Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/713424
Shooting in total darkness or semi-dark spaces is not a simple task – the vision distance is dra- matically shorter and positive target identifica- tion becomes a serious problem. Of course, you may use a handhel flashlight but no matter what quality that flashlight would be, it would signifi- cantly decrease the quality of the grip on the gun. The solution to this means attaching a flash- light to the weapon. The biggest advantage of such light is the possibility to hold the gun with both hands. That allows a maximum control over the recoil, easy switching betweeg targets, and re-balance of ironsights. Moreover, it is far easier to change magazines or remove jams, when we may use both hands. For some time, I expand my knowledge in the usage of using (in-built/external) lighting in pistol shooting, mainly within the context of self-defense. In one of the next issues of FRAG OUT!, I plan to publish an ar- ticle about the usage of flashlights and the shooting techniques itself. However, during numerous experi- ments and tests, I gathered an impressive amount of material that I would like to share with you. May be some of you will think of choosing a flashlight for your pistol and that article will help you in that choice and spare the time required for testing. I need to highlight that the majority of equipment for my experiment I bought myself, I own it and use it. I do not intend to fantasize or write some uberreviews and tests based on five minutes of touching the flashlight at a store or on demand of any of the distributors. When it comes to a set of flashlights, initially, I bought the product that is probably the most common in the market, that is a Streamlight TLR-1. Later on, there was Inforce APL – a totally spontaneous purchase, a mouseburger, that I first greatly underrated. Then, I bought the Holy Grail, that is Surefire X 300 Ultra – I expected the most from that model, because the whole U.S. tactical community uses them. In the meantime, the distributor of Olight got to know about my hobby concerning flashlights and sent me a PL-1 Valkyrie flashlight for review. I have been owning some of the flashlights for quite a long time, other for just several weeks. In order to be maximally objective, I will try to describe each model in detail, according to the same criteria to finally present some opinions and comparisons as conclusions. Elements that I will pay attention to will be the fol- lowing: size, weight, attachment to the weapon, the switch and its modes, power of the flashlight, source of power, and its lifetime. ACCESSORIES