Surefire or equivalent for long battery life

jordylee24

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Hey, guys, I've been a lurker here for awhile. I enjoy reading the custom builds.

I have a sure fire fury and a chinese special led light that I picked up at lowes. They've both been great lights. I would like to get another in the 300 lumen range that has more than a couple hours battery life. Something with a white beam and possibly rechargeable. The fury has a bit of a greenish beam.

I'd like to get a quality niche brand. A surefire would be fine too. But I like finding quality products off the beaten path. Any recommendations?? Thank you.
 

Tribull

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Jordy, a great maker of lights Malkoff Devices will give you the quality your looking for without the commercialized name. This light
https://malkoff-devices.myshopify.c...lashlights/products/turnkey-ha-flashlight-md2
Will give you the lumens you want and very close to the run time your looking for. I have a few of there lights and can attest that they are built like tanks, but beware you can't have just one🙂
 
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jordylee24

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Haha, I believe you. Thanks for the quick reply. I'll have a look. I've thought about just boring my fury out for a 18650.
 

jordylee24

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Or just buying a light with a couple 18650 battery. I notice that one you posted has 2 cr123's which is what my fury has.
 

Johnnyh

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Hey, guys, I've been a lurker here for awhile. I enjoy reading the custom builds.

I have a sure fire fury and a chinese special led light that I picked up at lowes. They've both been great lights. I would like to get another in the 300 lumen range that has more than a couple hours battery life. Something with a white beam and possibly rechargeable. The fury has a bit of a greenish beam.

I'd like to get a quality niche brand. A surefire would be fine too. But I like finding quality products off the beaten path. Any recommendations?? Thank you.

Hi Jordy, I own only one Malkoff, an MDC 16650, it's a great light. Not suggesting this is what your looking for but I can attest that Malkoff Devices, as a company, is top tier in service and reliability. You can be confident that if anything goes wrong or you just have a question, they will take care of you. Another solid niche is Elzetta. The basic "Bones" model puts out 500 lumens with runtime well over 2.5 hours using one 18650 3400mah. (Mind you not 500 lumens for 2.5 hours but a steady decline over that time down to about 50% output.) Each of these brands are a bit on the expensive side but are very rugged lights with very solid lifetime warranty.
 
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TMedina

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A couple of points: sticking within the x2 CR123 range, a good benchmark is the Malkoff M61 drop-in. Cool (white) tint, 325 lumens, for an hour and a half regulated output, before a long, slow drop in output.

You can increase the lumen output, but if you don't increase the number or size of the batteries, your run time will drop.

The M61T MD2, also by Malkoff, uses the same 1.5 hour runtime, but is slightly higher in terms of output (350 lumens), and is a "thrower", which means it will seem a lot brighter than the numbers suggest.

As I recall, the MD2 can also take an 18650 cell, which would be your rechargeable option.

So, questions: do you want to stay with the same basic size as the Fury? Do you mind going larger?
 

jordylee24

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I guess not. I do like it's foot print. I'm not sure how I feel about rechargeable batteries but it's cheaper.
 

jordylee24

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Also, you guys are amazingly noobie friendly. More so than other forums for sure.
 

jordylee24

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Obviously, more battery capacity means more run time per charge if current draw remain same.
You can go with bored out
18650 body with capacity of about 3500mAh, 26650 host with about 5200mAh or 2P 18650 with capacity of 7000mAh.
Cool, thanks. I went over your listing. I assume that the surefire fury is a C body? And that my tail and lense will fit on what your selling?
 

FPSRelic

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The fury is 100. I was wanting an upgrade from that.

Based on your requirements of:
- Something in the 300 lumens range
- has more than 2 hours runtime
- has a more white light

The G2x is an upgrade. It does 325 lumens output with a "Tactical runtime" of 2.5 hours (versus the 600 lumens for 1.5 hours of your Fury). It also uses a Nichia emitter that has a neutral white tint.
versus the green white tint of the fury. The one thing it isn't is rechargeable.
 

jordylee24

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I'll look into it for sure!! I've been looking at HDS lately. I like what they have.

I put together a custom flashlight in the executive style with the 93 cri 200 lumen flood. $270. I can deal with that.

Only thing I can't decide is on the beam. Flood or the more of a spot with the nice peripheral spread. I like the idea of the flood with the high cri led for mechanic work or searching for things at short range in the shop. And I have the fury for more of a spot. But then I feel that the 18650 light would be too long for a flood flashlight. But I want the long battery life. I thought about getting my barrel bored on the fury for a 18650 so that both lights would be the same. Unless I stick with cr123 batteries. With the advanced electronics on the hds it'd prolly last awhile. But eehhhh.
 

Grijon

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A Malkoff MD4 body and tailcap goes for $64. In this application it is a 2x18650 body with a forward clicky.
The MDX head is another $32.
An M61N dropin is $45. 300 lumens of 80CRI light with a tint of 4000K. (9v max)
Add a High/Low ring for $28 and the light is now two modes, vastly extending battery life when you don't need full power.

$141 without the ring, $169 with. Full power with 2x18650 I think you would get at least 4 hours and maybe much, much more.
You would also have the option of changing light engines anytime you like, and the body can use 4xCR123A paired with a 12v dropin.
 

INFRNL

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There have been some good recommendations here for you already.

