It is Friday Night and it is once again time to get our photon jam on. Today we take a look at Weltool weapon lights. Specifically their W35 series of weapon lights. They come in white LED, IR LED and LEP. As per usual, Friday Night Lights is brought to you by ATN Corp, manufacturers of night vision and thermal optics like the THOR LT. As with all of our sponsored series, Friday Night Lights will continue to bring you unbiased news and reviews from a variety of companies.

Lights @TFB:

• FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS: Weltool W3 “Featherless Arrow” – LEP (Laser Excited Phosphor) Flashlight
• Friday Night Lights: Acebeam W30 Long Range LEP Illuminator
• TFB Review: The REIN Weaponlight from Cloud Defensive

Weltool W35 Weapon Lights

You might not have heard of Weltool unless you are a lumen aficionado. They have made themselves known for coming out with one of the first LEP (Laser Excited Phosphor) lights. Well, they have been working diligently to break into the weapon light market. First of all, Weltool is based out of China and before you leap to compare them to other questionable Chinese brands, I would consider Weltool to be the Holosun of weapon lights. From what I have seen, they produce high-quality lights and I have been using them for over a year. It was actually a conversation I had with Danny, the owner of Weltool about his Featherless Arrow over three years ago. When he told me he wanted to make weapon lights, I told him to use the Modlite/SureFire Dual Fuel pattern. This simplifies a lot of logistics. He does not need to make a weapon mount because anyone can just buy an Arisaka Defense mount. And more importantly, people can use existing tail caps, batteries and if you felt like it heads from another company.

There is one aspect that has kept SureFire Scout Lights thriving so long is the legacy compatibility it has. While the Dual Fuel is new, you can use any Scout Light pattern mount and tail cap. They are like Lego. You can mix and match pieces to make the light you want. This greatly became commonplace when Arisaka made compatible bodies to supply the demand.

So Weltool designed their W35 series of weapon lights to match these features. The head uses the same threads as a Modlite or SureFire Dual Fuel Scout Light, the body can use Scout Light pattern mounts and the tail cap is Scout Light/E-Series compatible.

The feet on the W35 body are threaded to attach to any Scout Light mount of your choosing.

Yes, you can lego them.

At the moment, Weltool only makes the W35 weapon light bodies in the short configuration for use with 18350 batteries. But if you wanted to, you could get an Arisaka 18650 or similar body like a Reptilia Corp Torch and use the W35 head and tail cap.

Here is the W35 head removed and Weltool 18350 battery.

All the W35 weapon lights come as a complete light. Head, body, tail cap and battery. The batteries they are bundling with the weapon lights can be USB charged.

The Weltool IR head is a bit taller than the Modlite head.

Weltool makes three different heads for their W35 weapon light series: White LED, Infrared LED and LEP.

As you can see above, the LH3 is a lot taller than the LH1 or LH2.

There is another LEP light head that is Modlite compatible and that is by Atibal. See the photo below. The Weltool LH3 is in the middle between a Z-Bolt LEP, which I will review at a later date, and the Atibal LEP head.

Z-Bolt is using an older LEP design. But the Atibal is the same as the Weltool. That is because Weltool makes the LEP head off Atibal.

Noticed something odd about the Z-Bolt head? My pre-production LH03 head has the same feature.

Older LEP lights have this storage chisel shape embedded in the glass of LEP lights. The new ones do not. Later I will show how this affects the beam pattern.

Below are pictures of the LED heads. The LH1 white LED head produces 686 lumens and over 89k candela.

Both the Modlite 850 and Weltool LH2 appear to use the same LED element. The LH2 produces 1,100mW of IR light.

But the IR940 by Modite looks a little different.

Handheld Weltool Bodies

Along with an 18350 weapon light body, Weltool has come out with their own 18650 handheld light body.

The Weltool BB3 is the name of their handheld body, It is similar to the Modlite except for the exterior aesthetics and knurling. Another big change is the tail cap options. Modlite comes with a somewhat proprietary clicky tail cap. You can remove it and use Scout Light tail caps in a pinch.

 

The Weltool handheld body uses the same thread pitch as old SureFire P/C/M series lights like the 6P or C2.

The BB3 bodies all come with a steel pocket clip.

Since the BB3 body is SureFire compatible, I swapped the dark tan tail cap from my SureFire C2.

Using The Weltool W35 Weaponlight

Other than the mount and tail cap design the real difference in using the Weltool W35 weapon lights comes down to the heads and what they were designed to do. Above is my friend Kevin trying the W35 LEP head at 200 yards.

Same light just closer.

The LEP LH3 head is extremely focused. The candela is astronomically high. I find it not that helpful if I am using my naked eyes to see what the LEP is illuminating. But when paired with a scope with magnification, the beam pattern makes more sense. You can illuminate long-range targets rather easily and see them easier in the dark with a day optic.

Remember I mentioned that the older LEP heads have a chisel-like shape occluding the objective lenses? The LEP manufacturer has stopped using that design.

You can see what’s in the outline edges. Compared to the older LEP below.

The White LED LH1 head is sort of like an OKW from Modlite. It has a focused hot spot and spill around it. However, I found it to have a tighter hotspot than the OKW or the PLH V2 from Modlite.

I pointed out that the Weltool LH2 IR head seems to use the same LED as the Modlite IR head. The beam patterns look the same under night vision.

Final Thoughts On Weltool W35 Weapon Lights

The W35 weapon lights are sold as a complete package. Head, body, tail cap and battery all for an MSRP of $199. That is for the white or IR LED. The LEP is a little more expensive at $278. Compare that to Modlite where a complete light is $309. Just the Modlite heads alone are $209. Weltool is selling their LED heads for $128. Remember that Atibal LEP head? It goes for $315 and that is just for the head. Want a complete light from Atibal it will cost you $420 which is made by Weltool for Atibal.

All of Weltool’s weapon lights come with flip cap covers. They also come with spare lenses except for the LEP lights.

 

One thing you will notice right away is the quality of the machining in terms of their threads. They are the smoothest threads I have ever felt in a flashlight. It feels like you are gliding effortlessly across a freshly Zambonied ice rink as you screw on the tail cap or head to the W35 body or the BB3 handheld body.

Weltool has more products they are developing. They told me they are working on a pistol light that will use their heads. Sounds similar to the Modlite Pistol Light, we shall see if it is better or not. They are coming out with a full length 18650 W65 weapon light body as well as coming out with some new heads. For the price and quality, you should keep an open mind and check them out: Weltool.com

TFB’s Friday Night Lights series is brought to you by ATN