This was my first light from the Surefire company. What a light to start with! This is without question the brightest and whitest LED light that I own.

Features

Light is supplied fitted with 2 off surefire 123A batteries. (Good job as well for all that money!)

Pushbutton operated tail cap switch with momentary push for on, or push and click for stay on then push and click again to turn off. The tail switch can also be rotated to turn the switch off altogether to prevent inadvertent operation. This is important as this light gets hot when in
use. If it turned on your pocket you would soon know about it!

The light source is a 5 Watt Luxeon LED. This is basically four 1 Watt Luxeons stuck together on the same chip with better heat sinking to allow the greater output. The output is quite amazing, even more so if you have never seen a LED light. We compared it to a similar sized 2AA
maglight and the difference is as much between a candle and a car headlight!

The beam given off by the light is very smooth and even in pattern with a hotspot in the centre. It makes a good area light as the beam is so broad. As for a light for walking the dog at night or trekking in the wilderness it may very well be too bright! This is because it will destroy your night vision due to the reflected light from the surroundings. This may be a good thing in certain situations. The light could be used as a defensive weapon to temporarily disorientate a potential attacker and give the user time to get away!

The power from the batteries is controlled by power regulation electronics. This makes it different from most incandescent or LED lights in that the light output is not effected by the battery voltage
dropping as they become discharged. What it does is gives a constant voltage to the Luxeon LED at the expense of drawing slightly more current from the battery. So you get a shorter runtime on the light but constant light output for the whole time. On a normal non regulated light the light output drops as the batteries discharge so when half empty the light may only give of half the light output that it did when the batteries were new. Once the L4 batteries drop to a low enough
level the regulation circuit can no longer function at this point the light will still function but at a much lower light output. Because of a feature of LED's which means they become more efficient at lower voltage / current levels, this now means that the light will work at
this lower level of output for some considerable time.

The light is extremely well made with each part CNC machined from sold aluminium bar. Each part is then type III hard anodised. This gives a very durable and hard wearing finish. Surefire claim you can saw through lesser quality lights with the knurling on the body of the
light. (Not tried this. Not when it cost this much money!) If I want a saw I'll buy one. Each part is then assembled using o-rings or washers to seal the light against moisture ingress. On my light some of these washers were missing. This is probably because it was one of the first 200 made and it got overlooked in production. Not to worry one quick email to Surefire and replacement o-rings are on the way ;-) . I am sure that all future lights will be sorted. The body of the light has a
spring steel pocket clip which has also got a lanyard attachment point.

The batteries this light uses are CR123A Lithium. This means that from an average UK shop they are expensive. To buy batteries this way would make this light ridiculously expensive to run. The best way to buy stuff is off the net, either from the US or the UK. I will list several
suppliers at the end of this article. Surefire market their own batteries and they are excellent value, but shipping them from the US to the UK can be expensive.

Ok, now hopefully your interested where can you get one?

UK Distributor :- www.edgar-brothers.co.uk

US Dealers

www.meridiantactical.com

UK Cheap 123A Batteries

www.7dayshop.com