LED Single Battery Flashlights

Here's another important video from the Personal Defense Network. Hello, I'd like to talk about my favorite small, everyday carry flashlights. A lot has changed since my book, "Fight at Night" came out during the late 90s. The main thing is LEDs have replaced incandescent lamps as the emitter of choice. And that's allowed the lights to get smaller and have a longer run time, and just get generally more capable.

Back in the late 90s, probably a lot of you were carrying a SureFire 6P, that had an incandescent lamp with a light output level of 65 lumens, and a run time of normally one hour. Now, it's possible to have lights that are smaller, brighter, and generally more reliable. One of the main things that is an advantage with an LED is it can't burn out and it can't break. It also lets you get two light levels out of the same LED. My current everyday carry light is this SureFire L1.

I think the latest model is called and LX1. It takes one, 123 battery, as opposed to the two batteries of a 6P, so it's cheaper to operate just from that standpoint. But it gets better. This light is brighter. This light is 80 lumens instead of 65.

80 lumens for 2.5 hours and it's also got a low beam that will run for up to 16 hours. It's also smaller, has a pocket clip. So, this is a lot more capable than the 6P that everybody seemed to be quite happy with in the late 90s. This has a deadman-type switch. It's called a deadman switch because if you're holding it down and you get killed it's gonna go off.

The advantage of that is, you have absolute control over the light with gross motor skills. Mashed down you get light, release and it goes off. This particular switch is a two stage switch. Push a little, get a little, push a lot, get a lot. For those of you that prefer a click on switch, the E1B Backup is probably what you'd like.

Again, it's two levels of light. First click gives you, now the latest one, is as I recall, 100 lumens. Second click you get the lower administrative level of light. Again, it has a pocket clip. This is about the smallest light SureFire makes and with one battery you're getting more capability than you used to get with two.

And again, the primary advantage to an LED, it's not gonna burn out, and it's not gonna break. Either of these two lights will serve you quite well as either an everyday carry light for concealed carry, or for the armed professionals out there as a backup to a larger light. Check out more videos just like this one at the Personal Defense Network.