New Light on High-End Flashlights

November 9th, 2006

With days getting shorter, flashlights get more use, especially in a combat zone. The Hobbit Hole has given away a number of Pelican and SureFire xenon and LED lights to the troops. These are high-quality lights, but are rather basic in design. This was done to keep our costs down.

While we won’t be giving away any more flashlights, some new, and more expensive, lights have come on the market. If you have the spare change, these new lights offer some very advanced features, but at an increased price. But these are lifetime investments, and are great to hint at for a Christmas present for yourself.

The picture shows, from the top, our standard Hobbit Hole folding knife, and the Pelican xenon light, both included to give an idea of size. Next is a light that just recently appeared on the market, the “Lightsaver”. At the bottom is the Blackhawk “Gladius”. If the Pelican is a Chevrolet, the Lightsaver is a BMW, and the Gladius is a Rolls Royce, and priced accordingly.

I’ll mention the Gladius first, because with a street price of $180, there’s lots of great features, if price is no object. Since price is an object to all of us, I’ll just metion the features, and go on to the surprising Lightsaver.

The Gladius features heavy-duty aluminum construction, and the one-inch main body diameter allows it to be used in a weapons mount. It, and all the other lights shown, use two CR123 lithium batteries. The end cap has both a pushbutton, and a control ring. The four settings on the ring include lockout, momentary on/off, and a dimmer position, where holding the button lowers the LED from full brightness to very dim. It’s a nice feature.

The fourth position is the most important one for operations such as checkpoints. It’s a seven-per-second strobe. When your eyes are completely adapted to the dark, being hit by this bright strobe brings several seconds of disorientation and confusion. Those seconds could be vital to you, especially at checkpoints and vehicle stops at night.

The brand-new Lightsaver, (best price I’ve seen so far, $79) is another LED with heavy duty aluminum construction. It also has a one-inch body, so it can fit in a flashlight mount. There is even a remote “tape” switch for it, but at $50 it adds considerably to the cost.

Again, its main purpose is not to mount on a weapon, but to be used in the hand. The pushbutton turns the light on with one push, and off with the second. However, if you hold down the button, you get the same seven-per-second strobe flash as the Gladius.

These are the first two pocket LED flashlights with strobe capability I’ve seen, and the Lightsaver costs less than half of what the Gladius does. $80 is still a pretty steep price, but it’s in line with other high-quality aluminum LED flashlights.

Both of these lights also have serial numbers, so if your fancy flashlight “wanders away”, you stand a better chance of recovering it.

I wish our military could give away flashlights like these to everyone who goes outside the wire after dark. I wish the Hobbit Hole could give these away for the asking. That’s not to be, in either case.

Instead, I just want to call attention to these new high-end flashlights so individual troops are aware of their existence, and can purchase these worthwhile items if funds allow. They will give a long lifetime of service.

Entry Filed under: General, Troop support, Troop Tech