I'm on an extremely limited budget and I'm trying to find a serviceable light for my rifle.

I need the light and all mounting hardware to mount it on my standard M4 style handguard for under $50.  So light+mount+rail section.

I'm only concerned with finding a basic light that can stand up to 5.56 recoil and that I can rely on for home defense until I can afford something better.  I just want it to be bright enough to safely identify a target in my 1200 sqft home and to know it will work if I need it.

Thanks for any help or direction you guys can give me.

I picked up this guy for under $20 shipped from "that river site" not supper bright at 90lumens but I find it works for what I want it to.

Its called: Monstrum Tactical 90 Lumens LED
It has seen over 1,000 rounds thus far and still works like a charm.

Does your rifle have a front sight base?  If so, I'd skip getting a rail and separate mount and pick up that Elzetta FSB light mount, it'll end up a little cheaper and help you spend more on the light.

As for the light, about the cheapest I'd personally go is a SF G2X Tactical.  You can find them between $50-$60, so it'll be a little outside your budget, but for HD, I'm not sure I'd worry about going $20-$30 over budget if it gets you something that is essentially guaranteed to work when you need it.

light

mount

Nope, not joking. I used this combo for a while, and it holds up fine. Very bright, runs off one AA, adjustable focus, great battery life, etc. You aren't going to take it SCUBA diving on any Navy SQUEEL raids, but it will do what you want for like,  6-7 bucks. Mine has held up just fine to several hundred rounds of recoil on an AR pistol, FWIW.

Actually, I recently upgraded. Shoot me your address and I'll ship it to you free.

I bought this setup a few years back for my 9mm carbine.   I think it's 300 lumens, plenty bright.  Newer units go from $70 and up depending on source.   Several hundred rnds, no problems.
Light

I'll second this.  $45-50 for the G2X and $20-25 for the Elzetta mount.  I love mine.  Spend the extra dough and buy once, cry once.

Surefire g2x tactical should be 40 to 50, then buy a 1" cheap ass scope ring to mount it. I run a G2X Tactical on on of my rifles and it works great. That truly is the cheapest route to go and still get reliability. Stay away from cheap Chinese stuff! If you save 20 to 30 more you can get a used streamlight protac rail mount. I've heard pretty good things about them

Also you can bolt a little rail section to your standard handgaurds for the scope ring to mount to. Or they make fsb mounts as well. My suggestions are going to run you slightly more than 50, but they will get you into a dependable light for as cheap as possible.

I'm having good success with the Bayco NightStick Tac-300b-k01

Solarforce l2 and a cheap mount.

Midwest industries FSB mount ($29)
+
1" ring ($5)
+
LED flashlight ($15)
=
tough & cheap mount that you can remove any time you like for under $50

Plus, it positions the light so you can operate the rear touch switch with your thumb on support hand for momentary on & off.

Damn..  Double Tap...

Definitely agree with trying a SF G2X.

I have put a bunch of rounds through my rifle with one of those lights mounted.  It's not advertised as a weapon light, but it does have a double spring and seems resilient enough.

My wife got me a Streamlight ProTac 1AA for Christmas.  At one time it was on sale for like 29 bucks but I think she paid around 35.  I bought a roll of Gorilla tape for 2 dollars and taped it to my handguard.

It's 70 lumens and it's plenty bright for me.

Thank you all for your replies.

Like a total A-hole I ignored all of your advice because I discovered the Streamlight Protac 1L and Polytac.  I saw that Streamlight claims they are impervious to shock which I interpreted as being impervious to recoil.  They seemed to be of good quality from all of the reviews I found and so by impulse I decided to go with the Protac 1L.  I paired that up with a Magpul poly rail section and a well reviewed but cheap aluminum mount off of Amazon.  This all came out to less than $45.

Then last night I realized that I'm an idiot and that the Protac 1L is not a 1 inch bodied flashlight and will not fit the mount that I bought.  I also realized that if I truly wanted a SHTF set up I should have went with the version that accepts AA batteries as well.

By all accounts this should still be an excellent little flashlight but I already have buyer's remorse before I've even gotten it.  I think at this point I can wrap some electrical tape around the body of the flashlight and still get it to fit the mount.  At some point down the line I'll probably switch this to an EDC flashlight and put something else on my gun, if I try to change anything right now I think my wife will divorce me.  The $5-600 price I told her I would need to spend to get my AR is now rapidly approaching $1000 and there is still plenty of things I need.

Do you have mags and ammo?  Those are the most important things.  Can we get a pic of your set up?  

