A buddy of mine was showing me his light the other night which I thought was identical to my C8, but his has a longer head, almost a half an inch, and deeper reflector. I cant seem to find one like it anywhere. Anyone know what model this might be and if you can buy a host for it?
Tangsfire C8. Just as you described, a little longer, a little deeper reflector.
Compared to my Convoy C8 (xm-l) my Tangsfire (xm-l2) reaches out a bit more, maybe just to my eye, because like Tom E described, it has a more defined hotspot and less spill.
I don’t dislike mine, but I do grab my Convoy more. If I want more hotspot/less spill, I grab an HD2010.
I have one, it's decent quality, at least on the parts that aren't going to be replaced anyway when built properly. Has a plated plastic reflector, but it's the same dimensions as the good XR-E reflector, so doesn't actually need to be replaced. The lens is glass but very cheap. The pill is fairly beefy, aluminum, takes a 20mm star & 20mm driver, uses the standard C8 pill thread so the bare brass replacement pills will fit if the 20mm driver thing is an issue. Much better quality than I was expecting for that price.
...FastTech has the aluminum reflectors available for $2.78 if that's important, but that drives the price up to $9.43 for an empty host. For $10.33, you can get a host with an aluminum reflector and that takes a 17mm driver. And without even looking hard, you can find full XM-L C8s on eBay for under $10.
If you have two reflectors the same depth (XRE vs. XML), and one has a wide base around the LED (XRE), the other is narrow around the LED (XML), the wider one will have sides that are closer to parallel, so a tighter beam/better throw.
I haven't tried an OP XRE reflector, but it might look prettier on a white wall if that matters, it won't be better in hard numbers than the smooth ones though.
Among my three C8 flashlights, the deepest reflector came in this from Meritline around 18 months ago. About $12 then, now jumped to about $16? Why?
The reflector is well-made plastic, orange peel the first 0.8” or so, and embossed on the outside with “LGKJ”. I like this reflector, but have no idea where else to buy one.