Mil-Tech Tac-Plus mini review

MaxKnight

Newly Enlightened
Joined
May 18, 2004
Messages
31
Hi All,

I've had a Mil-Tech Tac-Plus for a few weeks now and was interested in seeing other peoples thoughts on it? Doesn't seem to have been discussed on the forum before, maybe it's an OEM through a different manufacturer?

Here's my mini review anyway.

Basic info (as cut & pasted from a shopping site)

MIL-TECH TAC-PLUS
19 LED bulbs
24 hours battery life
2 Lithium batteries included
Stainless steel lanyard attachment
100,000 hours bulb life
Safety lockout switch
Aerospace grade aluminium body
Case included

It is a fair amount brighter than the Innova X5 (well it does have almost 4 times the amount of LEDs). But the main difference I noticed was that the Tac-Plus is a lot more pure in whiteness.

It has hardly any focus, but it puts out so much light that it throws as far or further than the focused X5, it can light up a room/area a lot easier. The LEDs each aim straight ahead and cause inconsistent close-range and edge coverage, but this is hardly a problem with the amount of light it emits.

Build quality is excellent. Dimensions including lamp section is almost identical to SureFure 6P. The model I have is also grooved lengthways and knurled on the body/tailcap for excellent grip, a few pics on the net I've seen don't appear to be knurled. The lamp assembly is grooved but not knurled. It's one of those lights you can turn on by twisting it one-handed quite easily. The body has 2 glow-in-the-dark O-rings externally near the lamp assembly, which is potentially good if the lights have only just gone out and you know the tac-plus is nearby.

I had a brief hands-on play of the Mil-Tech 'Beam-Fire Quattro' and by comparison this has a superior build quality, weight and overall feel to it.

Tail-cap is standard safety lockout, momentary button on/off, and constant on.

Swapping batteries is foolproof and fast in the dark.

The one fault I found is that the lockout mode requires the tailcap to be twisted so far that the groove/o-ring is just visible and the groove is large enough that bits of dirt can get in there, and cause grinding wear and tear when operating the tailcap. If I store it in lockout mode I have to check that there's no dirt in the groove before turning it on again. There's plenty of space where it tightens closer to the body so this seems like an unexpected manufacturing fault.

I haven't had either the X5 or Tac-Plus long enough to compare battery life. Will post more info as I get it (will expect the X5 to last a lot longer obviously?). 24 hours seems extremely optimistic.

It looks like it's readily available here in Australia but not much elsewhere, maybe Japanese in origin like some other info I've seen about the other Mil-Tech lights.

If anyone's interested I'll post some comparison pics or battery tests. (My digital cam is broken at the moment).



Forgot to mention that it comes with a gift box containing the light, batteries and lanyard. But the plastic is of poor quality/mold so it's not very impressive as a gift box.
 

MaxKnight

Newly Enlightened
Joined
May 18, 2004
Messages
31
I can't find any manufacturer website, but there's a couple of dozen retailers... do a Google search for Mil-Tech Tac-Plus
 
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