I know a lot of us locally own surefire products.  Right now surefire has them for 1.25 a pop.  A dealer on this site quoted me the same price + $4 shipping for them up to 40 batteries.  40 batteries is not enough as far as I am concerned and I am looking at 100+ and maybe even a lot more than that.  Does anyone know where I Can get the Surefire 123A 3v lithium or even the Toshiba 123A 3v lithium flash light batteries for sub $1?  Any idea what quantity would work with this?  Does anyone out there offer a discount for Active duty military personnel that would bring the price close to my target?

thanks for your help

try botach they had toshibas on sale.  service is sometimes suspect.

$1.25 is dealer price.... dealers and the public all pay the same price for the batteries - $1.25 each plus shipping...

-Joe

1.25 direct from Surefire is the lowest I've seen.

Jay

Theres a couple people advertising/selling offbrand, not even toshiba/sanyo, more like "Chunpows" 123s on ebay for around $1 ea plus shipping. My advice is buy from SF, there are price breaks if you buy enough. Drops to $1.05 at 10K I'm thinking, and theres another price break $1.15  but cant recall how many ya had to buy, 5K ??. I buy 500+- at a time and am pretty damn happy with $1.25 ea, since I usta pay $2 in quantity. HTH

Have you tried Battery Station? He gives good service from what I hear and their brand of 123s is supposed to be equal to Surefires.  He lists them for $1.25 each but I believe he will give a quantity discount.  Here's a link

[url]http://www.batterystation.com/cr123a.htm[/url]

Absolutely correct. Dealer's not only pay the same price for batteries from Surefire, but MANY dealers AND distributor's just got screwed big time by Surefire.

Surefire decided it was in their customer's "best intrest" to remove all product line from distributor's. They say it is so they can control customer service levels. This in turn leaves dealer's without product at a discounted price.

A dealer now has to open an account with Surefire directly, must have a storefront, and the minimum order to open an account is $1K. So if I want just a couple of things for a few people, like I have done many times in the past, I can no longer call up one of my distributor's and get them at a discount (or at all for that matter). Internet dealers will be left out to dry also.

Customer's "best intrest" my ass, more like, "Let's cut out the middleman, and keep all the profit for ourselves". Can you say GREED?

ARC lights also just did the same thing.

What this means is that every time you want a Surefire product, you will either go to a store that has an account (few and far between), or call up the factory and pay FULL MSRP.

It is sure to hurt Surefire's business in the long run, as there are a number of other companies bringing out similar products in the very near future, that will still sell to a distributor at discount, and then a dealer can buy the product at discount, sell to the customer at a lower than MSRP price, and everyone is happy.

There are a couple of knife manufacturer's who have tried this type of thing before,and their business has suffered because of it.

Just another case of a company with a great product getting way to greedy, and in turn everyone suffers.

Sorry for the rant, but this just was instituted about 2 weeks ago, and I am still pissed off about it.  

yea, never than under a $1.25.

Anyone have the experience to rate the Surefire brand 123s batteries against the Panasonics or others? I mixed them all up!

Hoplite,

If you find that great deal but are not interested in buying their min let us know, I would be in for 100+.

Be carefull of leading all out group buys though, I still have almost 100 of those crome silicon springs left...

JC

I'm getting good results with $1.00 Yuntong C123A's from ARC.

I have not had particularly good luck with surefire brand batteries. Prefer Duracell, Energizer, or even Toshiba when available.

You could tear apart 223 batteries.   223 batteries are simply 2 123's connected together in series, placed side by size in a plastic housing.   Break open the plastic housing, remove the one connector between the two cells, and you've got 2 123 batteries.  Depending on the housing used, the two 123 cells may or may not be insulated.  If not, you'll need to do is wrap a layer of electrical tape around them.  

Name brand (enegerizer, duracell, etc.) 223's are available for $1/ea in quantities of 100+ from [url]http://www.cheapbatteries.com[/url].  Since each 223 yields 2 123's, that's only $0.50 per 123.   Of course, it takes a bit more work, but that's the cheapest route available.

Rocko

Be carefull, thanks to our wonder LEO's in this nation and the war on some drugs, buying large quanities of lithium batteries can be considered enough to get you raided on suspicion of running a meth lab.

If you buy large quanities of 223's and take them apart, your even more at risk if officer Fucstick sees the remains of them in your garbage. Yep , hes taking apart the batteries to make meth alright, raid him boys.

If you buy 100 or more for a group buy, it will attract attention you most likely don't want. When they see you also buy alot of gun stuff on the same crdeit card, don't be suprised to wake up with an MP-5 in your and your childrens faces one early morning, held by someone who may or may not have decent trigger discipline.