Fuck. No. 

In fact, give me more lumens. All the lumens.

I have white walls, mirrors, in my house. Good technique goes a long way. 

I have never once said to myself, 'Damn I wish thus light wasn't so bright.' In fact, I've often said quite the opposite, especially on deployments and in training. 

Not really. It all depends on what you're doing and where you are. Outside, you want all the light you can get with as much throw as possible, 300 up to beyond 1000 lumens. Indoors, I like 200-300 lumens with good spill. I still fucking hate CR123 batteries, but they're quickly becoming the industry standard, making them more and more common. They'll be more widespread in the next ten or fifteen years. This is for weapon lights.

A light that's going to be doing anything other than briefly lighting up targets to get proper ID shouldn't be mounted to your weapon. You don't want to walk around with your weaponlight turned on like a searchlight; it creates bad habits like pointing your weapon at whatever you're looking at so you can see it, and makes you an easy target. 100 lumens is a bit low, unless you're in a really tight confined space. Battery life out of high-spec CR123 lights is pitiful, but they're not meant to have a long runtime, anyway; they don't need it when they're only being activated for maybe twenty seconds to a minute at a time, a few times a week. If you want runtime, you need to get away from CR123 and "tactical" lights altogether, and get something decent-sized that uses batteries made to last, like a D-cell Maglite.

For my purposes, 250 lumens with good spill/throw is great for an admin or search light. I like the US Mil anglehead with an LED conversion, myself; won't roll away from me, has a clip for hands-free use, has good battery life, and depending on the model, can use D or AA batteries. Elektrolumens makes the custom Anglelux I prefer, getting around 240 lumens for 20+ hours until it drops to 50% brightness on two D cells. Costs less than most Surefire lights, too, under $100.

All said and done, a flashlight is still a serious step down from NV when it comes to usefulness. Someday, NV will be cheap enough for just about everyone to be able to afford it.

Unfortunately, that day will probably be after we're all dead.

Hey, the M600 came out before the M300.
Now I have both on my rifle.

Some of my older surefires had the option of using a lower output bulb with a longer run time.

i would like to have a wider beam on a x300 for indoor pistol use. that tight beam isnt my fav.

for me, i use a lower power light on my bed side gun. hitting a 400 lumen LED from a dead sleep at 3 in the morning is pain full. the XC1 works well for this but the controls are not my fav.

if i am fully awake and active then i'll use the bright ones.  

Sounds like you are the hobbiest if a dozen 123s lasts you a year. My unit would go through those in a few weeks and rechargeables woykd pay for themselves in a year. The 123 is an old and out of date tech. When Surefire began using them they were cutting edge tech. Surefire lost its path.

What "professional" does not use batteries in a year? We use 18650 and never had a single case of a depleted battery. You keep rechargeable topped off, which you can't do with a 123... then again we USE our lights, we don't store them for a year.

more upset at the rising prices than lumens.

I have an old x300. Anyone who wants to trade me a new one is more than welcome.

Surefire is actually on the edge of the curve, currently, for WML's. hand-helds? Okay, use AW all you want. Noone is going to trust a battery with 1000% higher storage discharge rates and increased temperature sensitivity in a duty application.

What like NiCads?

Other light manufacturers not stuck in the 20th century give you varying output levels.  1000 lumens has been standard for a while with decent mfgrs.

Dedicated weapon lights. ..which is what I said.

Handheld, sure, run whatever, as long as it's quality. I personally find the streamlights to be very functional in the <750 lumen arena.

The best chemistry I've seen for a rechargeable has a 10% per year drain. Most are that per month or two. Also, they do not do as well in low temps as primary 123s..

If by hobbiest you mean that I only use my lights when I have to, like crime scenes, search warrants, etc...then yes, I am.

Yes and don't forget that while they get brighter they also get more expensive.

Im more annoyed that a two cell, 500 lumen, single mode light costs over $200. And they want $100 for a damn pressure switch? Really? I love surefire but that is ridiculous.

Yes and No. Yes, I think 300 lumens is more then enough for a pistol light indoors but some people operate outdoors and/or use pistol lights like the X300 on their rifles.

Personally, I do not pray to the lumen gods as that is not the most important aspect of a light and yes, I would give up some lumens for better run time as long as the throw and spill are on point.

No, I want all the lumens I can get! I've done low light and no light shooting at my 12x21 steel silhouette between 15-25m and my 320 lumen Surefire G2X Tacticals mounted on my ARs barely make the target visible. However my 800 lumen Streamlight TLR-1 HLs mounted on my Glock 19s really lights everything up. Even better when I use my EDC Fenix PD35 at max output, 960 lumens. My house has nothing but white walls but I never got blinded or thought to myself "I wish this wasn't so bright!"

