Tactical light switch question? Roller ball or no?

I've been think about this and I have a light mounted to my tactical shotgun. It's a pain, either you have a cord with the switch or you have to have it on/off all the time.

With thinking about that I wanted to know if anybody has played with a mecury switch or roller ball switches?

My thought was that I could mod a 2A mag with led's and maybe a 123, then in the plug I could use wood with two holes drilled to fit two roller ball switches at different angles. When the gun is upside down or standing up the light would be off. Then of course when it's picked up /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/xyxgun.gif the light goes on by itself!

Anybody? Haven't seen anything like this but I can't be the first to think about it.

Adam

Personally I have never seen this, but it is an interesting idea. I wonder how many tactical/firearm applications require activate/deactivate of the light? Also, what would you be using the light on your tactical shotgun for? I ask because for tactical applications I think the minimum recommended output is around 60 lumens, but I could be wrong.

-Mike

Well, I'm of course speaking in loose terms. I have no intentions of using this for a Navy Seal Mission. mainly just wondering what the application would be for a light like this, and the above is all I came up with. The only people who would ever see the light (or fail to see the light depending how you're looking at it would be the ones who ended up in my house univited at 4 am and didn't use a key or call first.

Unpredicible (or uncontrollable) behaviour in a light that your life may depend on is not recommended. These loose mechanical parts may not stand up well to the pounding of a recoiling shotgun. Safety is also an issue if you have to actually change your grip on the shotgun or cant the gun up to turn off the light.

And what if you have to identify something above you?

Predictability is about the expected/established consistent performance of a piece of equipment. This is just as important as reliability in a tactical situation.

Sorry, I don't mean to pick apart your idea, it sounds neat, but when you are at the sharp end of things, neat can be a double-edged sword.

It's worth trying on a light, but not one that will be attached to a gun.

No, I think you're right. I've been think about it for a few days and was trying to come up with something that I can use as a backup switch. I'm mainly worried about it from a standpoint of time. I want something that's on faster then I can use it. If it has another on switch I can us if I have time that's good.

As for the switch standing up. The roller ball switches are for use in high impact toys, not the same thing but I'm sure they can take more shock then a stock mag bulb.

Either way, I'll explore it, don't shoot many people in my house, well, never a one thank God. Doubt I'd be taking any off my roof but I try to plan for the things I can't plan for. My thought was something that's only off when upside down would be best. Doubt I'd wanna deal with the recoil from a pistol grip pump with a 3" mag upside down anyway.

You might want to rethink the idea of parading around the house in search of bad guys with a great big 'shoot here first' pointer on mister 12 gauge. Gives the hype with the black hat and Glock too big an advantage..... Bad enough you get to deal with him in the dead of night, from a sound sleep, in your underwear, maybe without your glasses (and hopefully not too hung over). You don't need to give him any more of an edge.

Proper tactical use of lights (at least as currently taught) calls for lotsa dark with a flash when you really need it (and then if possible holding the light somewhere you'd rather have the bad guy shoot than your center of mass). Light control on the tactical shotgun should be momentary, controlled by the weak hand in conventional wisdom.

The general advice is 'you're the one who knows the home turf', the dark room is a home field advantage to you, use it.

And racking one in real loud to put the fear of God in him may also be a Hollywood solution as well, gives the guy with the Glock what, 19 chances to find you through the wall?

That said, the 'pick it up and it turns on by itself' idea is a fun one. A while back I made a two D cell red LED light that runs a few mA as a nightlight, but when you pick it up a microswitch raises the current a lot. Very useful in the bedroom it turns out. It's gone over a year on the original pair of D cells as well.

Doug Owen

Doug, you're very right. See, I was only thinking one step ahead of the game not two. I'm of course talking a lot of BS for the most part and the light idea came before the application did. However, I do have to say I like yours more.

Do you happen to have any more info on it? That would be a very good thing, what type of a switch did you use?

Adam

Adam,

Glad to hear we won't be reading about you in the morning papers......

Sure, happy to talk about it, it was really a joint effort with 'IRVtoo' (or IRV2?) who got the thread started with the idea of a battery powered LED nightlight for 'dry camping'. We each ended up making red lights powered by two cells. I'm not sure, I think he used AAs? I opted for long life with D cells. I bolted a medium size microswitch on the back end of a two D cell holder. There are two resistors in series with the 'spider' LED (maximum current 75 mA, very bright) that together set the current with fresh cells to a bit over 1 mA as I recall. When you pick it up, the normally closed contacts of the switch short out one resistor, the remaining one then passes much higher currents. At one time, it was the full 75 mA, but that was far too bright for casual indoor nighttime use, I cut it back to 25 or so.

Like I said, I use it several times a week (it sits on the headboard), and it's been on full time for 16 months or so on the original Alkaline D cells.

I'd be happy to take a couple of photos, if you know how to post them?

Doug Owen