking at Malkoff and the Thrunite 1.5AMP drop in myself.

Average price for a 6P in Australia is $150-180, it used to be even more than that, I remember when the Aussie dollar was at about 50 cents US you would often see lights like the 6P at $300-400 at the few places that had them.
If you can find places that will ship to you from the US, then it's always a bit cheaper than locally. Surefire dealer policy says they are not meant to ship overseas so a lot of dealers won't.
In any case by the time you factor in shipping and the rest of it $100 and being able to have it right away is pretty awesome.
In terms of dropins I (like many others here) love the Malkoff models and my favourite is currently the M61W, I think it has a great balance between throw and flood and is very bright, a real all rounder IMO.
If your anything like me, you will soon have far more surefires than you need. Back when I got my second surefire (a 6Z after getting my e2e) I thought well now I am done with surefires, I can look at other brands now. Well more than 10 years later I am still hooked and buying new models on a far too frequent basis.

That's a great price on the mighty 6P - congrats!!!


James....

Thread contributor BaileyMoto a few posts above is also looking for a drop-in, but one with a bit more throw than the M61 - BaileyMoto is heading to Iraq soon and has a bit of a time crunch to organize this.

Does anyone have both the M60 and M61 to comment / show a distance beam shot? Is the difference profound enough to consider the M60 (which can frequently be found used in CPF Marketplace) or does anyone have other suggestions?

tandem said:

Thread contributor BaileyMoto a few posts above is also looking for a drop-in, but one with a bit more throw than the M61 - BaileyMoto is heading to Iraq soon and has a bit of a time crunch to organize this.

Does anyone have both the M60 and M61 to comment / show a distance beam shot? Is the difference profound enough to consider the M60 (which can frequently be found used in CPF Marketplace) or does anyone have other suggestions?

Click to expand...

Actually, I've been in Iraq for about a year and a half now...but I'm leaving for Afghanistan soon.

Anywho, after some reviews on youtube comparing various lights, I feel that the M61 might not have enough throw. Aside from using it out here, I'd like to mount whatever I decide on onto my personal AR-15 back home. I ordered the E2DL (haven't received yet), and I am thinking that this light will most likely be my best bet for mounting on a weapon....at least when comparing beam shots via video.

For the 6p, I am waiting a reply from Nailbender, but I am also looking into other drop ins that will provide the most throw. Personally, I prefer throw over spill. For a home defense light, I find that 'throwy' flashlight still light up a room plenty, due to the reflection off the walls.

In the end, I'm going to bet that none of the drop in's are going to offer a better solution over the Surefire E2DL, at least for my needs.

tandem said:

Thread contributor BaileyMoto a few posts above is also looking for a drop-in, but one with a bit more throw than the M61 - BaileyMoto is heading to Iraq soon and has a bit of a time crunch to organize this.

Does anyone have both the M60 and M61 to comment / show a distance beam shot? Is the difference profound enough to consider the M60 (which can frequently be found used in CPF Marketplace) or does anyone have other suggestions?

Click to expand...

Hello,

I have several of both, and I have no opportunity for beamshots at this time (it's bright outside:fail, but I can comment first hand that the M60 has a brighter, tighter hotspot and somewhat more throw. Obviously the higher performance of the M61 offsets it a little, but for avoiding overly bright side spill while still maintaining nearly 180 degrees of more and less useful navigation light, the M60 is the ticket. The optic beam, at least in the MD2, provides nearly an entire hemisphere of light going from barely illuminated at the periphery to an intense, useful hotspot of light in the middle. In a 6P the bezel extends more from the lens than the MD2, so the 'moonlight' side spill effect is less pronounced, but still there.

For the tightest optic beam the Surefire TIRs as found in the E2DL and LX2 should be the best bet. I am not yet fortunate enough to have seen these in person but every report commends the throw and tightness of these units. For general purpose use a flip cover beam diffuser could be added, but for weapons use I think these might be the best. But again, I have no first hand experience with them.

If there is any interest I could toss together some beamshots of these



The SST-90 warm flooder and large XP-G thrower are merely fun wildcards I added. Some people are having luck with the Hound Dog as a weaponlight. It is certainly an excellent thrower so if the extra weight doesn't bother you..

BM - after re-reading your post earlier I gathered you were already over there but didn't know you were leaving one fire for another. Stay safe.

If you do opt for the M61 I think you'll be pretty pleased with the output and runtime and it certainly appears like it would take a real beating and keep on ticking. I like its hefty brass heatsink... between that and the mass provided by the C2 I have mine in, there is absolutely no problem running it continuously for hours at a time.

Jellydonut, nice collection! How is the cerakote holding up under use?

tandem said:

Jellydonut, nice collection! How is the cerakote holding up under use?

Click to expand...

Decent but no HA.



Then again the HA on my A2 scratches pretty easily, so I guess it varies quite a bit for each finish type. The orange one doesn't have any wear at all but it hasn't been carried nearly as much as the white one either.

Kestrel said:

That's one of the great things about the XP-G - there are a number of excellent dropins using that emitter that run very well on a single large LiIon like the 18650.

My recommendations are Malkoff, Anto, and Nailbender. The high end of the market is currently dominated by the Moddoo XP-G triple, but there is also an upcoming Quad XP-G by VanIsleDSM.

Click to expand...

The answer is...

D. All of the above

I think that pretty much sums up the best of the P60 drop-ins. If you venture outside of the XPG flavor, try to get a look at nailbender's SST-50/90 and MC-E offerings. My favorites right now are his warm 3000K sst-90 and his warm MC-E drop-ins.