Brite Strike APALS - A light in the dark

Testing out Brite Strike APALS as an ultra-compact, low cost emergency light source and beacon. Built in weatherproof adhesive strip allows you to stick 'em where you need 'em. Switch allows you to move through flashing and constant on, and shut the thing off to save it for another day. They're flat versus round, which lets the slip more easily into the tight spaces of small kits.

At $3-$5 a pop and with 80+ hours of useful life, these are a great option for contingency kits or for marking/signalling purposes. Available in a variety of colors, including IR.

Review: Streamlight Sidewinder Compact II

The Streamlight Sidewinder Compact II is about as versatile as you can get. The four color modes (white light, blue, red, IR), each with five brightness levels (low, med 1, med 2, high, beacon) is cool but not particularly impressive. What is impressive is the Sidwinder's ability to run off three different types of batteries - CR123A, AA or AAA.

Yep, you read that right. It can run off of any of those battery types. Streamlight doesn't advertise AAAs working, but they most certainly do. The single cell battery compartment is smartly designed to expand/contract to fit the cell size - it's spring loaded, so it adjusts automatically when you slip a different cell in. And it actually works, too.

Quick Review: Inforce WML

The Inforce WML has been out for a while now and been getting some pretty good coverage in the gun blog-o-world. It's half the price of a Surefire x300, uses 1 CR123A battery instead of two, weighs only a few ounces and still manages to kick off a good amount of light. So, theoretically, it's a got a pretty compelling value proposition behind it.

Figured I'd give one a whirl, intending it for Project 590A1.

Unfortunately, a poorly designed pressure switch kills the good stuff that the light has going for it, at least in this version, from Haley Strategic Partners.

Review: Nitecore MH25 Night Blade - Retina Burning and Rechargeable

Nitecore's MH25 uses some of the latest in LED technology to turn out a retina blasting 860 lumens, making "Night Blade" an appropriate name. The MH25 can run on standard CR123A "primary" cells, or it can run on 18650 lithium ion rechargeables, like the one included in the box. There are lots of bright, double cell lights on the market though, but the MH25 separates itself from the pack with one very handy feature:

The MH25 has a built in micro-USB charging port, allowing you to recharge your 18650 batteries without needing a separate, bulky charger. It's plug-and-charge, the kind of functionality we're all used to with our smart phones and other electric gizmos.

Surefire EB1 Backup - No replacement for the original

I've been a huge fan of the Surefire E1B Backup - it's been my EDC light for some time now, and really is an excellent light. It's been through thick and thin and is still ticking like a champ. So, when Surefire came out with a supposed upgrade/update of the light, the Surefire EB1 Backup, I was all over it.

Yep, Surefires are expensive - the EB1 set me back just under $160. But, they are made in the USA (yay!), they are really high quality and my original little light had gotten tons of use. I know they are many reading who would not spend more than $20 on a flashlight, and that's fine, too. I'm not opposed to investing some added money to get something that is going to work exceptionally well for a very long time, especially when it comes to my daily carry tools or for home defense.

There are a few things that drew me to the new EB1 over the original E1B:

• Brighter - 200 lumens max
• Same great low-ride pocket clip
• Similar run times despite the higher output

Unfortunately, I failed to realize that the EB1 is a substantially larger light than the E1B. For some reason, Surefire upped the size on the new light--tragic, because I thought the old E1B was about perfect for comfortable pocket or IWB carry.

Here's the measurements of the new EB1:
Length: 4.4 inches
Bezel Diameter: 1.1 inches

And the original E1B:
Length: 4 inches
Bezel Diameter: 1 inches

While on paper, those differences don't seem major, they work to make the new EB1 feel light a much larger light. And, in fact, it is quite big for a single cell light, defeating the purpose of having a small, handy, pocket sized single cell flashlight to begin with. It's almost a two cell sized-light, and in fact there are a few two cell sized lights from other companies that come in at sizes smaller or similar to the EB1. For example, a 4Sevens Quark Tactical QT2L-X is 4.5 inches in length and kicks out up to 432 lumens.

