I’m looking for a high quality, single 18650, zooming flashlight for a gift for my father. He currently uses several Police PS-15 lights, which he claims are the best.
I don’t want one of the cheap $10 zooming lights, I’m looking for something rather classy with T6/U2 diode, or at least R5. Budget is $100. Any help would be appreciated.
Check out Wolf Eyes website.
I’d love to buy their Tac Raptor (but they have others, too).
I think they might be slightly over your budget. I’m not aware of any other zoomies except budget quality.
I have the Uniquefire UF-T20 on order at the moment, it is perhaps not expensive enough, but a lot of people love the light!
are those wolf eyes that good to be that expensive? The exterior don’t appear to be that excellent in my opinion.
i didn’t see the raptor model…
I found this one, not so cheap:
http://intl-outdoor.com/lxp-adjustable-zoom-18650-xml-700850lumens-flashlight-p-439.html
I forgot to mention that the head must not be wider than 35mm.
I’ve built up a few of the lxp/oem hosts. I’ve not built any zoomys as I dont like them but I have no reason to believe they would be of lesser quality.
Its got all the right bits in too - nanjg, choice of tints. It should be a good light.
I can’t say, I don’t own one, but I suppose that is entirely subjective anyway.
Their prices seem to be fair enough for them to stay in business.
The tac raptor has a button on the tail that adjusts zoom. I think it has 3 positions.
Not sure on the price, but how about one of these: http://www.zweibrueder.com/ENG/produkte/html_highperformance/html_Mserie/m7rx.php?id=m7rx
A zoomie with a ~30mm lens and a XML led will probably not impress your father, the overall output will be greatly improved but the hotspot when zoomed in is just meh compared to his old one (I assume it has a hard driven XRE-led in it, it's just hard to beat the throw of a XRE in that flashlight size).
I thought that looked nice, until I googled it and found the cheapest price shipped is $185 
Trustfire Z6 is a step above the quality of other budget zoomies, while still relatively inexpensive.
In fact, if you swap out the stock pcb for a copper sinkpad, and use screws to retain it, imho, it could be described as high quality.
I actually bought one very cheap ($10-15) XML zoomie from DX last year, just for testing purposes, and when zoomed in it throws more than the Police and also the hotspot is brighter. It is slightly bigger than the Police, but not the head itself.
These are great, but it costs 239 EUR in Europe. Even at $185 I have to pay import tax and VAT, which brings it somewhere at $250, which is just too much for a flashlight…
Ah, if that 'Police' light is that bad, you will impress your father with any $5,99 Sipik sk68 or clone 
.
Thank you, but I do need a good flashlight, not a $6 one.
The SK68 isn’t a good flashlight, it’s a bloody brilliant one! Easily out performs many more expensive ones.
bezel is stainless, lens is plastic, mine was 2.1A, but I changed the driver.
The only thing I didn’t like was the feel of the tail when operating the switch - but I have the same complaint about almost every tailswitch light (that can tailstand).
OK then, I will buy one for myself for testing purposes. Found one grey at Manafont and one black in FastTech. Any idea where to find one with a blinking mode? I could use it when I go cycling, if not else.
I still prefer something like this one I posted earlier:
http://intl-outdoor.com/lxp-adjustable-zoom-18650-xml-700850lumens-flashlight-p-439.html
Customization-wise it is better, also the design edges are more polished, generally more pleasing to the eye.
What is with the brand LXP having not a single logo on the tubes of their lights?
Don’t know about blinking modes, although I think you can get some multimode SK68’s. I’ve only bought the single modes ones though.
In fairness to the SK68 & clones thereof. They are still a budget light, just a very good one. They also run on a 14500 or single AA.
On a side by side comparison sk68 XR-E running a 14500 vs a Trusfire Z8 XM-L also running a 14500. The Z8 should be a lot brighter, but it isn’t. It also doesn’t throw as far either.
XM-L and 14500 is not a good combination anyway. I have one Balder SE-1 with XM-L and although it is good for such a small flashlight, it is clear that the battery can’t handle lots of current. I’ve used the famous TrustFire flames and also Nitecore NL147.
Same flashlight just shines with R3.