I have a friend that is competing in this year’s Competition Dynamics 24 Hour Sniper Adventure Challenge. He asked me to look into a light he could use to identify terrain features by map at night that is no larger than a C8. He is basically looking for something with maximum throw and every gram of weight counts. He currently has a Nitecore MH2C, which has a small reflector and is pretty floody. I was probably going to let him borrow my Nitecore MH25, which is a C8 light that is rated at 14kcd. I showed him the Dereelight Nightmaster V2 which apparently is around 90kcd to 100kcd. Does anybody know of another C8 style, lightweight thrower that might be better for terrain feature identification at night?
I actually have an XP-G2 mounted on a direct thermal copper star that I have been meaning to put in my XinTD v3. I also have some extra 7135 350ma’s I bought for the mod. I guess I just need to get off my lazy butt and do it.
The SWM T20CS has a smaller reflector than the C8, I own both, the C8 (XinTD) has a better throw/flood pattern, even so I like the T20CS for being a small light.
My Convoy C8 is pretty amazin at 125 kcd with a de-domed XP-G2 at 3.94A measured or my UF-T20 at 136 kcd, also de-domed XP-G2 ad it's a C8 size light.
Stock SS ZY-C10-S will do 50 kcd if you get a EZ1000 LED, or 63 kcd EZ900 LED and they are pretty small, maybe longer than a C8, but thinner. I recently got 2 from Manafont and got one of each LED type - weird. But the C10-S's will be a tight narrow beam.
Fully mod'ed XM-L2 C8's will do about 45 kcd, and de-domed, about 100 kcd.
Depending on how much the 'small' part plays into the decision, some of the little tube lights that come with deeeeep reflectors don't lose out too badly to the C8s. Convoy S4 reflector is slightly deeper than the one in the S5, but the vented head in the S4 may be a no-go in some situations (there is an o-ring at the base of the reflector, so it's just a possible debris-collection issue, not a water-ingress issue). With a de-domed XPG2 they're truly impressive, even more so when you factor in how much smaller they are.
I have an S4, it works great. I don't have a S5 but I do have a few of the same reflectors they use, and they don't work quite as well as the one in the S4. S4 is much tighter beam with just an ordinary-thickness centering ring, S5 requires fiddling with the insulator thickness and even then doesn't end up quite as tight.
Has that de-domed XP-G2 turned your C8 into a good thrower by chance?
After chatting to my old war buddy Gords (I took for 2 bullets in the chest and a bayonet to the sack for him) I’m about to enter the world of flashlight/torch modding, and building!
The mod'ed Convoy C8 is an awesome thrower, but even a de-domed XM-L2 in a C8 fully mod'ed will do about 100 kcd, and you'll get a wider beam.
That KD XPG reflector I'm not too crazy about - clearly see the machine marks in the reflector - I've definitely seen better C8 reflectors. If I had time, I'd play around with it to get the LED sitted better, or experiment with a standard better quality reflector like the SMO C8 size from FT. It was convientent though because I could easily center it because of the smaller LED opening.
Actually the XP-G2 de-domed on a Noctigon seems to reduce the amps a bit - not sure why. Tried a XM-L2/SinkPAD and it got full amps, then tried another de-domed XP-G2/SinkPAD star and got the same reduced amps - so not sure if it's the de-doming or the XP-G2. No time for further testing. I should have gotten more like 150 kcd on the Convoy if I could have gotten full amps of 3.85 out of it.