Aside from the bump in size, the Surefire build quality and ruggedness were there, the great pocket clip was there, and the light certainly was brighter. There's a lot to like.

I carried the EB1 for a few weeks but eventually went back to the original. The increase in lumens was certainly noticeable, but the bump up in size meant that the EB1 just did not carry as comfortably, where the original simply disappeared. The new EB1 is really an odd, in-between size category--if I wanted a bigger than the old E1B, I might as well step up to a two cell. Your mileage may vary on this - the bump in size may be no big deal, and the EB1 is still one of the smallest available lights from Surefire. But, for me, the EB1 was too big for what I was looking for in an EDC light.

Another nice thing about quality gear: it has good resale value. My EB1 has been moved along to a new home--it sold in a few hours and I lost out on maybe $10.

Jan 2013 Pocket Dump

Ryan over at TSLRF is having himself a lil' contest of every day carry pocket dumps, so I had to enter :). This is my "special edition" version with a few added tidbits from my initial entry and likes to past blog entries.

Pocket dump contents is of course backed up with my EDC bag and vehicle kits.

Contents are:

Smith & Wesson 642 with S&W grips and a Tyler-T Grip. I've found this combination quite good for concealment purposes and controllable when shooting. While the Smith isn't an ideal weapon, it is easy enough to conceal in a wide range of clothes and carry methods--pretty much anywhere, any time--and gives 5-for-sure rounds of respectable .38 Spl. A decent enough compromise.

I'm not a die-hard snubbie guy and am well aware of the short comings, and would be hesitant to recommend them to anyone without setting expectations - heavy DA trigger, bad sights, recoil, slow reload time, etc. I will eventually pick up one of the new pocket 9s and see how they fare. But, this is what I run at the moment and I'm not losing sleep over it.

Prepping on $40 a Week: Headlamp

If you've never used a headlamp when working in the dark, it's a life changing experience. Both hands free, no light in your mouth and light wherever you look. For working in the dark, it's the way to go.

Between our BOB and EDC, we've got an AA radio and an AA flashlight, so it'd be a bit kooky to go with another battery type for this series. Most headlamps seem to come in AAA x3 variety, and when you find an AA headlamp, it's often got big ol' 4 battery pack--usually with little in the way of extra battery life or brightness to compensate for wearing a brick on the back of your head.

So you have to hunt a bit to get something in AA, in a good size, and in our price range.

Luckily, Fenix makes an excellent headlamp that fits the bill, the HL21. Max of 90 lumens, mid of 43 lumens, low of 3. Two to 53 hours of battery life. The 90 lumen is very bright, and the 43 lumen is more than enough for navigating and general use.

Waterproof to IPX-8 standards...IPX-8 means "constant immersion" in water > 1 meter. So ya, wear this thing out in a storm...no big deal.

Comfortable enough...not the best headlamp I've worn in terms of comfort, but not the worst. Can be removed from the headlamp mount/band if you want to use it elsewhere.

Best of all - it runs on one AA battery. One! A lil' four pack of spare batteries in your kit will give you a week's worth of evening lighting, easy.

Price from Amazon is $34.95 shipped.

Which leaves us enough money to pick up a decent whistle--a handy thing to have. The Wind Storm claims to be the whistle of choice for Special Forces - bet you didn't know there was a Tier 1 whistle of choice, eh? It's tough, loud and works when wet, which is all that I ask for in a whistle. The Fox 40 usually gets the nod, but they're around $7, and the Wind Storm is under $5 and Delta Force uses 'em.

That'll eat up the $40 budget for the week.

Next week, we're moving into putting together a basic, low-cost food storage supply.

Tip of Week: Flashlight Duct Tape Wrap

A bit of gorilla tape makes for a handy bite spot when holding alight in your mouth. .

