SoCalDep
Member
Be careful listening to advice from the internet. Information can be good. It can be anecdotal. It can be false... lies... someone trying to troll for attention... it can be misguided and it can be second, third, or eleventh hand information.
What you are about to read could be any of the above, so don’t trust me or anyone else... verify...
I have literally set alarms and woke up at 2am to test various hand-held and weapon-mounted lights from a dead sleep. I’ve compared lights of various luminosity and candela, and I’ve put lights and tactics to the test with both live fire training and force-on-force.
I’ve trained thousands of cops to work in low light and I developed the low light training program for one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the United States.
Here’s some thoughts.
For those who say high lumen lights will mess with night vision. Yes. That’s the point of a light. You don’t need night vision because you are illuminating your threat. If you think you’re going to “light and move” you won’t like that at all when your ability to visually process the situation goes away. It can work... but it’s not ideal. Use of light should be minimal until a threat is located... when they are you should be illuminating and solving the problem. The light doesn’t go off until the problem is solved and if inside your own home, the light and lights probably shouldn’t go off at all.
Will a high lumen light mess with night vision? Yep. So will a relatively low lumen light. I’ve done testing with numerous individuals activating 300 lumen lights into white walls at close range and 500-1000 lumen lights into the same white walls. They all mess with night vision. The difference is minute because luminosity is measured logarithmically. A 500 lumen light is not twice as bright as a 250 lumen light. It’s far less than twice as bright. A 1000 lumen light is far les than twice as bright as a 500 lumen light, which isn’t that much brighter than a 300 lumen light. Since (unless you shine it in a mirror or reflective window, which if you do in your own house you own it...) we’re not looking at the source of the light and our bad guy potentially is, the affect on our night-adapted vision compared to the effectiveness as both a threat identification tool and removing much of the threat’s ability to process information is pretty cool.
Using a hand-held flashlight in conjunction with a handgun isn’t super easy in practice and training let alone a stressful situation. Without intensive training and practice these techniques tend to fall apart and the use of the light becomes inefficient and sometimes detrimental. That said, there are times illumination is needed and a gun shouldn’t be pointed, so I am a firm advocate of having hand-held lights in addition to WMLs. In fact, I have a bunch of hand-held lights all over and a few dedicated tactical ones to supplement the WMLs on my duty and home defense guns.
Ultimately, if you have determined that a WML fits your needs for a home defense handgun, I’d recommend you try a few to see what you like. If you don’t have that opportunity and you want advice from others who may not share your same situation and priorities I’ll give you my opinion and preference.
For home defense I would go with a Surefire X300 Ultra (1000 lumen) coupled with a DG-12 pressure switch or a Streamlight TLR-HL with a contour switch. There are a couple of training points to make sure you’re on your game with the pressure switches, but they make the pistol far more intuitive. There are those who will argue against the pressure switches. I disagree.
I could go on and on for a long time about things but I’ll end this post with a final thought. Home defense should be layered. Alarms, maybe a dog for early warning if nothing else.
If you have layered properly and someone is inside your home you have a really big problem even if you have an arsenal in your room. If you watch videos of home invasions that everyone thinks they’re defending themselves against, it comes fast and violent. You’re as likely to be fighting from your bed as anything else... unless you’re a crook too and were expecting it as in many home invasions. You are way less likely to “search” and more likely to be in immediate “fight” or in a barricade situation.
People might post videos of people fighting off home invaders. It happens. It’s rare. Most of the time they (bad guys) plan to hit at an unexpected time and the video doesn’t get posted on the news because it’s evidence in the murder investigation into the person who was killed by the invaders.
There’s lots to think through and unpack, but a constant is what Will Petty says... “If I can see it I can solve it”. Light does that. Bright light does it better. A light that activates under stress without having to think about it is best.
What you are about to read could be any of the above, so don’t trust me or anyone else... verify...
I have literally set alarms and woke up at 2am to test various hand-held and weapon-mounted lights from a dead sleep. I’ve compared lights of various luminosity and candela, and I’ve put lights and tactics to the test with both live fire training and force-on-force.
I’ve trained thousands of cops to work in low light and I developed the low light training program for one of the largest law enforcement agencies in the United States.
Here’s some thoughts.
For those who say high lumen lights will mess with night vision. Yes. That’s the point of a light. You don’t need night vision because you are illuminating your threat. If you think you’re going to “light and move” you won’t like that at all when your ability to visually process the situation goes away. It can work... but it’s not ideal. Use of light should be minimal until a threat is located... when they are you should be illuminating and solving the problem. The light doesn’t go off until the problem is solved and if inside your own home, the light and lights probably shouldn’t go off at all.
Will a high lumen light mess with night vision? Yep. So will a relatively low lumen light. I’ve done testing with numerous individuals activating 300 lumen lights into white walls at close range and 500-1000 lumen lights into the same white walls. They all mess with night vision. The difference is minute because luminosity is measured logarithmically. A 500 lumen light is not twice as bright as a 250 lumen light. It’s far less than twice as bright. A 1000 lumen light is far les than twice as bright as a 500 lumen light, which isn’t that much brighter than a 300 lumen light. Since (unless you shine it in a mirror or reflective window, which if you do in your own house you own it...) we’re not looking at the source of the light and our bad guy potentially is, the affect on our night-adapted vision compared to the effectiveness as both a threat identification tool and removing much of the threat’s ability to process information is pretty cool.
Using a hand-held flashlight in conjunction with a handgun isn’t super easy in practice and training let alone a stressful situation. Without intensive training and practice these techniques tend to fall apart and the use of the light becomes inefficient and sometimes detrimental. That said, there are times illumination is needed and a gun shouldn’t be pointed, so I am a firm advocate of having hand-held lights in addition to WMLs. In fact, I have a bunch of hand-held lights all over and a few dedicated tactical ones to supplement the WMLs on my duty and home defense guns.
Ultimately, if you have determined that a WML fits your needs for a home defense handgun, I’d recommend you try a few to see what you like. If you don’t have that opportunity and you want advice from others who may not share your same situation and priorities I’ll give you my opinion and preference.
For home defense I would go with a Surefire X300 Ultra (1000 lumen) coupled with a DG-12 pressure switch or a Streamlight TLR-HL with a contour switch. There are a couple of training points to make sure you’re on your game with the pressure switches, but they make the pistol far more intuitive. There are those who will argue against the pressure switches. I disagree.
I could go on and on for a long time about things but I’ll end this post with a final thought. Home defense should be layered. Alarms, maybe a dog for early warning if nothing else.
If you have layered properly and someone is inside your home you have a really big problem even if you have an arsenal in your room. If you watch videos of home invasions that everyone thinks they’re defending themselves against, it comes fast and violent. You’re as likely to be fighting from your bed as anything else... unless you’re a crook too and were expecting it as in many home invasions. You are way less likely to “search” and more likely to be in immediate “fight” or in a barricade situation.
People might post videos of people fighting off home invaders. It happens. It’s rare. Most of the time they (bad guys) plan to hit at an unexpected time and the video doesn’t get posted on the news because it’s evidence in the murder investigation into the person who was killed by the invaders.
There’s lots to think through and unpack, but a constant is what Will Petty says... “If I can see it I can solve it”. Light does that. Bright light does it better. A light that activates under stress without having to think about it is best.
