Now that Olight is spooling up in PF world...what about that BALDR?

[98z28]

The 12:00 mount is exactly my hope for it, but playing with it I wouldn't mind having one for the house pistol either. The shorter OAL is great on an SBR/Pistol length gun.

Mine has the same tiny bit of wobble on the fore-aft adjustment rails, but I didn't worry much about it until I had a chance to zero. I think at ranges it's viable, it's amount of wobble is less than my amount of wobble, so I think theres a good chance it's a non-issue. I wonder if it could be shimmed slightly in a way that jammed the fore-aft once you got it set right, and that would eliminate the wobble.

That confirms my suspicion that it was a design/execution choice rather than a manufacturing defect. To be fair, I will not get them to the range for another week to see if it's actually a problem. My application is also "inside the house" distances in weird positions that make the dot awkward, so it may not matter. It doesn't give me the warm fuzzies, though.

[RAM Engineer]

I try to minimize my China-supporting these days. I know I can’t eliminate it, but I’ll try to minimize as much as possible.

[CCT125US]

Trying out the Baldr Mini on the P2000 and P2000sk.

Mounted on the P2000 zeroed / cowitnessed to irons at 50ft, I could torque the laser 18 inches left or right. When tension was released it would spring back to within 9 inches. Repeated removal / installation, placed the laser within an inch at the same distance relative to irons.

On the P2000sk, torque shift was about 12 inches, and would spring back within 6 inches or so.

The TLR-2 (light/laser) on the P2000 moved 12 inches under torque shift, and would return to zero at 50 feet.

For me, compared to the TLR1-HL, the throw lever is much easier than the screw, and the switching is fantastic. Rechargeable means I can keep it near peak output and not have to mess with batteries, or write install dates on them.

In general, I am not a fan of a laser on a HD pistol. The laser will likely be used on my suppressed M&P .22c for plinking, and as a teaching aid.

Hope to get some live fire in this weekend.

Obligatory pics:

[LOKNLOD]

That confirms my suspicion that it was a design/execution choice rather than a manufacturing defect. To be fair, I will not get them to the range for another week to see if it's actually a problem. My application is also "inside the house" distances in weird positions that make the dot awkward, so it may not matter. It doesn't give me the warm fuzzies, though.

I went and played with it some after posting and it's...pretty minimal. The fulcrum of any movement is really close to the line of the laser - It's hard for me to imagine it affecting minute-of-face at house distances, although I'm sure it's not ideal for precision work at 100 yards.

That said, I'm also rationalizing it at this point....

this would be a fun cheap light/laser on a .22 pistol!

[Lon]

Still waiting (im)patiently for mine to arrive.

[98z28]

Trying out the Baldr Mini on the P2000 and P2000sk.

Mounted on the P2000 zeroed / cowitnessed to irons at 50ft, I could torque the laser 18 inches left or right. When tension was released it would spring back to within 9 inches. Repeated removal / installation, placed the laser within an inch at the same distance relative to irons.

On the P2000sk, torque shift was about 12 inches, and would spring back within 6 inches or so.

The TLR-2 (light/laser) on the P2000 moved 12 inches under torque shift, and would return to zero at 50 feet.

For me, compared to the TLR1-HL, the throw lever is much easier than the screw, and the switching is fantastic. Rechargeable means I can keep it near peak output and not have to mess with batteries, or write install dates on them.

In general, I am not a fan of a laser on a HD pistol. The laser will likely be used on my suppressed M&P .22c for plinking, and as a teaching aid.

Hope to get some live fire in this weekend.

Obligatory pics:

I'm seeing about the same behavior. I like the idea of a throw-lever mount more than I thought I would given the unit's application, but it's not much use with this much movement. Olight responded and asked for a video demonstrating what I claim to be seeing/hearing. Here is what I sent them: https://youtu.be/chuDGriwpHc
.

[LOKNLOD]

Good video - that seems more extreme than what I’m seeing, but good idea about the vice setup. I’ll see if I can duplicate that or not.

[LOKNLOD]

Okay, heres my attempt to duplicate. At first, I chucked up the G19 in the vice and got a lot of movement. It looked similar to what was already posted.

But, I could clearly see that the Glock rail was flexing slightly. So I chucked it up by just the mount, and tried again. Here's what it got me - not much perceptible side to side movement, but lots of vertical rock:
(excuse the terrible mess in my perpetually reorganizing garage)... This is at the distance of the width of a two-car garage.



Then I played with this a bit, just for demo. Dot, Laser, and light in the hallway. FWIW, the washout on video with the white light is far worse than in person. The camera just doesn't capture it well.

The way the green dot leads you to the red as you align is kind of cool. Also with them aligned at the end of the hallway, you get a fun ranging effect as you lase closer items. Ha.



And yes, I'm a monster shooting in vertical orientation.

[98z28]

Nice, thank you. I didn't think about just putting the mount in the vice and seeing how much movement there is. Good idea.

Sent from my SM-N950U1 using Tapatalk

[ScotchMan]

I ordered one (regular BALDR not the Pro). When it arrived, I removed the tab to expose the battery to the light, and it wouldn't turn on. However, it did get very, very hot, just sitting there. I took the battery out and tried another one. Same result, wouldn't turn on, got very very hot. Like too hot to touch, and kept increasing. I sent it back and got a replacement, that lived on my HK45 for a bit. It wouldn't work with rechargeable 123s under fire (overheated, light would turn off until it cooled down), but seemed ok with normal batteries. However, once I put a can on the gun, the same thing happened even with factory Olight batteries, it would just turn off after 1-2 magazines and need to cool down to turn back on. I sold it.

I think its ok if you use it in the envelope it appears to be designed for, but with two failures on two lights under what I consider reasonable circumstances, I decided no more Olight WMLs for me. Which is a shame because the Valkyrie Pro speaks to my love of rechargeable everything, but I've been burned already.

I do like Olights for carry lights. I think Olight as a company pushes the envelope on the specs and capabilities of their lights. They are riding the bleeding edge of what the power and thermal capabilities of the lights allow for. For example my Warrior X Pro will put out 2250 lumens, for one minute, then it overheats and backs down automatically. Most of their lights have a turbo mode like this, which runs for a minute or two before backing down. My Streamlights and Surefires will run on high indefinitely as long as the battery lasts. Their design philosophy seems to be reliability at the price of more conservative performance numbers. Neither one is right or wrong, just different. I think the Olight philosophy makes sense for a carry light, but not so much for a WML where there are external heat sources that I don't think they considered well enough. I carry a Baton Pro often and I like it. But I don't think Olight is a good choice for WMLs.