This tip comes from the Bush Hippy himself, Cody Lundin, mentioned in his excellent book When All Hell Breaks Loose. It's pretty simple, but it works well. Just wrap a bit of your duct tape of choice towards the end of your flashlight light. This gives you some extra tape on hand, but more importantly gives you a great surface for holding the flashlight in your mouth.
We've all had to do it - need both hands and light at the same time, and not had a headlamp handy - and biting down on a metal flashlight body just doesn't work very well--hard on the teeth, slips around, and the drool is inevitable. Just a little bit of duct tape makes things much better.

Yep - this won't work very well with some lights, with pocket clips and what not, but there are a lot of lights that this trick will work with. As you can see, the Fenix E11 from yesterday's $40 a week series is a great candidate--you'll also note the addition of a pocket clip, taken from an old Mini MagLite. The tape is not needed to hold the clip tight - it's a very snug fit on its own. This trick works on other lights, too - smaller AAA lights, Mini MagLites and others are good candidates.

Try it out!

Preparing on $40 a Week: EDC Flashlight

For a long time, I carried only a keychain flashlight as a part of my everyday carry. I worked my way up from Photon lights to the Fenix E01 and finally a Fenix LD01. However, there's only so much performance to be wrung out of a keychain-sized light. If someone can't/won't carry something bigger, or as a backup, they're great. But really, a step up in flashlight size is necessary to start get some really impressive and useful performance.

So, I bought a Surefire E1B, which has become one of my favorite things, and pretty much embodies what I look for in an EDC light. Single battery for ease of carry, yet still kick out around 100 lumens and run for several hours. A "clicky" tailcap is important to me--easier, faster operation and allows for momentary on/off. At least one "low power" mode for battery conservation, and a dead-simple UI--don't make me twist the cap 5 times, throw the light in the air and clap three times to get to another mode. A great pocket clip is also key and what continues to set the E1B apart for me. And, of course, rugged construction--it needs to stand up to lots of regular use, the occasional drop on a hard surface, some level of water resistance and so on.

Of course, a $120 light like the E1B is more than a little bit out of our $40/week budget. I went looking for something that had most of the features that I think a good light needs to have, and I wanted it in a common AA battery--AAs are cheap and readily available locally, so all of our electronics will run off AAs.

I'm really impressed by the light that I tracked down, the Fenix E11--a $26.95 light that performs like a light two or three times the cost.

Haley Strategic Announces New Thorntail Light Mounts

Travis Haley, formerly of Magpul Dynamics, and all around gun handling guru, has been working up a improved, innovative components for the M4/AR-15 weapons system for a while now. Haley Strategic's Thorntail light mounts place the weapons light further forward than typical light mounts, providing for more ergonomic weapons handling and easy access to the light's control.

 I've been oogling these, and now they've got one that'll work with my big ol' Surefire M951...tempting...

Pocket Dump

Edited to add some detail.

• S&W 642 with VZ Grips, loaded with Speer's Gold Dot 135 grain +P short barrel load
• Safariland Model 25 Pocket Holster, reviewed right below this :D
• Bianchi Speed strip with more Gold Dot. I've loaded the strip this way to make speed loading faster.
• iPhone 3GS in a Magpul case
• Spyderco P'kal
• Saddleback Small Wallet in Black; this has some wallet survival kit stuff in it; you can see the Bogotas and a little bit of the BFE Labs ultralight kit knife.
• Lamy Tri Pen in matte black
• Surefire E1B Backup

Nano vs. Pico: Battle of the Microlights

The eGear Pico Zipper Light. The Streamlight Nano Light. Two tiny LED Microlights, perfect for keychains or pocket kits. They're almost the same size, fairly similar in build, and they run off the same kind of batteries (four IEC-LR41 button cells). Between these two competitors, there's the obvious questions. Which is better? Which to drop your hard earned cash on?

We've got the epic showdown between these two bite-sized lights, and our recommendation for you, right after the jump.

Click below to find out which microlight takes the championship. The results may surprise you!

