Surefire 6P drop-in won't fit... "Short pocket?"

Hey all. So I purchased a drop-in to replace my Incan bulb on my Surefire 6P. They came with great reviews and are highly recommended on these forums. However, when installed (I even trimmed the springs as per suggestions on these forums) the head won't screws all the way down. There is about a 1/16" gap or so. I contacted the manufacturer and the only thing I can get from them is that my surefire must have a "short pocket" and that I am the only one they have ever had that had an issue with this, etc etc. On the plus side, tey have offered to refund my money but all I want a drop-in that fits well and works well.

Is is there such a thing as a "short pocket" surefire 6P?

Is your light a 6P or a 6PX? If it is one of the 6PX lights then you will have problems.

As far as having a "short pocket", it is (from a manufacturing standpoint) Very Possible. I'm not sure if SF ever had a bad run of lights with this problem though.

Depending on the manufacturer, it is more likely that you have a drop-in that is too long on one of the reflector dimensions.

To help actually solve your problem, you can do three things. You can either swap for another drop-in to see if that works. You can Modify either the body or the drop-in to fit, or, you can contact and send your light to SF to both verify and or replace your light.

Hope I could help.

What drop-in do you have and what spring did u trim? A drop-in like the Malkoff M61's or EDC+ X60L's will leave a slight gap between the body and head on a stock and unbored 6P. This is normal.

I had similar problems with a Solarforce drop-in. I removed the larger of the two springs and it works perfectly now.

Nope, I've never heard of a short pocket 6P either. It would help if you identified the drop-in.

It is very likely that the drop-in and spring are intended to be used in hosts that don't meet the Surefire socket spec, like Solarforce. My one Nailbender drop-in with external/removable spring will not fully seat into Surefire hosts due to the Surefire socket being considerably narrower in the throat area. You should be able to get a proper fit by either removing more coils from the spring or by wrapping the drop-in with copper/aluminum tape.

The tape is a better solution, since it provides for an improved thermal path from drop-in to socket, in addition to more reliable electrical contact.

I was trying to *not* say the manufacturer, because I didn't want to naysay such a well-respected vendor here, but it is a nailbender drop-in. I get the impression through our correspondence that the builder has a "can't be me, must be you" feeling towards the whole thing. In my original email I even suggested maybe my drop-in was an outlier, as I've read nothing but positive reviews about his products on these forums, but he came back with "I'm pretty sure it's your flashlight that's the outlier, I build and sell over 500 of these a year." Of course, I couldn't help but point out that if I were to write Surefire and ask if my flashlight were potentially the problem, they could also easily point out that they build and sell... what? thousands? millions?... of 6P's a year. I think he became slightly defensive after that, and I really don't know what to do.

Like I said, I've come to like the drop-in's color rendering, tint, and functionality. I don't even want a refund, and truth be told I think it is beyond the scope of a manufacturer/retailer's scope to refund a product that was sold so long ago without being really tested, but I do appreciate that. My biggest thing is I just want this drop-in to fit as advertised. I like it, I want to use it. I still prefer incan's but the battery life would be nice when I go to the field!

Grizzman, I'm not sure how the tape would help when it won't seat all the way down. Could you shed some light on that?

This is very common with P60 dropins and is no problem besides the aesthetic look, things like waterproofnes isn't impacted.

Its so common that modders like Oveready mention the lack of the gap as a feature for their custom parts:
http://www.oveready.com/moddoolar/moddoolar-c-series-interface-p60/d26-/prod_253.html

Sure, I can provide some additional info. In order to make it fit with the copper or aluminum tape/strip, the outer spring needs to be removed completely.

If you remove the outer spring (leaving the small inner one in place), are you able to screw the head on completely?

At this point, I'm not convinced that there's anything "wrong" with either the drop-in or the host.

Without the large outer spring, the drop-in might not make a good ground contact. That's why you'll need the aluminum tape (or soda can strips). It also helps w/ transferring heat from the drop-in to the body. Just make it snug, but not too tight.

jhp762 said:

Hey all. So I purchased a drop-in to replace my Incan bulb on my Surefire 6P. They came with great reviews and are highly recommended on these forums. However, when installed (I even trimmed the springs as per suggestions on these forums) the head won't screws all the way down. There is about a 1/16" gap or so. I contacted the manufacturer and the only thing I can get from them is that my surefire must have a "short pocket" and that I am the only one they have ever had that had an issue with this, etc etc. On the plus side, tey have offered to refund my money but all I want a drop-in that fits well and works well.

Is is there such a thing as a "short pocket" surefire 6P?

Click to expand...

