When will the CR123 die (or when can we kill it)?

[Clusterfrack]

It would be great to start a list of "CR123-only" tactical lights that actually work with 16340 rechargeables.

Surefire Saint Minimus: YES
TLR7: ???

[ST911]

I OCD'ed my battery consumption awhile back and found that I wasn't using as many 123s or spending as much as I thought. When I put new batts in a 123-device, I sharpie the installation date on the battery and that informs my buying and rotation habits. The batt in my EDCL1-T was installed 11/15/19, so I'm using less than a battery a month in EDC application. If replacing proactively, I'll rotate them down to a spare light. I did swap some utility lights to rechargeable models.

[M2CattleCo]

I have several of these and love them. I can confirm that the tan goes hi-lo and the black goes lo-hi, although I always forget that about the black one.

I do find them a little small for house lights, and they also lack the throw that I like to have in our large-ish yard and down the road.


And the what for around The house and for the family/kids?

Whatever they come up with. Remotes and toys aren't any of my concern.

[Blades]

I guess, rambling aside (TLDR?), I'm looking for a rechargeable, ~250-300 lumen, preferably two-mode, LED light that's got two basic modes. Yellow or other hi-viz and polymer body preferred.

ASP Poly DF? It's not yellow. ASP Tungsten DF is aluminum but rechargeable.

[fatdog]

About 3 years ago I switched to all rechargeable CR123's (Enegitech, Nitcore, Keenstone, Eastshine) or 18650's (Eastshine and Nitecore) where they fit, all work great and feed the CR123 based lights more than adequately. I have not purchased another disposable CR123 since. They work in 1 cell up through 4 cell lights just fine and cycle through the chargers in about the same time as a AA or AAA NiMH rechargeable (which have 100% replaced all alkaline batteries in my electronics). I don't know how many charging cycles they are good for since only a few of mine have died, but some have clearly lasted 3 years and many dozens of cycles.

I found all of my surefire lights (which are 5 years old or older) need the rechargeable CR123 cells because the 18650's won't fit, but my newer lights, all Klarus XT series in my case, are just fine with the 18650's.

My only regret is the decades I wasted money on disposable CR123's before switching.

[RevolverRob]

All of my pocket lights are AA/AAA or 14500 rechargeable (AA form-factor). Which means only weapon lights are 123s at this point. So a single box of Surefires usually lasts...2-years or so? Put I am I thinking of adding two PolyTac 90s in each car...so I guess that would be an extra 6-batteries...Meaning I might need a new box every...12 months?

For AA/AAA I am "lazy" I just buy Energizer Alkalines from Costco. I don't find the lithium AA/AAAs to be worth the squeeze in terms of battery life and the Alkalines usually go dead quick enough that I don't worry about leakage.

[NH Shooter]

PolyTacs (and just about any other LED flashlight that runs on a pair of CR123A batteries) work just fine with 16650 rechargeable Li-ion cells. I also saw no reduction in output with my screaming yellow 275-lumen PolyTac.

[Navin Johnson]

I usually buy a $20 box of Surefire 123's every year and have stopped because I don't use them all. I have 5-7 lights that use them.

I think it is a gas verses diesel thing. People will pay the extra 10k for a diesel to get 3-4 mpg real world better milage. In other words even though 123's do cost some money for most users it makes very little difference.

My utility lights are rechargeable....side kick and micro stream. The Stiletto pro should be good but expensive.

Fore emergency or tactical use one should really only use primaries. They hold charge longer (when not in use), less fragile, and don't just shut off like many rechargeables do (they taper so you know they are getting low).

18650's will generally give you longer (and some times higher) run times than two 123's. 16650's generally give shorter runtimes ( two vs two 123's).

Re useable batteries are not toys. Buy good quality and follow directions.

And yes I do very much like foolproof CR123 batteries.

[rob_s]

Well, in the short term I have a new box of Surefire CR123s arriving today. I'm going to go the "write the date" route and see if my assessment of the drain (no pun intended) on the battery stock is accurate or not.

We had some folks over for NYE and the next morning I found two of my CR123 lights sitting out on the lawn, dead. Pissed me off, but then I thought "well, it was a party, and someone obviously had fun or fulfilled some task with this, and these batteries may well have been in here since 2017 anyway" and thought of this thread and decided status quo is the correct solution for now.

I'm kind of OCD about standardizing things. I hate the fiddle-fuck that comes from non-standardization. I've given away entire tool sets because they were a mish-mash of brands just to buy a whole new set of an identical brand. I just find it easier in the long run. So, pending the results of the CR123 date test, I'm still going to likely update all of the lights to one model, maybe two, and shelve/bin/gift what we have now. Just not anytime soon...

[BCA]

Anyone have a good recommendation for a 18650 rechargeable. Im using a 2 cell CR123A Surefire and there are so many options. Just trying to be safe regarding batteries.

edit:after some more research, it seems that 18650 are too wide for the body I am using.