Im actually annoyed that Surefire makes you pay for the extra lumens, and their cheaper offerings dont provide enough. I used to run an X300 on my MC Operator but it was only 320 lumen if I remember correctly. The inner lens also cracked from the recoil so I sent it back for repair. I sold it because I already used TLR-1s on my Glocks, better mounting and switch, reliable while nearly $200 cheaper as well. I love the HL series because the TLR-1 HL body maintains the same shape as older TLR-1s while giving 800 lumens, and costing around $100-110! I was pissed when Surefire came out with the X300U, only 500 lumens (at first) but much longer bezel making it incompatible with all the holsters already out there shaped for the older X300. Looking at Surefire's website now the X300U retails at $299!

Used to be a Surefire fanboy but I see no reason to continue buying their overpriced products when I use the shit out of my Streamlights and Fenix and they just keep working.

I think they should start making them specifically for indoor or outdoors or something.  I can see why you'd want a bunch of light outdoors. But I have a 70 lumen on my AR and a handheld GZ2 for Home Defense and any more light than either of those and I'm getting white spots in my vision, even just from splashing the floor in a room inside.    My main reasons for a light is home defense and my carry gun.  Yes, if the SHTF, then I'd maybe want more light on my carbine.  And of course LEO's or Military would want them.  So maybe surefire just isn't seeing non LEO and Military as their target customers.

If I want to blind someone lumens in mass quantities are great.
Other than that I find my old 65 lumen Surefire too bright many times.

I'll throw in my half educated opinion since I actually build handheld and weapon mount lights for folks to use.

Firstly, its great to see the output of lights rise, provided they have an intuitive UI with lower power levels and mode lock/memory for when you need to tone down the awesome.

Secondly, the reason the runtimes get shorter as the power goes up, is because everyone is stuck on the monopoly made from the CR123a and RCR123a batteries and don't want to change to more efficient technology. The cr123 primary batteries only hold so much juice...normally around 900mah, its a proportionate ratio of Amp draw vs Mah capacity.

Lastly, regarding the 18650 and other sized Lithium-Ion batteries. The new chemistry formulations for Li-ion batteries has improved greatly. They have a lot less tendency to cook off nowadays unless you purposely short them out. They also have improved the performance of Li-ions as well to operate better in more extremes, darn near close to primaries. The issue regarding counterfeit lithium batteries is spot on, don't buy something with a weird ass name, go for the LG or Sony or Efest....the list of reputable companies is endless.
As far as everyone's fears of a lithium battery venting and catastrophically failing during duty/hard use, can be put at ease. I have destroyed hundreds of lithium batteries, I have torture tested hundreds of flashlights, trying to cause failures. Without a doubt, I can say that if you run a quality Li-Ion powered flashlight, do your part on upkeep, it will perform as well and most likely better than any 300lm 2x cr123 sized light.

Also a bit of brain candy. In order to effectively double your perceived light output, you have to quadruple the lumen output. So in order for something to be twice as bright as a 300lm light, you'de have to have one pushing 1200lm. That being said, don't let a 100 or 200 lumen difference sway your opinion. It's all about how the flashlight projects a beam more so than the brightness. You want a clear, concise beam with a large peak intensity, vs as many lumens you can crap out the front.

Hope it helps gents!

Not really. In fact I don't get the "spill will blind me" stuff

I've purposely tried aiming my 800 lumen Olight at the white wall 6 feet away from me when I woke up to pee and didn't really notice any serious effects.

I have light sensitive eyes too. But I will admit they are less so than when I was younger. I've read your eyes lose the ability to either take in, retain, or use light as you age so maybe that's why?

Either way the brighter the better. Be nice if they could lengthen run times though.

This. Spend the money and buy a good, protected, Panasonic battery.

A trip to a good battery forum will learn you quick. Iirc a LOT of X brand batteries are just Panasonic cells that companies buy and add their own protection cuircut to and/or other little changes.

A dozen 123's last  you a year?  Not me and I'm not a power user. And my IR illuminator doesn't even take 123's. That's why I got into 18650's. Then I found out how easy and awesome they are.

No offense but it seems like you're bias against rechargeables.

And you talk of discharge rates but you're proving his point.  Discharge rates don't matter when you actually use and charge them.

