Idea for Surefire

My other thread on building my perfect light from parts from other lights made me think. Surefire should consider offering a "build your own" light customization option on their website, similar to what Benchmade does with their custom knife builder.

Pick a few of their most popular lights, say an E1 size body, E2 size body and a 6p size body. Allow customers to choose the color they want, single mode or dual mode head, crenulated or smooth bezel, clickie or twist switch, etc. They could even offer laser engraving like Benchmade which they already do for group orders.

They could do this with the existing parts they already have, just allow the consumer some flexibility. I know I'd be glad to pay more for this service.

If only.

Nice idea though.

Would love this. I would happily pay exorbitant amounts to build a custom Surefire straight from the factory.

Benchmade, on the other hand... between 940-1 and 275, there's nothing I could possibly build to do either of their respective jobs better.

As was pointed out in a thread not too long ago, Surefire has paid for the machining for their discontinued lights long ago, so producing components for their discontinued lights would not involve unreasonable costs. Unfortunately, the vast majority of their sales comes from military contracts (and possibly some LE dept. purchases), and not from civilian demand. I have seen a few ads in gun magazines (always with the users of their products depicted as military/LE), and I have seen exactly one of their products in a "civilian" outdoors recreational magazine (an E2L-AA). Enthusiasts like us are a drop in the bucket, relatively speaking, regarding their user base.

Having said all that, I would love to see them offer "build-it-yourself" options, including a GITD G2/G3, bringing back the Z3 & 12Z (in both type II and HA finishes, and the A19 single-CR123a "adapter" (extension), especially if it would properly mate with the G2/3 series. Also appreciated would be a G3Z. Hard-anodized 6P lights and HA A19 extenders would be boffo.

I recently bought a VTAC L4 Mini and swapped out the 110lm head with a Malkoff E1/Scout 250lm head for use on my M4. A fairly expensive lego to get what I wanted. I would have gladly bought an E1D if it was available as a 200-300lm, single-mode light. In fact, I probably would have bought 2 since I think it would be an ideal (for me) pocket-able, tactical light.

Dream on.

Once upon a time SureFire built a factory. Said factory had x number of square feet. Each area has machines to perform certain tasks.

Fast forward 20 years. Although the factory and machinery is paid for some of the machinery sits idle now.

SureFire being an evolving company they've developed new products, which are made by different machines, or revised versions of the existing.

So in terms of reviving the idle machinery SureFire would be faced with replacing existing machinery that runs constantly, shelling out profitable items in their existing floor space with machinery that runs from time to time. Or they'd have to add floor space.

SureFire is a fairly large company now so they make decisions based on high overhead required to keep the big company going. There would have to be a large demand for custom made products for them to go in that direction.

I'd use the word 'big business' except it evokes images of overpaid fat cats sitting around thinking of ways to put poison in the water and kill puppies. So I'll use the term 'mid sized' company to make my point. Mid sized companies need to make decisions like big business while staying flexible like ma-n-pa operations do with an eye on staying profitable in an ever changing market place.

I'm disappointed by some of their recent line up removing items I prefer. But I understand how business works and until I'm their CEO or have a say in their line up (beyond an email here n there) I'll sit by and watch what they do...participating when they have products I want, not participating when not...while supporting the 'little guy' while they're still little.

twin63 said:

I recently bought a VTAC L4 Mini and swapped out the 110lm head with a Malkoff E1/Scout 250lm head for use on my M4. A fairly expensive lego to get what I wanted. I would have gladly bought an E1D if it was available as a 200-300lm, single-mode light. In fact, I probably would have bought 2 since I think it would be an ideal (for me) pocket-able, tactical light.

Click to expand...

I'm planning to buy an L4 mini and an M300C and swap the heads to have a single mode 300 lumen pocket light. I absolutely detest the dual mode lights and that's all Surefire offers in pocket size lights anymore.

Getting to the idea in this thread... I could see a 3rd party putting parts together, they would have to way over inflate the price to make it work though.

Deleted off topic post and references to it. Let's keep on track. Thanks all.

I agree it's not likely to happen but it would be nice! I'd love to be able to get a one-cell (preferably an E1b but I could live with an EB1) with the older style momentary tailcap with lockout. Engraving would be cool and it would be sweet if they offered even two different color temps. As I fall deeper "down the rabbit hole" I've been gravitating more towards Elzetta and Malkoff stuff to get the options I want but Surefire could win back at least some of business if they offered custom options.

That's good idea for enthuziasts, but not for the company, demand for this custom lego from parts will be very small.

altermann said:

That's good idea for enthuziasts, but not for the company, demand for this custom lego from parts will be very small.

Click to expand...

Sure, it's not for the average joe who buys a flashlight at Walmart once every five years. However, enthusiasts make up a small percentage of the public, but we buy a ton of flashlight. Guys I know who have high end lights like Surefires either have one or a dozen.

Benchmade started off just doing it with Griptilians and it's been so popular they've expanded to other models, started offering colored blades, etc.

As long as we're daydreaming: Surefire can offer Kickstarters. Enough people pay up front and they'll make a run of X, Y, or Z. Makes you wonder how many people would put up for their specified light.

How many buyers would they need before doing a run of single AA lights, and so on.