Recently SureFire has been pulling out all the stops with upgrading their lights. They have consulted with people outside of SureFire and that has helped to drive their lights to be more competitive. One example is the Scoutlight DFT. DFT stands for Dual Fuel Tech. The Scoutlight is the ubiquitous weaponlight for AR-15s. They are light weight, small and depending on the head they can emit IR or staggering amount of light. The problem is that they all run on SF123 or CR123 batteries. They are consumables. Other competitors have moved on to incorporate rechargeable Li-Ion cells like the 18650. Many of you may be familiar with this battery as it is used in laptops, Tesla cars and recently Vapes. For those nerdy enough like me to be into flashlights as a hobby, 18650s have been around for about a decade or more in custom or modified lights. Fans have been boring out their Surefire 6P and similar Surefire lights to accommodate the larger cell.

18650 is named after the dimensions of the cell. 18 refers to the diameter and 650 is its length both in millimeters. They are roughly double the length of a CR123 but wider as CR123s are about 16mm in diameter. Lithium Ion rechargeable 18650s run around 3.7v but when hot off the recharger they increase to 4.2v. What is really interesting about the Scoutlight DFT is that it is brighter when you use the 18650 at 1500 lumens. Put in 2xCR123s and it drops down to 1200 lumens. Why is this? It has to do with the amperage that the head draws. The head can pull more amps safely out of the 18650 than it can out of CR123s.

What about backwards compatibility? Unfortunately due to the diameter of the 18650, the threads of the Scoutlight DFT had to be widened to accommodate the wider battery. You cannot take this Scoutlight body and use an older Scoutlight head. Nor can you take the DFT head and put it on an older Scoutlight body.

Tan is Back

For a brief moment last year, Tan Surefire lights were discontinued. This drove demand and costs to ridiculous prices. After market sales of tan Surefire Scoutlights were getting ridiculous.

Due to popular demand SureFire is bringing back the M300 scoutlight and X300 pistol light. They are also bringing back the M600 and the dual tailcap is color matched.

New to the line of Tan lights are rumored to be their X400 pistol light and laser. And never before seen until now is a tan V1 Vampire. These lights are compatible with Scoutlight bodies so you can mix and match.

SureFire lights have been known to be like Lego. Parts can be swapped around and because of this you can upgrade your existing setups. If you have a SureFire Scoutlight and want to upgrade it to 1200 lumens then rather than buy a new Scoutlight you can Lego the EDCL2-T. For $179.99 you can get the EDCL2-T. But rather than use it as a handheld, take the head and install it onto your Scoutlight. Now you have a 1200 lumens weaponlight. The gas pedal type brightness only works with the EDCL2-T tail cap so when it is on a Scoutlight, you only get full 1200 lumen brightness. Not bad for a simple upgrade.