WoW a lot of Z8 owners coming out and testifying that the Z8 light is crap.
Maybe they all bought a knock-off.
Well I guess all of the Trustfire followers need to purchase one and find out for themselves. Be Careful they aren’t made anymore. I guess if yours is a piece of crap you purchased a knock-off. Or you can contact one of the above flashlight mavens and ask where they got theirs, then you can be sure of the quality or lack of.
Over and out
I got my money back.
I had a Z8 and I loved it. I replaced it with a Sunwayman V10A..
For those who love this light I did add a really good Olight clip from Illumination supplies garage sale ..I think they were .50 to a buck . this is the only light I've found that the clipworks well with .... it fits it very nicely.Worth grabbing if you're a clip fan
Just wondering where in the previously listed TRUSTFIRE Z8 factory specs., does it list Stainless Steel any place. I keep reading “AERO SPACE ALUMINUM ALLOY”
Maybe it only “STAINLESS STEEL” to the mavens who want to justify spending $11.00 on a battery to use in a $14.00 garbage flashlight.
Is there a light that performs equal to a Z8 and does NOT look like it is made of 3 different lights?
Go to COSTCO and get the TECHLITE 3 pack 200lm and they come with batteries $19.00 for all. The lights even have DNA gathering capabilities should you need it.
Hi-Low-Strobe. Three decent lights for the price of 1 battery for the Z8 piece of garbage.
My second Z8 had some burrs where they didn’t show. It is possible that the quality might have deteriorated. Both of mine, however, are very nice. The excellent machining of stainless steel is impressive. I have ordered IML cells to see what they really can do.
I got a sort of simi-clone. It is a Smiling Shark SS8038 XP-E (says XR-E near the emitter). It is in most ways not as good, but it is cheap. The threads are all triangular. It is more polished. The SS is less ferromagnetic, indicating that it has more nickel in it. The lens seems larger. It is less bright and takes less tail current than an SK 68. It also is very nice looking.
The z8 is very dim compared to my $7 toptom zoomie! 
Just got mine, its pretty much a beauty, going to mod it a little with an xpg2 5b on noctigon.
Bought one of these from ebay/campingsurvivals/TMart relatively recently and per my Thoughts… thread: Though my Z8 looks identical to that of JohnnyMac’s review & is apparently genuine (see below [even came w/cert of authenticity card FWIW]), a very strong magnet of mine does not attract at all to its center body, so perhaps these newer Z8s [apparently] w/o stainless steel body are [genuine] - perhaps TrustFire has gone to (all?) aluminum [for them].
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On the other hand maybe its this: “ferritic stainless steels are generally magnetic while austenitic stainless steels usually are not.” Does anyone’s Z8 body attract any magnet? IOW not apparent to me how to confirm what material it is. It is polished pretty shiny tho:)
Either way not too thrilled with the flashlight.
Nice!
Very shiny
Is it a twist zoom or one of the push/pull type?
Perhaps working on / lubricating the threads would make the twist zoom more usable, e.g. the tail cap not spinning first.
Again, IMO from “Thoughts on my TF Z8, XTAR WK26 & ZL SC52W”, better off spending $6 more. Wait, better for me if you buy mine:)
A quick glance at the XTAR WK26, it doesn’t look similar or as interesting.
I don’t think it is likely they have changed to aluminum, though that is possible. Often SS, when mainly austenitic, is still still faintly ferromagnetic. Try suspending a small strong fixed magnet from a thread, or something like that, and see if you can detect a weak attraction.