Any good flashlights out there?

[6string]

Flashlights have been a real headache lately.
I used to have Maglites. Reliable, but the incandescent bulbs were never that bright and the light beam is fairly unfocused.
Then, I somehow ended up with a bunch of Harbor Freight flashlights. All unreliable junk! Switches break, intermittent contacts, etc.
Most recently, I've been using Coast products, mostly a G32.
Nice bright light and the lens provides sharp, crisp spotlight-like focused beam. They eat up batteries, but I can live with that. The big problem is they break if you just look at them funny. So far, Coast has been good about honoring their Lifetime warranty. But, they might get tired of me as I've just submitted my third claim in less than a year! Once for a broken switch, once for seized threads on the battery access, and now one just stopped working. I was at the range cleaning up, it was getting dark. Then, nothing. There's no power out there, so luckily I had a backup. Otherwise, I'd have been in a real pickle.

So, do I have to spend $200+ on a Surefire or similar?

 

[oldbrownhat]

Coast are pretty good, but I'd look at Fenix. Made you-know-where but very well made, rechargeable and a very wide range of lights of all kinds. I have several and love 'em.

 

[Fishinfool]

You could spend $200 - But you don't have to. Fenix, Olight, Streamlight all make rechargeable LED flashlights well under $100 that are well made and will last. Right now, my "daily carry" is an Olight Warrior Mini. The rechargeable feature is a big deal with the price of throw away batteries. For an all around flashlight, I like an activation button on both the tail cap and on the body.

And don't get caught up in the hunt for more "Lumens". Most all of my handheld flashlights are 1000 lumen, or less, most much less, and are all you need short of specialized use. Good lens & reflector design are more important. Higher lumens also suck down battery life.

Larry

 

[Rudi]

I have a Polytac, STREAMLIGHT.com. Takes the 1-2-3 battery. Very bright and tough.

 

[Krogen]

LED flashlights are evolving. Now they blow the doors off the old Maglights. I carry a miniature Olight i1R2 in my pocket. It doesn't last long, but it's bright and serves my short-term needs. It's there when needed.

A buddy just gave me a Nebo Redline Flex. So far, so good. Small enough to carry with it's pocket clip and it looks to be well made and durable. Should run longer than the tiny Olight. Time will tell if it's durable.

Both of these are rechargeable with a micro USB cable. The Nebo has a removable Li Ion battery that could be replaced with an alkaline if desired. I see no reason for that.

 

[6string]

Hey Guys,
Thanks for the recommendations.
I hadn't given the rechargeable feature much thought, but it seems to be viewed quite positively.
A few brand names mentioned have popped up in my searches, but a couple are new to me.

By the way, have y'all ever noticed how hard it is the find factual info using a search engine? Mostly, you just get cleverly disguised ads or some loudmouth on you-tube trying to mug up to the camera.

Bottom line: I appreciate your thoughts and the effort you make to share them.
Hope y'all are off to a Happy New Year!

 

[oldbrownhat]

...A buddy just gave me a Nebo Redline Flex. So far, so good. Small enough to carry with it's pocket clip and it looks to be well made and durable. Should run longer than the tiny Olight. Time will tell if it's durable.
...

I've only had one Nebo, a tubular COB worklight. It was sort of OK, but not durable, unfortunately.

@Finshinfool: Agreed about the lust for lumens. For general poking around EDC, 500 Lumens is enough. The Fenix PD25R has a max. output of 800 . I have a similar predecessor to it with about 900 and I rarely fire it full up, and I'm on rural property.

One little Fenix light I find really handy is the LD15R, a palm-sized light with a right-angle lamp and a magnetic base

 

[S&W629]

There are led conversions kits for Maglite....I have several Streamlite...rechargeables........but none of them make a fine club like a four or six cell Maglite....

 

[oldbrownhat]

...but none of them make a fine club like a four or six cell Maglite....

True. Nothing says "STREET CRED" like a big old Maglite!

 

[Ruger 13]

II swear by SUREFIRE

 

[max]

I have several of these and they have 2 settings and can use 2 kinds of batteries. [ame]https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01G75P1SC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1[/ame]

 

[Spurdann]

Go rechargeable and you will never look back, I am a fan of Olight, Streamlight, and Fenix. I agree that lumens is a nice selling point but yep 500 lumens Is about right 90% of the time.