You seem misinformed on 18650's. Dear lord I hope someone from thebattery forum doesn't see this. They will have a conniption and go all battery junky on you. Lol

About time.  Everyone else has been making brighter lights for years.  Surefire has been playing catch up.  They are playing the light game like the..................Falcons.   

No one in CID at my department uses a handheld light that is not at least 1000 lumens for a daily carry light. Olight, Thrunite, Fenix, etc. I have a 600 lumen E2B on a active shooter/felony warrant belt kit in the trunk, but carry a Fenix daily right now. Virtually all of them use 18650. Every single member of CID has a lithium ion charger with batteries in their office. Patrol is also shifting away from big Streamlights to smaller lights that use 18650. The only reason the weapon lights are not 18650 is because Surefire is behind the curve and trying to sell its own brand 123 cells. Now that Streamlight has an 18650 weaponlight for under $150 I can tell you 90% of the new weapon lights on long guns at my department are going to be Streamlight until Surefire catches up. Handgun lights, its Surefire and Streamlight 50/50 and all 123 cells, but for rifle lights it is all over the place due to the price of the Surefire rifle lights. Id love a Scout format 18650 that did 900-1000 lumens and Id pay twice the cost of a Streamlight to get it. The 600 lumens Scout is fine indoors but outside it just dies past 100 yards. Never heard of some one complain a light was too bright in law enforcement except when writing a ticket.

If you are using the light correctly, you should not even be looking at the light directly most of the time, when searching. Do a quick strobe while panning the light up, down, left, right etc. get a flash image of the area and move in the dark, then pop it again, etc. The reflected light will illuminate the room effectively. Introduce light to a room before you enter it to blind anyone inside. By keeping the light intermittent anyone in another room cannot tell when you are near or how far you are. By introducing light to a room before entering you rob anyone inside of their night vision. After that you can pop a blip of light as you get in position and clear on your terms. The more light for this the better. If you meet someone with their own light you better have significantly more lumens than they do because the person with the least lumens is going to be blinded while the other person can still see.

Low light is only needed for administrative tasks that require continuous light, very close range observations, etc. which is a small portion of what is needed and a weapon light is NOT what you want to use for those tasks. These ideas of 60-75 lumens is all you need and under 300 is what you want is beyond ridiculous. You guys must have old weapon lights on the EE or something.

Trying to sell? You mean like, for the last decade? (Along with streamlight brand cr123's) 18650's have more cons than pros. Mainly most lights aren't bored for them, requires a protected circuit to maintain voltage (all the vape bros know this too well; kaboom), do not have the shelf life of CR123's when stored.
Again, at distance lumens do not play as much of a role as the Cree design or use of a lens. (like the TIR on surefire models) 1,000 lumens is no good at distance if it's poorly aimed.

I am going to pick apart your post, for sake of information. I build flashlights, so I am curious.

Please explain the cons. New generation 18650's are much different than previous
What? There are more than enough lights that take 18650's, granted surefire's aren't sized for them because of the cr123 monopoly, but there is magic called a 16650 battery that fits a surefire.
Again...what? More 18650 batteries come without protection circuits than do, most all flashlights built for Li-Ion batteries have LVP that shuts off between 2.7-2.9 volts, unless it is a Direct Drive or FET drive flashlight. They only KB when you over-discharge them, pull too many Amps, or short them out.
Somewhat true, somewhat not true. Both cr123 primaries and 18650's are lithium based batteries. Li-Ion's do have a faster discharge rate than Lithium primary batteries, however it is not going to be big enough difference to negate the fact that a Li-Ion battery can be stored for as long as you would have use for it like a cr123
True, lumens are not as important as candela and peak beam intensity. What is the Cree design? Cree makes multitudes of different LED's of many designs, but so does Nichia, Luxeon. I will 100% say that a reflector will outperform a lens. It can be a carclo, ledil, some form of TIR lens, doesn't matter. A lens is going to diffuse the beam to provide a more uniform hotspot and spill transition at the expense of range.

My post was directed towards using standard lights that only accept cr123's. I do not believe the hype that 18650's can do everything better with zero drawbacks.

I hear ya.
I bet you that I can sway your opinion though, regarding lights that run on 18650 batteries (or cr123s, or dual fuel 18650/cr123 lights), with something that comes out of my workshop.
Also, if you are installing a KX4 head on to a 2x cr123 host, it is definitely taking more than 3.7v. It is using a buck driver to reduce from the nominal 6.4v down to a usable 3.7v for the LED.

while I am not annoyed that they keep making them brighter and brighter I do agree with you about the battery life.  I'd rather have more battery life.

