Hello and thanks for running such an awesome and informative site!

I am a new member, and new to the AR world, although I have grown up with guns of various types.
I wanted to avoid redundancy of topic, so I searched through the database for answers and read about 100000 discussions over the last few weeks about weapon lights. I found a lot of comparisons between surefire and "brand x". It appears that the surefire has a strong following in the gun world, however, I am more interested in "value" and not necessarily brand recognition. I have reviewed many lights over the past month, including Surefire, Streamlight (which I own in the stinger hand held version), Insight, Fenix, and most recently, Elzetta. There are many varying "personal" opinions on the brands, but very few posts comparing all the brands in one section on the forum.
From what I read, very few reviews on the Elzetta are out, although I am not sure if this is because they are relatively new (2007), or unpopular.

I am interested in getting your take on the reasons to buy the light of your preference. Surefire, while durable, seems a bit expensive when one considers that streamlight, elzetta, and fenix are all comparable in quality from a lumens, construction, battery, and size standpoint. I would like to start this thread to incorporate all the brands into one review.

I will be receiving my first AR in a few months, and I wold like to get a light that:
Has at least 200 lumens
CR123 batteries (2-3)
ability to strobe is not a nec. since i can maually strobe with momentary push button
variable tail cap which will allow you to twist for brightness...don't particular want a click, click, click, style for brightness adjustments.
tail cap that has a momentary on, and then click to on/off
available pressure pad attachment
preferably able to take it off the weapon mount and carry in my hand when scouting

Thanks in advance for the responses and for the great forum.

God bless

I have Elzetta's on all three my uppers that are fitted out with lights.



My wife's M4gery and my 16" Mid-Length both use Elzetta's own 1500 mount for AR's. My A4gery has the Mossie Tactical FSB mount with pressure pad.



 

I don't seem to be getting many replies. I am sure there is some frustration because this topic has been exhausted. I was just trying to get all the brands in one conversation.

Has anyone seen this sale ... all five lights and a knife for 199.99 from Lumaforce
Lumaforce end of the year deal

Does lumaforce withstand the recoil of a 5.56 well?

Seems like a pretty good price for the lumens.

I have a flashlight problem... I have about 6 surefires, 4 streamlights, 5 or 6 4sevens, 4 Maglights+ and lots of china lights.





Surefire lights are hands down the best build. No one else even comes close. They say they do, but they don't. Also I have had decent support from some of the others but nobody beats surefire when it comes to support. I bought a E1E that had a tail cap switch die very shortly after buying it. one email later one was on its way to me no questions asked.





Now when it comes to the latest and greatest LED's I think 4sevens is tough to beat. Very nice quality and some of the best lumens out the front there are.



As for weapon lights you can make some cool combos out of custom surefire stuff. Since everyone is coming back from war there are some killer deals to be had on nib 951's and 962's that you can mix and match parts until you get blue in the face. Aftermaket support for surefire is almost better than the factory stuff. A 951 with a Malkhoff drop in would be pretty sweet for a reasonable price.



 

I like surefire 951's, streamlight tlr1s, and streamlight's aa 8400?

I am using a Surefire EAG Fury 500 lumen on my midlength right now. The EAG Fury can be found on Bravo Company website for 130 shipped and if you add a vtac mount for 30 bucks that is 160 for a Surefire. IMO you don't get much better value than that.





 

Thanks for the posts guys. It seems that most people are at least dropping their votes in the box after they read through. I was sure that Surefire would get a lot of press, but I was curious if anyone uses the Elzetta and Fenix brands...and the Lumaforce deal seemed like it was smokin but no one voted for Lumaforce yet. Wish I had extra cash and I would buy up three of each brand and do the ULTIMATE comparison video on them,

In the end, I now have an opportunity to buy a Gen 3 Glock 23, with a Streamlite TLR2 Light/laser combo, all brand new in box and never fired for a decent price. I may do it even though I don't need to and swap the streamlight from gun to gun.

Keep the posts coming though. I would ove to know if anyone has a reco mmendation based on my "requirements" listed above...ie, momentary on, adjustable beam, LED, CR123 batteries, at least 260 lumens, etc.

God bless

You forgot FourSevens. Top quality. Do a search for reviews on them.

http://www.foursevens.com/

jetbeam raptor

Ive been buying surefires since the early 90`s.

All  are handhelds that I use for EDC/CCW  E1led ,E2 Defender, P2X Defender

Although I still have a Surefire G2 mounted on my carbine

Never any problems with surefire lights.

I havent tried Streamlight yet. But there Pro Tact 600Lumen  seems to be well made and has the same approval as the P2X Fury

Elzetta- Dont have one, but would be happy to own one.  Also would mount it on a carbine over the Surefire P2X Fury.

Fenix - I bought one of there 2 -AA lights aka LD22 .Its been drop countless of times. its still works BUT Ive lost  a couple of stages. I think its the tail cap. Idont know.
For hand held use I would think they are fine.

I use to think the same thing.

I found that out after buying a light with a Strobe Stage.

Its impossible to manually thumb the tailcap fast enough.

Also the Better Strobes will have different patterns so the eye wont get use to it as much.


I havent been a fan of strobes but after using one I might rethink


Hope that helps

Thanks for the reply. I am still searching through all the reviews and it seems that surefire is killing the poll, but have you any experience with Lumaforce? They have an amazing deal - 5 lights for 200.00..it seems almost too good to pass up and I can't find any bad reviews on Lumaforce lights on the net.

$40 each doesn't really sound that great to me, I would rather buy each of those same style lights separately to get the exact features I want. Perhaps $20-25 for an Olight i3S for a key chain light or even a slightly larger L3 Illumination L10; $30 for a true hard anodized Solarforce L2P with their XM-L or maybe even $63 for one with a custom Nailbender XM-L2, $25 for a Solarforce L2M/XM-L combo which adds the ability to run either 1 or 2 CR123's or an 18650, $30-40 for a Spyderco/Kershaw/CRKT/etc. knife, and $30-40 for a STL-V6/HD2010/other large reflector XM-L light. On the cheap end that comes out to ~135 dollars before shipping for some good lights with plenty of options/reviews/documentation behind them.