Surefire E1B surprise

It's been quite a while since I bought a new flashlight. So I was excited to receive my new Surefire E1B in the mail today. When I pulled the lid up on the black cardboard box, I was very surprised to see the light was on! I guess the way it was wedged in the plastic holder was pressing the button. The light seemed to stay the same dim brightness in either mode. So I tested the battery, and the battery it shipped with was at 1.76v.

Now that I installed a new battery it's working fine, but I've never had that happen before.

Darned hard for the thing to turn itself on. Unless you had VERY quick delivery, meaning that the turning on could have happened at the source, my guess would be that the package was "opened for postal inspection." Substitute what carrier you used in place of 'postal' and, especially if it went by air, I'll bet that's it. The fact that you could only get the reduced output is of course a sign the battery was only partially drained- adds to the oddness of the event.

I didn't see any signs of tampering. The light wasn't clicked in the on position, but the package was squeezing it enough to activate the momentary on. So, my guess is that it was momentarily being activated during transit rather than being constantly on. Anyway, it was a surprise for sure.

Same thing happened to the delivery of my Fenix P3D some years ago. I was like "what the....", and the batteries weren't even half drained. :duh2: