Weapon light advice

gallen270 said:
I’ve gotta disagree, I’ve got surefires, streamlights and Olights. Gun lights and handhelds in both (I think I have a problem, or obsession but that’s another thread topic)

If the OP was using the gun professionally, absolutely buy the best, but not everyone has an agency paying for it, or, enough bank to drop a weeks wages on a surefire. An olight is better than no light, and a budget friendly option for 99.9% of shooters. You push the button, it turns on, it’s bright, it’s reliable.

Most carpenters like estwing, the average homeowner can get by with mastercraft. They both hammer nails just fine.
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Well, you basically described a toy by excluding professional use.

And if you're making $420 a week you probably shouldn't be buying a pistol light. You can get a Streamlight TLR-1HL for $220, that makes buying an Olight absurd imo.
 
I've only bought 2 small Olight weapon lights and 1 belt light, so my experience isn't vast. But they're by far the best lights I've owned. Mag-lites sucked. So did a bunch of other flashlights I've bought in the last 4 decades, including a bunch of different brands of bicycle lights and a handful of household flashlights. Nothing I've had before Olights has performed nearly so well, nor has anything offered such easy/quick charging via short USB cables with magnetic attachment, which makes it so painless charging things. Oh, and I bought a little 'moon' light from Olight as well, for camping. Loved it, but passed it along to my stepdaughter as she goes camping much more frequently.

Calling these things 'toys' seems rather odd. But it aligns with some of the social media attacks I've seen against Olight products, which are frankly rude in general, often to the point of libellous. Claims that they'll blow up and kill you for instance - only, after searching for the source of that 'urban legend' I found that 1 guy died because he put an Olight in his mouth, a flashlight into which he had put an incompatible third-party battery. The fool was killed by a cheap battery, not by anything Olight did incorrectly, yet on Reddit and elsewhere the nonsensical story persists.

I bought Olight products on the recommendation of a couple of friends who have many more than I do, for a lot longer, and they love the things. 100% reliable so far for every one of them.
 
lone-wolf said:
https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/2022/Olight-Ecommerce-Technology-Recalls-Flashlights-Due-to-Burn-Hazard
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Oh wow, thank you, I had no idea. Found the recall link at the bottom of the page on Olight's Canadian site (no point trying to register a claim on the .com, has to be on the .ca site) and took a picture of the flashlight with serial number, screenshot from my order history of the transaction, and in 4 minutes I was done. They'll send shipping info within a week, and say to ship the empty flashlight, no battery. I get a very similar Olight flashlight with slightly better illumination specs, plus a $20 store credit, almost 2 years after buying what has been an excellent flashlight thus far. I'll miss it... but the Mini 2 looks fine.
 
GerardSamija said:
Oh wow, thank you, I had no idea. Found the recall link at the bottom of the page on Olight's Canadian site (no point trying to register a claim on the .com, has to be on the .ca site) and took a picture of the flashlight with serial number, screenshot from my order history of the transaction, and in 4 minutes I was done. They'll send shipping info within a week, and say to ship the empty flashlight, no battery. I get a very similar Olight flashlight with slightly better illumination specs, plus a $20 store credit, almost 2 years after buying what has been an excellent flashlight thus far. I'll miss it... but the Mini 2 looks fine.
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Yeah I had to disable the proximity sensor to make the thing even remotely usable. The glass over the lense is nice, olights plastic lenses are on the way to destination f@cked if your not in an office/desk job.
 
I was curious to see how durable to recoil some dirt cheap Crappy Tire flashlights were so I put them on some short 12g shotguns I hunt with, so they see actual use. Gotta be 7-8 years now and they’re still working fine, not the brightest as they’re 200-250 lumens but plenty bright inside the house or on the farm if there’s some animal around at night. I think the two pack was $20-25, they fit in a 1” weaver ring and have low/high/strobe settings.

Sometimes the cheap stuff works quite well, have had a pl-2 mini on a pistol and a 12g that sees use for over a year now. So far so good, are they inexpensive? You betcha, do they fill the need I have for a WML yup. If I need something more heavy duty I’ll buy accordingly, I like testing the ghetto versions sometimes and let’s be honest they do the job that the average civilian is looking for them to do.

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OP here. I'm still quite pleased with my Odin Mini. I've put maybe 500 rounds through the carbine without any issues, LARPed around my house with the light a bunch and I haven't had to charge it yet nor have I noticed the lumen step-down.

If it catches on fire I'll be sure to post here and let y'all know...
 
Update: Odin Mini has not exploded yet. After 10 months and 1500 rounds with occasional light use I finally had to charge the light for the first time and it's back to full brightness. Found out that the light has a cool vibration feature that alerts you when it gets to around 10 minutes of light left before it totally dies.

I do think my particular light has a small design defect in the interface between the light body and the male part of the mount. The mount is held to my light body with two tiny socket head cap screws, and I found that these did eventually come loose and allow the light to wiggle, even though they had some thread locker on them. The socket heads are very small and seem to be an alloy so I could see stripping them if I wasn't careful. I would have preferred a larger screw, and if I ever do strip these I will drill them out, retap the body for a coarser thread, and replace with stainless hardware.

I found a review of the Odin Mini with an image of the screws I am talking about, and in the review photos the screws appear to be bigger than the ones in my light, so perhaps the company released an updated model after I bought mine to deal with the wiggle issue:

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I have been very happy with the Odin Mini and I would recommend it for similar use cases to mine, but I would encourage buyers to try to get the updated model if possible to minimize the wiggle issue I have had.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
 
Ganderite said:
A light might seem like a tacticool toy - until you need it. When your young dog is fighting with a big racoon and you have to see everything clearly to get a good shot, a light is a must. And a laser is great.

I live in the country and the racoons come out of the corn fields and think it is great sport to rip the siding off the house. Got 21 of them, so far.
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We're on an acreage too. 3 AC lots so neighbors houses are 70 or 100m away.

We're fenced and when the dogs go out at night, if there's a wildlife issue I've selected the 9mm PCC with an 800 lumen PD35 on the little front rail. Optic is a TRS25. Possible distance will be 25m or closer. But 25m rules out the shotguns.
 
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