I just picked up a SureFire 6P as a companion piece to my Inova X0 and X5 (I wanted a pocketable incandescent with good throw and a beam you can actually use as a companion to my long-running LED based lights…)
dear OG is this light cool!, at just over 5" long and about 5 Oz. in weight, it’s so small and light i forget it’s in my pocket, yet it puts out a beam that’s just as bright (and more usable) as my 20" long, 3 pound 6-D cell Maglite (the link only references the 3/4 cell Mags, the 6 is essentially the same, just longer and a little brighter)
comparing the two side-by-side, the SureFire is just plain cooler, the Mag looks very basic, plain, and utilitarian, not that there’s anything wrong with that, it’s a good, solid flashlight, it’s not trying hard to be fancy, just a rugged, solid light…
the SF, however looks, and feels like a precision-crafted instrument, a fine quality tool, where every little feature has been scrutinized, analyzed, and optomized, it feels like a tiny, metal jewel, little details like the momentary-on reference dimples on the body and tailcap, the checkering that’s just right, a perfect balance between grip and smoothness, the scratch-resistant Pyrex glass lens, it’s hard to put into words the look and feel of a SF light, everything looks and feels just right
when you light this puppy up, and see the blindingly bright, absolutely flawless beam coming from a little 5" long pocket light, you’ll be stunned, the smooth, natural beam of light with a perfectly focused hotspot tapering off to a smooth, even spill light , it’s so much better than the artifacty Mag-Lite beam full of dark spots and anomolies
and at 65 Lumens for the stock P60 bulb (120 Lumens for the P61), it’s bright enough to temporarily blind a potential assailant, be it of the two-legged or four-legged variety
and the fact that all SureFire lights (from the entry level G2 Nitrolon, all the way up to the 10X Dominator) are built to withstand the shock of gunfire is just plain cool
the downside? all this power in a tiny package comes at a cost, battery runtime (or lack thereof), with the P60 bulb, the 6P has about an hour of runtime on a pair of 3V CR123a cells, 20 minutes for the P61, this is one place where the 6D Mag outperforms the SF, total runtime, a 6D mag can run about 9 hours on a set of fresh D-cells, although most of that runtime is below 50% brightness, the Mag starts off bright, but rapidly dims to around 50% brightness, the SF stays above 50% for it’s first hour
long story short, if the excrement hit the air circulating device and i could only choose one incandescent light (and one LED light, my Inova X5), it would be the SureFire 6P
any other Dopers fans of the SureFire lights?
