Osprey_Guy
Enlightened
I received the order I had placed with Lighthound over the weekend (BTW-Good luck to John, who lives directly in the path of Hurricane Rita).
As much as I still love my 10 month-old Q3, I've been wanting to find something at least as good, but with higher overall quality (fit and finish, etc). After a lot of reading I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the Surefire KL1 head, along with the Vital Gear FB1 body.
I had read enough about the KL1 to know that it has little in the way of spill...(well, that certainly turned out to be the case). To help deal with that I also odered a F04 beamshaper from John so that I could diffuse the otherwise tight beam, enough to give me more flood when needed.
Initially, I was quite disappointed! I didn't at all care for the beam from the KL1 (2nd gen),..Although the center is bright and plenty white, I couldn't stop feeling annoyed by its yellow corona. I guess maybe I'm just too spoiled by the very white and very smooth beam of my Q3 (I definitely won the lottery on that one!). I thought that if the KL1 had a lot more throw than the Q3, then maybe that could have made up for its lack of spill. While it certainly does have throw, I am by no means blown away.
I tried using the beamshaper and was even more disappointed. It does go a long way in allowing the KL1 to have plenty of flood, but it's at the cost of lumens...big time.
I wanted so bad to really like this light combo. The Vital Gear body is shorter than the E1E body, which makes the combo of the KL1 with the FB1, almost exactly the same length as the Q3. And the fit and finish is definitely an improvement over the Q3.
But then I did have a very pleasant (and lucky) surprise later in the day. I stopped off at a local Chesapeake Knife & Tool store (part of a chain of 19 stores) to show the new light combo to the manager who's a friend of mine. They carry a sizeable collection of Surefire lights and accessories. While I was there I took a look at the F04 beamshaper they had in the case. The lens appeared to be a little different than the lens on the F04 beamshaper I had purchased, so out of curiosity I tried it out. It's identified as the same model as the one I bought, but the lens was MUCH less dense than mine. When I tried the new one on my KL1/FB1 the beam was suddenly quite similar to the beam of my Q3!!!
I'd heard that there were two different versions of the beamshaper out there...well now I own both and I can tell you, there's a huge difference! The 1st one I got definitely makes for a lot of flood...but I felt that I lost way too much lumens in the process to suit my taste. The 2nd one offers considerably less spill, but happily, enables enough spill to turn the tight, bright beam of the KL1 into more useable light for close-up situations.
Overall, with the beamshaper on the KL1/FB1, it's still not quite as much flood as my Q3 but it's close...and it does have ever so slightly more throw. But when I remove the beamshaper, it then has way more throw than the Q3.
Although it's now definitely a decent competitor to take the place of my Q3 as my EDC...the KL1/FB1 is still not the runaway winner I had hoped for... And so the search continues...
A couple of possibilities:
While I was at Chesapeake Knife & Tool, I removed a KL4 from one of their L4's and tried it on the Vital Gear body. I knew that normally it would be underdriven by the single 123, but I was using a rechargeable 123...and it worked great! It had way more spill than the KL1...and that was without the beamshaper. So that's a definite contender.
I'd sure love to find something with more throw but still have a fair amount of spill, so I'm also looking at some of the 2-cell options.... But that opens a whole, new can of worms...and defeats my plan of keeping the EDC as small as possible (FYI- I'm perfectly comfortable wearing the Q3 in a holster on my belt and prefer to continue wearing a holster for any future light. With my arm at my side it's barely noticeable, and of course when I wear a suit, you can't see it at all).
Speaking of EDC's,...I'm now taking a hard look at the HDS EDC Basic 60 (I have no need or desire for all the other features that come with the EDC Ultimate's models). Can anybody tell me if the HDS has any spill at all?
I'm also waiting with high hopes for the delivery of the Fenix L1P (2.5). If it's all that it's rumored to be, it might just become my new EDC and I can stop my searching for a perfect light (yeah, like that's gonna happen).
As much as I still love my 10 month-old Q3, I've been wanting to find something at least as good, but with higher overall quality (fit and finish, etc). After a lot of reading I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the Surefire KL1 head, along with the Vital Gear FB1 body.
I had read enough about the KL1 to know that it has little in the way of spill...(well, that certainly turned out to be the case). To help deal with that I also odered a F04 beamshaper from John so that I could diffuse the otherwise tight beam, enough to give me more flood when needed.
Initially, I was quite disappointed! I didn't at all care for the beam from the KL1 (2nd gen),..Although the center is bright and plenty white, I couldn't stop feeling annoyed by its yellow corona. I guess maybe I'm just too spoiled by the very white and very smooth beam of my Q3 (I definitely won the lottery on that one!). I thought that if the KL1 had a lot more throw than the Q3, then maybe that could have made up for its lack of spill. While it certainly does have throw, I am by no means blown away.
I tried using the beamshaper and was even more disappointed. It does go a long way in allowing the KL1 to have plenty of flood, but it's at the cost of lumens...big time.
I wanted so bad to really like this light combo. The Vital Gear body is shorter than the E1E body, which makes the combo of the KL1 with the FB1, almost exactly the same length as the Q3. And the fit and finish is definitely an improvement over the Q3.
But then I did have a very pleasant (and lucky) surprise later in the day. I stopped off at a local Chesapeake Knife & Tool store (part of a chain of 19 stores) to show the new light combo to the manager who's a friend of mine. They carry a sizeable collection of Surefire lights and accessories. While I was there I took a look at the F04 beamshaper they had in the case. The lens appeared to be a little different than the lens on the F04 beamshaper I had purchased, so out of curiosity I tried it out. It's identified as the same model as the one I bought, but the lens was MUCH less dense than mine. When I tried the new one on my KL1/FB1 the beam was suddenly quite similar to the beam of my Q3!!!
I'd heard that there were two different versions of the beamshaper out there...well now I own both and I can tell you, there's a huge difference! The 1st one I got definitely makes for a lot of flood...but I felt that I lost way too much lumens in the process to suit my taste. The 2nd one offers considerably less spill, but happily, enables enough spill to turn the tight, bright beam of the KL1 into more useable light for close-up situations.
Overall, with the beamshaper on the KL1/FB1, it's still not quite as much flood as my Q3 but it's close...and it does have ever so slightly more throw. But when I remove the beamshaper, it then has way more throw than the Q3.
Although it's now definitely a decent competitor to take the place of my Q3 as my EDC...the KL1/FB1 is still not the runaway winner I had hoped for... And so the search continues...
A couple of possibilities:
While I was at Chesapeake Knife & Tool, I removed a KL4 from one of their L4's and tried it on the Vital Gear body. I knew that normally it would be underdriven by the single 123, but I was using a rechargeable 123...and it worked great! It had way more spill than the KL1...and that was without the beamshaper. So that's a definite contender.
I'd sure love to find something with more throw but still have a fair amount of spill, so I'm also looking at some of the 2-cell options.... But that opens a whole, new can of worms...and defeats my plan of keeping the EDC as small as possible (FYI- I'm perfectly comfortable wearing the Q3 in a holster on my belt and prefer to continue wearing a holster for any future light. With my arm at my side it's barely noticeable, and of course when I wear a suit, you can't see it at all).
Speaking of EDC's,...I'm now taking a hard look at the HDS EDC Basic 60 (I have no need or desire for all the other features that come with the EDC Ultimate's models). Can anybody tell me if the HDS has any spill at all?
I'm also waiting with high hopes for the delivery of the Fenix L1P (2.5). If it's all that it's rumored to be, it might just become my new EDC and I can stop my searching for a perfect light (yeah, like that's gonna happen).
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