RCR123a help

I have the following LED flashlights from Surefire:

C2L 80 lumen LED
LX2
E2L
Z2X

I bought some Tenergy RCR123 batteries and a charger, specifically because the batteries say that they are 3V. Unfortunately, I did not read everything and missed the warning:

CR123A Features:

• Rechargeable CR123A Li-Ion Batteries with 3.0V working voltage and 900mAh capacity.
• Tenergy RCR123A can be recharged up to 1000 times. 1 RCR123A Li-ion = 1000 CR123A Primary Cells
• Replaces CR123A primary Lithium batteries for most digital cameras and many LED flashlights.
• Dimension: 16.5 D x 34 H mm.
• Cell weight: 17 g or 0.6 Oz.

Compatability/Suitability:

• We do not recommend this setup for any SureFire flashlights, or other brands of incandescent (halogen, kyrton, xenon, etc) flashlights which have a bulb rated 7.2V and under.
• We typically do NOT recommend these for any bulb flashlights - use them at your own risk in these types of devices.
• Despite the voltage regulation at it takes the voltage regulation ~12 milliseconds to activate. The batteries will charge to 4.2 Volts before being regulated. Inserting the batteries into your device immediately after removing them from the charger could possibly damage your device! They work GREAT for most LED flashlights!

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Has anyone successfully used these with Surefire lights? What could be damaged if you do?

I haven't used this yet, mostly intended to use it if something happened and there was a battery shortage.

Edited to add:

I have searched and read a lot about using rechargables, I just can't figure out how they'd affect my specific light.

I believe that I could get a dropin LED for the C2L made to handle the higher voltage?

Been using Tenergy LiFePO4 batteries for some years in my LED Surefires without problems. If you do a search here on CPF you'll find many threads for the various compatibilities and experiences.:wave:

Maxbelg said:

Been using Tenergy LiFePO4 batteries for some years in my LED Surefires without problems. If you do a search here on CPF you'll find many threads for the various compatibilities and experiences.:wave:

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I searched and it "felt like" (totally subjective, possibly nonsense) the responses were half and half "this will work fine" and "this will melt your $130 light".

The Tenergy 3V you have and the Tenergy Lifepo4 are different chemistries. You have a regular LiCo 4.2V battery which has a regulator on it that bucks it down to 3V, but as the literature says, that takes a moment to kick in. The main reason most people don't use those batteries is because performance seems to uniformly suck. Whether they will work in your SF LED lights (do not use them in your incandescents) is a crap shoot.

By contrast, SF has specifically rated *some* of their LED lights for lifepo4, so those will be safe in the ones SF has approved. That's why Maxbelg has had no problem, but his experience will have no bearing on yours

Joe Talmadge said:

The Tenergy 3V you have and the Tenergy Lifepo4 are different chemistries. You have a regular LiCo 4.2V battery which has a regulator on it that bucks it down to 3V, but as the literature says, that takes a moment to kick in. The main reason most people don't use those batteries is because performance seems to uniformly suck. Whether they will work in your SF LED lights (do not use them in your incandescents) is a crap shoot.

By contrast, SF has specifically rated *some* of their LED lights for lifepo4, so those will be safe in the ones SF has approved. That's why Maxbelg has had no problem, but his experience will have no bearing on yours

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Thanks so much for explaining this.