Altoids Pocket Survival Tin

Here's one of my current Altoids-tin Pocket Survival Tins. This kit is pretty well equipped for such a small kit, and is geared towards off-grid survival. It's housed in the tin that comes with the Ritter RSK Mk-5. Click below for the contents.

Tip of the Day: Rechargeables for Surefire flashlights

Did you know? Many Surefire flashlights are not compatible with rechargeable CR123A batteries (RCR123As). Surefire's lights are designed to work with regular CR123A batteries and many lights can have issues operating on the higher voltage output by rechargeables. Some of Surefire's lights won't even fit rechargeable cells and need to be bored out in order for them to work.

For many, having the ability to use rechargeable batteries is a big deal. There are workarounds, modifications and after market upgrades to resolve some of the issues, and some of Surefires lights have fewer problems with the rechargeables than others. If you're looking at picking up a Surefire light and want to be able to use rechargeables with it, I'd recommend doing some research beforehand. Candlepowerforums.com will have the answers that you seek.

If you want lights that don't have compatibility issues to resolve or work around, a number of the imported lights are designed to work with the higher voltage output by the RCR123As. Thrunite, 4Sevens, Jetbeam and Fenix all make lights that fit this description. And, like I mentioned, some of the Surefire lights have fewer issues than others, so you may not run into problems - but, if recharging is a big deal to you, make sure you do your research before jumping in.

Initial Review: Thrunite P60 Drop-In

A Night Ops Falcata has been my go-to light for the past several years. However, it's old tech - non-LED bulb - and has been starting to show its age. When I picked up a Surefire E1B a few months ago, the little, single-cell LED light was noticeably brighter than the Falcata. Instead of consigning the Falcata to backup status, I did some research to see if anything could be done to bring it into the modern age. 

Turns out the Falcata can accept a standard P60-drop in bulb module, and there are a variety of LED P60 drop-ins on the market, from the standard Surefire LED bulb to high-powered bulbs that use cutting edge LED technology. 

I tried to purchase a Thrunite model around Christmas time, but couldn't find any in stock. I searched again recently and found that Thrunite had released a new generation of bulb, using a new LED, the Cree XML. The old model, if I recall correctly, put out an advertised 300 lumens. The new generation puts out an advertised 460. I again had some trouble finding the Thrunite in stock, but finally found them at sbflashlights, who provided reasonable prices, cheap shipping and a discount for CandlePower forum members. 

I went with the single-mode because this will be primarily a light used for home defense purposes. I don't want to accidentally cycle through modes in an emergency situation. I want lots of light at a single click. There is a three-mode module available, which could be useful if you're looking at one for EDC purposes.

The Thrunite arrived quickly. Install was fairly simple. Remove the old bulb and reflector, insert the new Thrunite module. It took a couple tries for the assembly/spring to get seated correctly, but when that was figured out, the light worked perfectly.

I don't have any clue how to measure lumens, but this bulb is bright. An inadvertent shine in the eyes leaves you seeing stars...definitely not a light to be careless with! No problem lighting up the entire side of a house or spotlighting objects a hundred yards away. Substantially brighter than the Surefire E1B. 

I haven't done long-term testing or done anything to verify the battery life, but after initial use, I've got to give the Thrunite P60 drop in a big thumbs up. It's brought new life to my trusty old Falcata. If you've got an old incandescent flashlight that can run a P60-style bulb (old G2s, P6s and such), definitely check these out. For $30, you can turn that outdated light into a cutting edge, blazingly bright pocket spotlight. Very cool.

Learnings Reinforced by Power Outage

So, Super Bowl Sunday, family is gathered together, watching The Big Game. I'm not really a football fan (blasphemy!), but it's the Super Bowl, so we watch it as a matter of tradition each year. Around 2 minutes after the Black Eyed Peas finished their halftime show, the power clunks off. 

It was well after sunset, so it was predictably pitch black. I luckily had my trusty Surefire E1B tucked IWB (it lives there most of the time), so I was able to navigate through the house to get flashlights for the rest of the family. We have plenty of flashlights to go around, stashed in various places around the house. Within about a minute, everyone was armed with a flashlight.