I have had one set of 123 vent in a flashlight.  They were Battery Station when they went to China made batteries and it was in a Gladius years ago. Had one 18650 battery failure. The button on a well used 3400 mah Zebralight 18650 collapsed and caused intermittent failures to illuminate in a Thrunite. Still works in my Zebralight headlamp though.

So technically 123 cells have been more of a problem for me.

I don't use low end, non protected 18650. I don't use junk chargers either. Never had a dead 18650 in a light due to self discharge. They all get topped off once a year, when I swap out all non rechargeables in all devices I own. Only dead batteries I ever have are coin cells in scopes or lasers.

I'm going to throw in my 2 cents. I have a active thread on lightfighter about something related to this.

Have you ever been in a verbal arguement in a rural or dark area with an aggressive individual whom is claiming to be armed at say traffic stop distance and also has a light shinning it at you? If he has a 100 lumen light that 600-1000 lumen Surefire would be worth it's weight in gold in hopefully being to overpower his light and see if he has you lined up in his sights. If you have a 100-300 & he is the one with a high lumen torch then what?

I find more lumens the better.

I run a 1200 lumen light on my rifle. I haven't had any issues with blinding myself in my home. I think people get lost in the whole blinding effect issue, that they don't like high lumens. Most of it boils down to heresy rather than actual use.

1k+ lumens really affects the eyes and will disorient someone...

As far as Surefire; I don't exactly like the price points on most items. Also, I'd rather use 18650's then blowing money on cr123's.

I like bright lights.

I want a Surefire Annihilator on my carbine.

Seriously, the 300u 600 lumen is perfect for me on a pistol. I'd like the Scout to be 800-1200 if possible.

I have never bought one of their high output lights like the Annihiator but when it comes out I'll probably pick one up. I have a few specific needs for a light that bright.

Yes, the Surefire tape switch is great. I actually put a suggestion to one of my favorite light companies, about jumping to a similar mountable tape switch... TAPS Tactical has a winner out as well. All these light companies with "tactical" mountable lights, needa get on board.

I stopped the "I wish Surefire would" talk a long time ago. I doubt they'll drop the cr123 anytime soon. I since went to Klarus/Armytek and have been satisfied... Candlepower forum may have some answer for you though.

I'm in the more lumens the better group.  I bet in 5 years we'll be using our phone cords & chargers to charge most of our weaponlights like we are starting to see on other lights.

Well, it's no secret that Surefire markets their lights primarily to the military/LE. This means environmental extremes. Rechargeables do much poorer.

Regardless, when someone else makes a light as good as Surefire's Scout series, I'll buy it.

I think they need to work on improving run times. YMMV.

It would also be great if they stopped showing off new lights at shows that they never produce. Again, YMMV.

This is again the energy density of the batteries. You get much more usable energy from lithium ion 18650 than 123 primary cells. The big issue in the past was a lack of ability to efficiently boost voltage, so 123 cells were the answer. Nowdays, a 3.7 volt single cell has 50% or more capacity than a pair of 123 cells, even in a 16650 sized package you get more energy and current capability. With geater power draw lights coming into production, 123 cells are at the end of the line but Surefire needs to sell their house brand batteries.

As far as just pure run time, 1.5 hours is all you need for a weapon light. You can clear houses literally for a whole shift on a single charge.  For general utility, lower power levels give super extended run time ability. I have an 18650 Zebralight headlamp that can do 70 lumens for 33 hours. That's 8 hours a day, for 4 days. I found that light and 1 18650 inside weighed less than my 1xAA NiMh headlamp and 1 Eneloop inside plus 1 spare, but gave higher output and could get longer run times. A 123 cell variant only a slightly greater output, and slightly greater runtime than the 1xAA  but the battery weight allowed 2 spares instead of 1. Those still produced the same runtime as a single 18650, but at only 2/3 the output. It was easy to choose a brighter option,  that lasted as long as 3 123 cells at the same weight and no battery change. 123 has matured and is not improving, while 18650 gets better every year. An 18650 costs 6x as much as a 123, but can be recharged over 100 times.

Simply put, 18650 is the answer to higher output draws, extended run times, and less expensive battery cost over the life of the unit. The only place for 123 at this point is arctic type environments and that will likely change with improvements in battery tech.

Surefire will only make the switch across the board when they have a battery plant that they can ensure high qulaity 18650 at a profitable cost to sell to us, unfortunately.

I'm aware of 18650's, yes. Nothing is as reliable as a CR123 primary though, and "goes bang" is more important than "shoots 0.001 MOA" to me, so to speak.