You could try a small oring to close up the gap if it bothers you, that's what I did on some of my lights.
As others have stated a few things come into play, using copper tape (supplied with nailbender drop ins?) or aluminium and shortening or removing the large outer spring.
I've got a couple of nailbender drop ins and solarforce hosts and they fit perfectly in them with no spring trimming or removal and just a small wrap of the supplied copper tape. I don't use them much anymore though because I find the PWM on low very distracting and I'm usually ok with lights that use PWM. Should have bought them in single mode but anyway.
I do have a couple of very nice Oveready 6P's with matching triple drop ins which are amazing, no spring, no tape, pretty much a perfect fit bar the small gap that I used an undersized small oring to fill the slight gap.
Hope that helps.

jhp762 said:

Hey all. So I purchased a drop-in to replace my Incan bulb on my Surefire 6P. They came with great reviews and are highly recommended on these forums. However, when installed (I even trimmed the springs as per suggestions on these forums) the head won't screws all the way down. There is about a 1/16" gap or so. I contacted the manufacturer and the only thing I can get from them is that my surefire must have a "short pocket" and that I am the only one they have ever had that had an issue with this, etc etc. On the plus side, tey have offered to refund my money but all I want a drop-in that fits well and works well.

Is is there such a thing as a "short pocket" surefire 6P?

Click to expand...

Are you able to post some photo's showing the issue and how the drop-in fits in the host.

A p60 is pretty simple, just a regular 17mm driver board as a rule, with a short small spring on the + terminal to make contact with the top of the battery. And a longer bigger spring on the outside to provide tension against the lens to stop it rattling and to make better contact with the body of the torch (the body being the - contact).

Try removing the spring and see if it physically fits. It might even work like this. If it still doesn't fit then it looks more like a total length issue from the bottom of the pill to the top of the reflector.

If you fancy a different p60 check these out.

http://intl-outdoor.com/p60-dropin-module-cuxm2-xml2-p-740.html
http://intl-outdoor.com/p60-dropin-module-cuxp2-xpg2-219bt-p-798.html

Superb quality and lots of options.

Hey all! Yes, the drop-in is a nailbender. I will attach pics.

Nice photos, but could you please answer our questions regarding fitment with the outside spring removed?

A photo showing how much of the outer spring was removed would be beneficial also.

The gap is perfectly normal, here's SF Z2 with a Malkoff M361N.

I have the same/similar gap on my Surefires. Functions fine.

To date every single drop-in I have purchased for my dozen or so 6P/9P/G2/G3 have left me a 1/16" gap as shown. No problems to report. water resistance is uncompromised

Illum said:

To date every single drop-in I have purchased for my dozen or so 6P/9P/G2/G3 have left me a 1/16" gap as shown. No problems to report. water resistance is uncompromised

Click to expand...

Your Nailbender drop-ins, without outer spring, don't allow the heads to fully seat? My Malkoff and TorchLAB drop-ins leave a small gap, as expected.

The gap definitely does not affect water resistance or any other factor besides appearance.

Grizzman said:

Nice photos, but could you please answer our questions regarding fitment with the outside spring removed?

A photo showing how much of the outer spring was removed would be beneficial also.

Click to expand...

The outer spring is completely removed in both photos.

Illum said:

To date every single drop-in I have purchased for my dozen or so 6P/9P/G2/G3 have left me a 1/16" gap as shown. No problems to report. water resistance is uncompromised

Click to expand...

It seems like that's normal then? I never had heard any mention of a gap so it kind of threw me for a loop.

Grizzman said:

Your Nailbender drop-ins, without outer spring, don't allow the heads to fully seat? My Malkoff and TorchLAB drop-ins leave a small gap, as expected.

The gap definitely does not affect water resistance or any other factor besides appearance.

Click to expand...

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by fully seat, I was concerned with the gap between the head and the body. But I guess everybody is saying that is normal, so no problems?

Seems strange this would be a problem, if they are supposed to be P60 style dropins then shouldn't fitting (without the gap) in a Surefire 6P be the 'Gold Standard'.

Are Nailbender's single mode dropins shorter than the multimode ones? I do have a multimode one sitting here and it does look longer than some of my others, guessing it might give me a gap in my Surefire body also...

I consider that to be a little odd. My sample size of two isn't exactly statistically significant, but they both allow the heads to be fully screwed onto the body of my 6Ps, 9Ps, and one C2. I'm confident I could test with my other hosts and achieve the same results.

Either way, it really doesn't "matter" except for the appearance. Feel free to take a file to the drop-in to allow it to go into the socket far enough to allow the head to fully screw on.