After a while, it became apparent that it would be a bit of a wait before the power came back on. We lit some candles, put a movie on my iPhone for my son and then put on headlamps and settled in for some reading. After about two or so hours, the power came back on and it was business as usual.

A few thoughts that come to mind in retrospect:

• EDCing a flashlight can be a HUGE help.
• Headlamps rock for utility purposes. I need to upgrade my wife's headlamp--she has a cheap Energizer model that is already falling apart; I have a Petzl TacTikka Adapt that has been nothing be awesomeness.
• Lower powered LED lights are perfectly adequate for navigating the house; you don't need a high-powered $100 SureFire to do so.
• I need to consolidate some of our gear. Candles, LED camping lantern, flashlights and headlamps were all in different places. Not a big deal, but just some added running around the house to gather it all up.
• Peace of mind is a great thing. Power was only out for a few hours, but it was good to know that we had plenty of lights and weeks worth of batteries and other backup power on hand.
• Having something to entertain kids is a huge boon. My son was a little freaked out that it was dark and the light switches weren't working. Putting a movie on for him and having some games to play helped calm him down and keep him happy. This effect would only be multiplied in a real emergency.

Yes, we DID miss the rest of the Super Bowl, but the Packers were ahead by 11 or so when the power went out, so the end was no huge surprise. At least for us, the power outage was more eventful and entertaining than the last two quarters would have been.

Are Maglites Outdated?

The family Maglite, with my EDC Spyderco P'Kal.

Maglite took a long time to catch up to the LED revolution and probably lost a lot of market share in the process. Even today, their current big multi-cell LED lights still aren't as bright as a decent Surefire, Fenix or similar. You get a comparatively big, heavy, unwieldy light that doesn't put out as much light...and runs on D batteries. Outdated, right?

Hold on. The size, weight and sturdy construction of a Maglite make it a pretty good club. It's the first thing that comes to my mind when I heft one of these lights - man, I could do some damage with this thing. I haven't seen many lights come close to Maglite in bashing potential.

They're also inexpensive, between $20-$25 for the bigger models. Because they've been around so long, you can find older incandescent models pretty easily on the second hand market for even cheaper. Buy an LED conversion and you've got a solid flash & bash combo. The self defense-styled Surefires run around $100 and up.

I certainly wouldn't EDC a big Maglite, but they are nice to have when the size/weight aren't a liability--around the house or in a vehicle. We keep a 2D model by back door. I use it when I take out the trash, and it's there for a quick grab if needs be. It isn't a firearm, but its better than harsh language.

The TerraLux LED drop-in.

Where the big Maglites really start to shine is when you drop in some aftermarket parts and bring them up to cutting-edge standards. See SnakeDr666's work for an example of what you can put together - drop in an aftermarket LED module and a battery kit and suddenly your boring Maglite is a rechargeable 600-700 lumen beast. The TerraLux drop-in seems to be the easiest to get a hold of - Amazon has 'em for $80. If you want to mod further, you can also add a crenelated bezel (stabby teeth) and a glass breaking tail cap.

So, with a bit of an investment in after market parts - around $80 to $100 - you've got a pretty wicked light on your hands. Blindingly bright, durable and with plenty of bashing ability. Yep, you won't slip it into your pocket and I wouldn't heft it around in my BOB. But for a vehicle or home defense light, that's a pretty good set up. Heck, even the stock LED Maglites are a solid value. They might not be eye-searing, but they'll do the job of lighting up dark spaces and bashing in anything you need 'em to.

You-Tube Video Find of the Day: Sarah Connors Chronicles Trailer

T2 is one of my all-time favorite movies, so I have high-hopes for this show. The trailer leaves me thinking it could go either way, good or bad. I'm not liking the cute teenage girl terminator...but, a Terminator TV show has incredible potential--here's hoping they live up to half of it!

I'll post any updates as I hear them.