Quoted:
I've been considering buying a MAWL C1+ so I have a couple of questions. How has the reliability been so far, what is the effective range of the Illuminator of the MAWL C1+ and how does it compare to the D2 and anything else coming down the pipe as far as civi LAMs? Thanks
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Thus far (approx 6 months) our MAWLs and the MAWLs our local SWAT team possess (a mixture of C1+'s and DA's) have functioned very very well.
One problem the SWAT team encountered was a certain officer though he should try and remove the front twist bezel himself to clean the lenses and snapped the retaining screw and broke the bezel off. It states clearly in the user manual not to do this and was nothing more than operator error. Another twist bezel was broken due to it being thrust into a concrete wall that would have broken most any laser out there, The good part is that there is a failsafe built into the MAWL so that in the event the twist bezel is broken the laser defaults to the IR mode and is still functional so it is partial mission capable. No other laser to my knowledge can do this.
I would say out to 600 meters the DBAL D2 and MAWL are even with eachother, but past 600 meters the MAWL be it the C1+ and the DA are clearly the better choice, I even own a C1+ personally and will if given the opportunity talk your ear off as to why it is so good, I won't though.
Nothing in the forseeable future is set to debut other than the DBAL A4 with a rumored street price of 1500-1800$. How capable will it be compared to a MAWL has yet to be seen, and I am not a huge fan of light/laser/illuminator all in one systems.