I've been meaning to post this one up for a while, but only finally had a chance to take the requisite photos. This is the pictorial thread of how I went about putting lights and lasers on all my "modern semi-auto non-long-range" rifles. I don't show every single gun, but I tried to take enough pictures to illustrate my thought process and some options I tried. I am not a combat vet or a pro, so take whatever grain of salt you feel like, and feel free to leave constructive comments. Sorry that the photos suck, I don't have a good picture-taking environment.
My primary goal was cost/performance. It is stupidly easy to say "just put the latest Surefire/Elzetta on it". There is some truth to that, but on the other hand, if you've got a bunch of rifles, that's a rather cost prohibitive route to go. I wanted to explore what kind of mileage I could get out of older but combat-tested lights.
First, here's what I started this project with (ie, what I already owned):
That's an old-style Surefire G3 with Xenon bulb, a Streamlight TLR-2 light/laser with some sort of LED, and an original generation Inforce WML. All of these are respectable lights, albeit with their own quirks.
The Inforce WML went on my Saiga 12 at 3PM, on my Chaos tri-rail:
I was more of a fan of this light in the past than I am now; I like strobe (even if it has gone out of style) and having a constant-on option, but the user interface is just too complicated for what I'd want on a gun. I also don't particularly like how momentary on requires you to hold down for more than a second the first time. There are also some concerns about the rail mount cracking, albeit I have not seen this. There is a touch of barrel shadow, but this is a 13" barrel gun, so it's pretty mild. Plus side, I found it very easy to use while maintaining a good grip:
It'll do for now. I'll probably be rethinking it in the future, or maybe swapping it to a gun where I don't expect to be using it in a momentary-on fashion.
My next move was to get some more lights. I looked on eBay, and found some surplus Xenon Surefire M961s for about $30 a piece. The Surefire M961 tends to be on the cheap side because it doesn't use P60 drop-ins and it's on the heavy side; if you want to upgrade it to an LED, you need to buy a jail-break tool ($15) and then use Nailbender/Customlites drop-ins. This light works for my purposes; YMMV.
I also found a bulk pack of Pentagonlight PX2s. Pentagonlights got a ton of use in the early days of OIF, and Surefire felt threatened enough to sue them out of existence. The PX2 isn't quite as good as the X2 - the tailcap and part of the head are polymer - but it's compatible with P60 drop-ins and aluminum Solarforce tailcaps. It also has this nice feature:
The head is isolated from the batteries. This means your batteries aren't slamming into the head on recoil and vice versa. I am generally not a fan of using hand-held lights on rifles, but it seems like Pentagonlight did their homework on this one.
Here's an upgraded PX2 running on my Nitescout A3 SBR. It's using a Solarforce tailcap and P60 drop-in:
I've got an angled Colt-branded Lasermax VFG on there, basically forcing a beer can grip. I am not a fan of VFGs in general, especially not the ones with a grip angle that encourage you to beer-can it. OTOH, I got a cheap-but-reliable nav-light/laser out of it, and I will say that a VFG makes a remote-less light at 4:30 REALLY easy to use:
Speaking of SBRs, let's take a look at my pseudo-Honey Badger gun with 8.25" barrel, which has a Pentagonlight MX2 on it:
The MX2 is a pretty slick light/laser combo. The light uses a remote, the laser has a thumbswitch. I did not bother trying to zero the laser - it's enough for me to know that it's running at roughly 4:30 and to adjust for POI accordingly. I am given to understand this is a common practice. The barrel is short enough that there's no barrel shadow.
Routing remote cords has been something of an experience. I've been using zip ties and the Manta wire management system. I really cannot recommend the Manta system highly enough - the pocket switch holder holds the remote firmly in place and avoids light NDs, and the clips keep your cables in place quite nicely:
You'll notice in this particular photo that I should really be trimming the Manta switch holder - it's a little large for the Pentagonlight remote switch, which could be a problem if you're pressing down the front of it rather than towards the cable end.
However, on some guns, there's not a lot of good options. Here's an M961 on my Sig 556R:
You're basically reduced to zip-tying it across a top vent hole and hoping for the best on the other end:
It's not the sort of setup that inspires a lot of confidence. However, I should point out that the M961 / XM00 tailcap has both a momentary/constant button and a remote interface - if your remote goes down, you should be able to use the button instead. I'm rather surprised that more people haven't demand this feature out of the current generation Surefire Scout lights, given the current skepticism of remotes.
