2019: Higher Lumens and Still All Surefire Handheld Lights Seem to Suck
I was thrilled to see Surefire release new lights with higher lumens after all these years of stagnation. I haven't been paying much attention to their lineup the last couple years and am now analyzing what to buy and everything seems to suck. Although it's possible they are amazing and I just don't know what's good. Please enlighten me on handheld lights because maybe there's a current SF model I will buy and love.
Here's what I think I want:
Either an always high super tactical light that gives 400+ lumens on one CR123 / 1000+ lumens on two CR123s
OR If I do have a dual mode low/high light, then one of two systems seems good:
Press in on the tail cap a little bit and get a little bit of light. Press more on the tailcap get a lot of light. This means under stress, I push hard and I get the full light. Under not stress, I can think about what I'm doing and push gentler, and even if I accidentally push too hard, it's "not stress" so it doesn't matter. I want the system to FAIL high, not low.
OR the other method I would allow is a twist of the front lens area to switch between high and low. So I can carry it around on high all the time. This assumes the twist is tight enough to not disengage by accident.
Here's what Surefire thinks I want:
Push in one time and get high, push in a second time within 2 seconds and it turns into low. Okay, but what if I just want to flash a momentary bright light, let it turn off for a second, and re-flash another momentary bright light, as in how you would actually do things in a Craig AMIS world? Well, you can't do that, I guess because the light will think you want low mode on the second press.
Or some other weird series of presses on the tailcap to do the thing. No thanks.
That's not to say that Surefire doesn't offer some models that do what I think I want, but each has problems:
The Tactician has dual mode output with a twist head. But the tailcap doesn't support push deep for constant on. You have to twist the tailcap for constant on. I like the push deep for constant on that exists on my SF Scout lights. I think push deep for constant is superior than twist for constant, because you can push deep with one hand. And if you intended to do momentary on but FAIL, you fail to constant on, but you can press again to undo your failure.
The Fury Intellibeam... okay I am not smart enough to understand how it works. There's some auto-adjustment happening which sounds like a failure waiting to happen. I want to tell the light what output I want, not the other away around.
The E2D Defender... great! High output 1000 lumens on 2 cells. Seems like a nice light. Only problem is the ridiciulous crenelated bezel. So every time I take it to the airport will be a coin flip if TSA wants to take it away. And if NYPD or another overzealous agency sees it, it could mean arrest. For the benefit of what? If I pop someone in the face with the crenelated bezel is that going to be more effective than the non crenelated bezel? Will the bad guy even notice right away or will it take 20 seconds before he starts bleeding and by then the fight is already over, one way or another. And now I have to deal with his high vascular facial blood getting all over me and worry about HIV. Enormous potential downsides, virtually no upsides. It looks cool on Instagram, okay.
Then you get to stuff that seems decent like the G2Z and Aviator, but both have anemic light outputs for the battery capacity. I feel like I'm buying 4 year old light technology at full price. The G2Z is 20% less powerful than it should be for being dual cell and the Aviator is nearly half as powerful as it should be.
I reiterate that maybe my desires in what I think I want in a light are wrong. I am open to hearing that and with a consensus of several posters, I will buy a light that I wouldn't otherwise buy and try it out.
