A tactical flashlight is one that has been designed for combat and self-defense use. To those who are unfamiliar with the concept, this might at first sound silly. Flashlights are for light, not fighting, right? But anybody who’s fought in the dark knows that illumination is important, and more fundamentally, so does anybody who’s fumbled around in the dark for their keys. Tactical flashlights make excellent day-to-day flashlights in addition to their combat utility.
Tactical flashlights have several useful features.
They are extremely bright. In combat, this means that they can blind and disorient people and animals. In day-to-day use, this means that they’re useful at distances where an ordinary flashlight would falter. For example, at Alchemy this year, I was working the perimeter for the main burn pageant. One of the other perimeter rangers noticed a participant walk off towards the trees in such a way that he could have wandered around the side of the perimeter line. He was about 50 yards away, and it was night time, so he was difficult to pick out from the trees. My flashlight was bright enough that, even at that distance, we could easily see that he was just taking a leak. In another case, I saw at a distance of about 20 yards what looked like the silhouette of a rifle in a participant’s hand. I was sure that it wasn’t actually a rifle, but I felt obligated to investigate further. Instead of running after the participant, yelling, or otherwise exerting myself and creating a disturbance, I lit him up the lower half of his body with my flashlight. This gave me a better look at the thing in his hand and also caused him to notice me and walk my direction. As he got closer, he explained that his very-real-looking firearm was actually a BB-gun loaded with glow-in-the-dark, biodegradable BB’s. They looked awesome! Finally, the extremely bright beam of the light was usable as a headlight on a golf cart at night, where a normal flashlight might not have had enough throw to allow us to drive at a convenient speed.
They are small, especially considering the brightness of their beams. Most of them are under six inches long and weigh less than eight ounces. This makes them more convenient to hold for longer periods of time and makes it more likely that you’ll be carrying it with you when you want it.
Finally, they are extremely rugged and difficult to break. Because they are designed for combat, they are often strong enough that you could hold them in your fist and hit a person with the lens end. This means you’re unlikely to break one by dropping it.
In the interest of fairness, I should point out some down-sides of tactical flashlights. The primary one is that they are expensive. They typically run from about $150 to about $300. Hey, a 6-ounce tube that can throw a 170-lumen beam and survive being run over by a car doesn’t come cheap.
Adding to the expense are the batteries. They usually run on CR123 camera batteries, which are more expensive than regular alkalines. A typical run-time is 90 minutes, so you can spend a lot on batteries if you use your flashlight regularly. Many flashlights mitigate this factor by offering a high-intensity beam for combat and a low-intensity beam for day-to-day use. Alternatively, some of them have built-in rechargeable batteries, which saves cost, but eliminates the possibility of quickly changing out a set of dead batteries in order to continue using the light in the field. A final option might be to buy rechargeable CR123 batteries. Unfortunately, these flashlights are usually designed to maximize the light output from a pair of regular CR123s, and many of them don’t work very well with the differing voltage pattern of rechargeable CR123s.