My primary goal was cost/performance. It is stupidly easy to say "just put the latest Surefire/Elzetta on it". There is some truth to that, but on the other hand, if you've got a bunch of rifles, that's a rather cost prohibitive route to go. I wanted to explore what kind of mileage I could get out of older but combat-tested lights.
First, here's what I started this project with (ie, what I already owned):
That's an old-style Surefire G3 with Xenon bulb, a Streamlight TLR-2 light/laser with some sort of LED, and an original generation Inforce WML. All of these are respectable lights, albeit with their own quirks.
The Inforce WML went on my Saiga 12 at 3PM, on my Chaos tri-rail:
I was more of a fan of this light in the past than I am now; I like strobe (even if it has gone out of style) and having a constant-on option, but the user interface is just too complicated for what I'd want on a gun. I also don't particularly like how momentary on requires you to hold down for more than a second the first time. There are also some concerns about the rail mount cracking, albeit I have not seen this. There is a touch of barrel shadow, but this is a 13" barrel gun, so it's pretty mild. Plus side, I found it very easy to use while maintaining a good grip:
It'll do for now. I'll probably be rethinking it in the future, or maybe swapping it to a gun where I don't expect to be using it in a momentary-on fashion.
My next move was to get some more lights. I looked on eBay, and found some surplus Xenon Surefire M961s for about $30 a piece. The Surefire M961 tends to be on the cheap side because it doesn't use P60 drop-ins and it's on the heavy side; if you want to upgrade it to an LED, you need to buy a jail-break tool ($15) and then use Nailbender/Customlites drop-ins. This light works for my purposes; YMMV.
I also found a bulk pack of Pentagonlight PX2s. Pentagonlights got a ton of use in the early days of OIF, and Surefire felt threatened enough to sue them out of existence. The PX2 isn't quite as good as the X2 - the tailcap and part of the head are polymer - but it's compatible with P60 drop-ins and aluminum Solarforce tailcaps. It also has this nice feature:
The head is isolated from the batteries. This means your batteries aren't slamming into the head on recoil and vice versa. I am generally not a fan of using hand-held lights on rifles, but it seems like Pentagonlight did their homework on this one.
Here's an upgraded PX2 running on my Nitescout A3 SBR. It's using a Solarforce tailcap and P60 drop-in:
I've got an angled Colt-branded Lasermax VFG on there, basically forcing a beer can grip. I am not a fan of VFGs in general, especially not the ones with a grip angle that encourage you to beer-can it. OTOH, I got a cheap-but-reliable nav-light/laser out of it, and I will say that a VFG makes a remote-less light at 4:30 REALLY easy to use:
Speaking of SBRs, let's take a look at my pseudo-Honey Badger gun with 8.25" barrel, which has a Pentagonlight MX2 on it:
The MX2 is a pretty slick light/laser combo. The light uses a remote, the laser has a thumbswitch. I did not bother trying to zero the laser - it's enough for me to know that it's running at roughly 4:30 and to adjust for POI accordingly. I am given to understand this is a common practice. The barrel is short enough that there's no barrel shadow.
Routing remote cords has been something of an experience. I've been using zip ties and the Manta wire management system. I really cannot recommend the Manta system highly enough - the pocket switch holder holds the remote firmly in place and avoids light NDs, and the clips keep your cables in place quite nicely:
You'll notice in this particular photo that I should really be trimming the Manta switch holder - it's a little large for the Pentagonlight remote switch, which could be a problem if you're pressing down the front of it rather than towards the cable end.
However, on some guns, there's not a lot of good options. Here's an M961 on my Sig 556R:
You're basically reduced to zip-tying it across a top vent hole and hoping for the best on the other end:
It's not the sort of setup that inspires a lot of confidence. However, I should point out that the M961 / XM00 tailcap has both a momentary/constant button and a remote interface - if your remote goes down, you should be able to use the button instead. I'm rather surprised that more people haven't demand this feature out of the current generation Surefire Scout lights, given the current skepticism of remotes.