 

[Alpo]

I'm going to go in the other direction.


[ame]https://www.amazon.com/Hatori-Flashlight-Battery-Powered-Emergency-Flashlights/dp/B072JGQ9R5?pd_rd_w=UHG2V&content-id=amzn1.sym.fea327c4-5fbe-469f-b9dd-c809442d925d&pf_rd_p=fea327c4-5fbe-469f-b9dd-c809442d925d&pf_rd_r=QWZ3B9DT1X8BEQ74WXWB&pd_rd_wg=XiNVN&pd_rd_r=abbcd8b8-ff46-44c1-ac85-65df8d69802c&pd_rd_i=B072JGQ9R5&psc=1&ref_=pd_basp_bia_rpt_ba_s_2_sc[/ame]


These flashlights are about 3 inches long, take one aaa battery, have a single lighting mode, and cost five bucks. They don't have a focusable beam. All they do is come on and off.


I have one clipped in the pocket of every coat I have.


They are just fine, simple, flashlights. Standing in the middle of the street I can read the house number on the door, so that puts out a usable beam 40 or so feet.


I've got some mag lights. They've all had batteries dump in them. It gets annoying when your battery decides to dump and ruin the $30 flashlight.

 

[Bugkiller99]

My wife says I need to get into a 12 step program for flashlights.

I use Olights. I like rechargeable lights, and the Olights are esp easy to recharge. Some can also be run on regular batteries, so that’s a plus if you somewhere where recharging is not an option.

 

[ZGrand]

Olight makes some nice units.

 

[Grayfox]

I've done well with Streamlight products for many years. There's a Microstream in my pocket right now. I carried a Stylus in my shirt pocket at work for many years.

Maybe I'm a little paranoid, but the thing about rechargeables is that in a major event with power outages where you gonna recharge them at? Batteries are everywhere.

 

[glowe]

I have a few LED lights, and the best one for me is NEBCO Tredliine Blast 1400 lm. Measures 7" long and takes batteries that last for 120 hours of use and is made of turned aluminium. The light also has a zoom feature. Batteries are not a big deal and I find they are just right for me plus one can carry extras. Bought mine at a local gun shop, but see that Ace Hardware also sells them online.

I have rechargeable LED lights as well, but they do not last near as long and take forever to charge. If in the middle of a project or in the woods, I can change batteries in a flash, but there are not too many trees with an electrical outlet or USB port.

 

[vt_shooter]

Flashlights just keep getting better and better. I just bought a Fenix HT30R flashlight, it's an "LEP" flashlight, which stands for Laser Excited Phosphor. They way they work is they have an internal laser that is projected onto a phosphor (a phosphor is a compound that emits light when energy is applied to it, similar principle as a fluorescent light bulb), and that light from the phosphor is then aimed through a lens and exits the flashlight. LEP flashlights typically have *very* tight and bright light beams with very little spill or flood effect. LEP's are not good for lighting a wide area, but they're spectacular for putting ton of light just on an object a distance away, say within a couple hundred yards. LEP's essentially are cool toys without a lot of practical application, but very fun to play with. The light comes with a warning not to aim it at a person, definitely not a kid's toy. The regular price for this flashlight is $280, but now and then Fenix has a 20% off sales, and so I got one. Very cool light if you can spring for a $225 toy. Other companies besides Fenix make LEP flashlights too, but most of them are pretty expensive.

 

[Farmer17]

No way I'm spending over 40 bucks on a dang flashlight and for nearly a decade I've bought the inexpensive lights from Amazon or the internet that take rechargeable 18650 batteries. I have a couple lights that take four of those batteries and they are over 2500 lumens which is about like a cigarette lighter spot light for you vehicle. I have 7 or 8 small $25 lights that take one battery and they are as bright as a $150 Surefire one is even mounted on my AR. If I was in LE I might buy a high dollar weapon light but for hunting mine works great and I think I only paid about $30 for a 16 pack of the 18650 rechargeable batteries and over a ten year period only a few of the batteries fail to be rechargeable.

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

NEBO and Streamlight are two that come to mind and don't break the bank