I have a sm collection of malkoffs, bored bravo, and a couple of HDS lights. I'm currently finishing a runtime test on a bravo and Malkoff MD2 using their 3 level drop-ins one being the M361 Neutral and the other is a M316 Nichia 219B. I've also been doing some runtime tests this week on other lights. I'll see what i can come up with that fit's what you are looking for. I can tell you that the Malkoff MD2 with standard M61 Neutral drop-in Hi/lo can run for up to 3 hrs at/near full output before it starts to slowly drop in output. Total runtime before i stopped the test was over 6 hrs but output wouldn't be enough for your work in the shop at this point but enough to navigate around in the dark. This was using a protected 18650 panasonic GA 3500mah cell.

As far as HDS, runtime using a 123 primary is approx 1hr on max If I remember correctly, the 18650 version provides a lot more runtime. I believ the HDs 18650 in rotary version is 5" in length (but very useable) Rotary 123 is 3.75". It would be a tough call. on which to choose(kind of how I ended up with both)
I have the hicri nichia on the 18650 and 325lm cw on the 123. The cw is closer to the neutral side and is not as cool as other cw lights. This is good for me as I like neutral tints. I think you would like the cw HDS if you went this route.

The Malkoff cool white is not for me, it appears close to white but since I use mostly neutral tints; the cw malkoff's have a very slight blue tint to them which i cannot tolerate.

will get back to you on runtimes here in a bit
 

INFRNL

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Ok, where to start.
I was just looking at the runtimes on the HDS site: for your use a rotary may be ideal(very easy to adjust 24 levels to your desire)Otherwise a clicky would be fine as well and i hear the rotary can be configured to be a clicky if desired.
123 primary gives 1.5hrs on max(lvl 24)/2,25 hrs on lvl23, and lvl 22 gives 3.25hrs. There is not a big difference between lv 23 and 24and most likely you will not always be using max, so you can get the runtimes you're looking for on primaries. 18650 provides very good runtimes.
approx runtime chart can be found here: http://www.hdssystems.com/Content/LightFaq/#LevelRuntimes

If you are intersted in HDS, they can be found in the FS section quite frequently lately but go very quick. If you want the flood version there is one in the FS section for a good price (you could at least contact the seller to ask your quesions of concern on flood)

Elzetta gives you a few options you'd probably want the bravo(I do not know much about the alpha but have heard mixed opinions)
With the bravo they use 16mm cells, but you can get the bored bravo from Oveready that allows for 18mm cells. The bored bravo will not accept all protected cells. I know they will not accept keeppower, panasonic or lg protected cells. I have a bored bravo and bored it out myself even more to accept any 18mm cell.
With the bravo you can use an M60/61 drop-in that is in the 300lm range or you can get their AVS head which will give you up to 600lm depending on if you use 2x123, 2x18350(unprotected) or an 18650/16650. The bravo is slightly shorter than a Malkoff MD2 or MDC 16650: I'll just post a pic of these lights so you can get a size reference.

Malkoff MD with M61(N) is a good option in the 300lm range for good runtime. I am not sure what M61HOT MD2 or M61T MD2 would provide for runtime but are both really good cool white lights
as mentioned the MDC 16650 is a great light especially if smaller size if wanted. It has l-m-h settings/ 20-100-500lm on Neutral version(CW would probably be a bit higher) This light probably has one of my favorite tints of all my malkoff devices and in the top for favorite tint overall of all my lights

If you want to lean towards great quality chinese manufactured lights, then Fenix or Eagtac would be my suggestion. I like the quality of Fenix better but Eagtac has beter options for emitters.
Then you also have Zebralight which make great lights in compact sizes. I have a sc600 MK3 HI and did a recent runtime test on sony vtc6, panny GA, and LG MJ11. on max setting (1126lm) I got 2.25hrs on the ga cell and 2.5hrs on the MJ11 cell. If you were to use the lower settings of 5xxlm or the 3xxlm settings, I'm sure you would get quite a bit more runtime. This is a 18650 light but it is about the same height as the HDS rotary 123 or the Malkoff MDC w/vme head on 123 body(you'll see in pic)
They also have single 123 lights but not sure of runtime

Now for a few runtime test results(didn't have as much as I thought for the smaller lights)
MDC 16650 500lm Keeppower 16650 2500mah: 1.5 hrs of full output, then gradual decline in output. Total runtime of 2.75hrs (can't recall ending output or if it cut off)
MDC 16650 head 500lm on 123 body: Keeppower 16340/AW IMR123: 30-35min of full/55-1hr till cut off. Not ideal for your use

Malkoff MD2 w/M61N 300lm: Protected GA 3500mah cell: Currently retesting: Initial results: 3-3.5 hrs full output then gradual decline. @4.75hrs approx 100lm output, @5.75hrs approx 50lm, @6.5hrs and end of test(had to go to bed) 20lm
MD2 w/M361N 375lm: Protected GA 3500mah cell: 2.25hrs till gradual decline, 3hrs 49min light cut off and was only producing approx 20lm
Bravo w/M361 219B: Protected GA 3500mah cell: 2.25hrs full output and starting gradual drop off, 2hrs 55mins light cut off approx 20lm

Will post a couple pics after dinner. Hope this info may help and these are the only lights I really have experience with
 
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