I have several older Surefire lights I want to upgrade with high intensity LEDs. I have a C2 and C3 handhelds, a pair of the integrated forearm 870 lights and a pair of 951 Weapon Lights etc....I have looked at the Malkof devices upgrades and they appear to be one of the best choices but they are pretty expensive. Is there anything besides them worth looking at? Obviously I want a quality upgrade but $60 apiece seems like a lot of money.....

The lights I depend upon, use Malkoff's.



I have other lights that use Solarforce, Lumens Factory, and Lighthound, drop-in's. Give these a look and see if they are in the price range you are looking at.



ThruNite drop-in's work, but run at a higher amperage than the others mentioned.



 

Yea, I will depend on these so I guess I should just pony up the money...... $350 in "bulbs" is kinda tough to swallow though. I know this is an area of technology that changes daily it seems and thought maybe there was someone else to see about. I may wait on the two shotgun lights- they are only going to be used at 25 yards or less so it's not as critical as the rifle lights.

I would give the Lighthound.com drop-in a look.



It is under ~$20 and they are good people to work with. They are in Houston.



I think they use a Cree XPG R2, or R3. Should be good for ~220-240 Lumens, Out The Front, and 2 to 2.5 hours of battery life, in a C2.



 

How durable/reliable? That's always an issue with "gun lights".

I had an E2E I wanted to upgrade to LED.  I bought the lighthound, which includes the entire head for this retrofit.  It rolled off a table onto the floor and hit lense first.  The lense was crumbled.  No quality constructed light would do this.



The lighthound dropins for my G2 and my 6P did not involve lense replacement, and I am quite pleased with them.

I have a number of lights I've played around with.  I purchased a 12 dollar drop in that works really well in my Surefire but some others have contact issues even with springs cut to fit.  I actually find the Solarforce flashlights work better with aftermarket drop-ins other than the Malkoff.

Another option would be looking for Surefire LED drop-ins from Surefire.  Lower output than Malkoff but they are still at fairly high output.
I haven't actually tried them but they could be higher output than they indicate if Surefire gives low estimate readings of out  the front lumens.

Nailbender on cpfmarketplace makes reliable drop-ins.  Call him directly for voltage needs.  Many of his are set up to use Rechargeable 18650s though they will handle two non-rechargeable CR123 cells they will not handle two rechargeables.  

I've seen Surefire LED bulbs for as low as 20 bucks on cpfmarketplace because someone pulled them out of their surefire to use it with higher output options.
For what they sell for retail I'd just get the Malkoff.  Warmer version Malkoff has lower output but you can actually pick out detail better outside due to better color rendition.

I'd stay away from the mode lights with Surefire.   You probably won't need that C3 unless you decide to get the Malkoff M31 which will run off two Nimh with spacer to make them tight in the body.  

I use my Z2 with a 17670 rechargeable.  It will run full power for over an hour with LED.  It would run the old M60 Malkoff for over an hour and then start tapering off in output for a couple more hours.

Lumens Factory?



 

Yes, Lumens Factory product from Lighthound.

I'm going to try a couple of the Lighthounds and see how they are. Cheap enough if they are a bust, no harm no foul. Thanks guys.

That is because it is mineral glass and not regular glass. It is clearer, but crumbles when hit.