You will feel a little like the black sheep around here.  So many people don't even blink an eye at dropping thousands of dollars into their ARs.  I'm more in your camp and practically have to got a sweat lodge and pray for a year, and read the stars before I spend money on guns.  I have been able to spend some.  But I've been blessed because even as an adult, I had a Dad that like to buy and collect guns and always included me in his fetish.  So I benefited.  We used to shoot a lot together on weekends and it was great times.  So I have a lot of guns that were his, and he bought for me.  And he would buy
Money is always tight in my family.  For a thousand different reasons.  So......  I do things as cheaply as I can too, and that's just the way it is.   It's not a popular way to be around here because everyone wants to see the good stuff.  Then you get the guys that tell you you're going to die if you don't have the latest and greatest stuff and you must hate your wife and kids because you don't spend the money to protect them the way they deserve.    Kind of a thing.  

I just try to feed my guns ammo and shoot them on a regular basis so I can be of some use if I really had to be.  

Plus half the time the GI's rigged stuff with less than ideal circumstances and made them work regardless of how cool and tactical it looked to everyone else.  That is "Tactical" figuring out how to be deadly with whatever you have on hand.  Not thousands of dollars hanging off of your AR that make everyone go....  ooooooooooh.  

But I still like looking at everyones gear.  



I used this stuff called Gorilla tape and got it at fleet farm.  I think you can get it at Kmart and probably other places too.  I've used it before on other stuff and it stays put pretty well.  

Nice, I've got three 10 round magazines and only enough ammo to fill two of them at the moment.  Part of the issue is I got a smoking deal on a Kahr CW-40 and then decided I HAD to have an AR-15 before California banned them all together, so 2 guns in the same month.  I went on a mad scramble trying to find the cheapest AR I possibly could having heard stories of $500 AR's being sold recently in my area.  I got the wife on board, BARELY, we are drowning in medical debt too by the way so why not throw an AR on the credit card right?  Well I was late to the party and everyone else had bought up all the super cheap AR's, the cheapest I could find was an Adams Arms 16" carbine base model, $730 out the door.  

I felt OK about it after researching Adams Arms and the whole gas piston system.  Then I realized the gun didn't come with sights...well can't shoot the gun without sights right?  I go to my wife, tail between my legs, babe, I need sights, my gun doesn't come with them.  Then I agonized over what sights to buy, I didn't want to spend too much, but I didn't want to have to buy twice, who would have thought a good set of BUIS would cost me a couple hundred dollars???  I finally settled on a cheap set of aluminum flip ups from Ultimate Rifle Build, and a Field Sport Micro Red Dot off of Amazon, went super cheap so I bought two in case something didn't work.  Guess what, the Ultimate Rifle Build sights were not so ultimate, they were thrashed and failed to fold after only about 100 rounds shot through the rifle.  I sent them back for a full refund and I'm debating whether I even need BUIS or not at this point, especially after watching Mr Proctor talk about them at Way of the Gun.  The cheapo red dot works great so far.

Then I realized how badly I needed a flashlight on my gun for home defense, and that I needed a locking gun case to transport it, and that I should probably get a sling...The list goes on, and I'm definitely addicted...

Is the locking case a CA requirement?  I've never heard of anyone needing that.  Some guys just throw theirs in their trunks, cabs, etc.  I just put mine in whatever gun case I have that it will fit.  Doesn't need to lock.  Our is supposed to legally be cased.  I've heard different arguments from LEO whether it needs to be in the trunk or not in our state.  But the hunting regs don't say anything about it needing to be in the trunk.  

Anyways....  It probably wasn't the best idea to put it on a CC.  But whatever, I won't ever claim to have all the answers on money.  All I know is there is never enough to go around.  

You need some more ammo.

I work at the Sheriff's office as a dispatcher in my county, I spoke with my Sheriff who is pro-gun, his advisement was to transport it in a locked case to avoid any grace period loopholes in transportation due to the configuration of my rifle now meeting CA's newly redefined assault weapon criteria.

Ah, well they would know.    Obviously every state is different.  I get jealous when I see people with rifle racks in their trucks and guns actually in it.  LOL.  But at least our state now has CCW for the last like 5 years or so.

This. 2nd PNI. There is no reason you can't save another $20 for a decent light mount on top of $50 for the G2X. 

 I'm with rjeff on this. That's a fantastic light at a great price. Hard to beat.

Another vote for the Elzetta mount.  And laugh if you want, but I've had an ultrafire green led $15  light in there for over four years and it works.

This..... http://www.lapolicegear.com/bayco-tac-460xl-k01-weapon.html

$25

http://www.gopjn.com/t/2-215656-43737-137077?sid=j127vdz1ji00zk8a02lk7&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tractorsupply.com%2Ftsc%2Fproduct%2Fjobsmart-tac-360-led-weapon-light

I took an old surefire weapons light off and tried this because the surefire is only about 80 lumen.  123 batteries will work in place of the rechargeable you get with it.  Mine has stayed charged for a couple months now.  

It seems far better than what you would expect.

I run a streamlight tlr3 on one if my rifles. Works well and plenty bright.