Tactical flashlight review by Jim Moraline

Tactical flashlight, does that ring a bell?

If in your head, it's the little keychain light, you just need to do an about-face, for the others, I'm going to explain how I choose.

The tactical flashlight is one of the essentials.

Why?

Who pulls out their gun?

I mean apart from special forces and guys on the shooting range…

So, the flashlight on the assault rifle becomes even more important since that's the weapon being used.

Besides that, it can even serve civilians as a means of self-defense.

Because yeah, walking around with a telescopic baton or a knife isn't really legal…

While a cute little flashlight that will serve to give a potential attacker a face-lift, there, that's good!

Well already, choosing the brand, we can't really go wrong, but here are a few nice ones:

- Nitecore
- Fenix
- Olight
- Surefire

Unless you have a minimum wage to put into a flashlight, forget Surefire… The quality is there, but so is the price!

Nitecore is nice without being exceptional.

Fenix has good value for money, the flashlights are quite small, to be mounted on a weapon, it's the best - the TK16 for example.

Olight models are a bit bigger, which is less interesting for a weapon, but they really pack a punch for self-defense.

Good now, we're going to see in detail what you need to check when buying a tactical flashlight:

• The size

I just talked about it, there's no point having something the size of a Maglite… We're doing combat, the weapon shouldn't weigh 5 kg more or be bulky.

• The battery life

Here are two durations to consider:

1. Battery life in use, so it doesn't die after 10 minutes
2. The lifespan, if we don't use the flashlight, so we don't end up looking like fools if it stops working two months later.

• The power

The point of a flashlight is to blind the enemy. Combat or self-defense… If your thing has the intensity of an energy-saving bulb, you risk getting riddled with holes.

Basically, from 1000 lumens, you can blind a guy. If you know how to aim…

Knowing that there are flashlights with 100,000 lumens…

But hey I don't see the point of having the sun in your pocket. If you accidentally turn it on, you catch fire.

• The material

Most flashlights have disgusting rubber push buttons that disintegrate on their own... Watch out

Aluminum is better.

• The modes

What we want is a high mode, a low mode and why not a strobe mode. But easy! No need to have nightclub vibes by doing codes worthy of a PlayStation cheat code…

Rugged guys, rugged.

• Resistance

Depending on what you want to do with it… If you're a combat swimmer, well we take an amphibious one, right!

• The batteries

We're going to avoid things that can only be found on full moon evenings after dancing a jig while drinking upside down…

Simple guys, simple.

• The design

When the end of a flashlight is serrated, it's not to look pretty, it's super useful for breaking windows… Or mouths…

For grip, a grooved body is much more pleasant.

In general, buying cheap junk is always a bad idea, so you need to budget at least 100 - 150 bucks to have decent gear.

There you go, you know everything.

 
Dismiss.

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