Are you carrying a weapon light — or are you betting your life on muzzle flash? SureFire's Andrew Wright joins Ryan Gresham to break down everything from military-grade suppressor durability and the truth about round counts, to why compact carry guns now have zero excuse to run without a light. Plus, the candela vs. lumens debate, the flat EDC light revolution, and what's coming next from one of the most trusted names in tactical lighting.
This Gun Talk Nation is brought to you by FN Firearms, MTM Case-Gard, Silencer Central, Archon Firearms, and Range Ready Studios.
About Gun Talk Nation
Gun Talk Media's Gun Talk Nation with Ryan Gresham is a weekly multi-platform podcast that offers a fresh look at all things firearms-related. Featuring notable guests and a lot of laughs. Gun Talk Nation is available as an audio podcast or in video format.
For more content from Gun Talk Media, visit guntalk.com or subscribe on YouTube, Rumble, Facebook, Instagram, and X. Catch First Person Defender on the new Official FPD YouTube channel. Watch Gun Talk Nation on its new YouTube channel. Catch Gun Talk Hunt on the new dedicated YouTube Channel. Listen to all Gun Talk Podcasts with Spreaker, iHeart, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find podcasts.
Copyright ©2026 Freefire Media, LLC
Gun Talk Nation 06.03.26
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.
This Gun Talk Nation is brought to you by FN Firearms, MTM Case-Gard, Silencer Central, Archon Firearms, and Range Ready Studios.
About Gun Talk Nation
Gun Talk Media's Gun Talk Nation with Ryan Gresham is a weekly multi-platform podcast that offers a fresh look at all things firearms-related. Featuring notable guests and a lot of laughs. Gun Talk Nation is available as an audio podcast or in video format.
For more content from Gun Talk Media, visit guntalk.com or subscribe on YouTube, Rumble, Facebook, Instagram, and X. Catch First Person Defender on the new Official FPD YouTube channel. Watch Gun Talk Nation on its new YouTube channel. Catch Gun Talk Hunt on the new dedicated YouTube Channel. Listen to all Gun Talk Podcasts with Spreaker, iHeart, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find podcasts.
Copyright ©2026 Freefire Media, LLC
Gun Talk Nation 06.03.26
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/gun-talk--6185159/support.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
More and more than ever. Absolutely, people are carrying weapon
lights on a daily basis. There are some people that
are motivated and carrying X three hundred. It's doable? Is
it fun? I don't think so? Not for me? Pretty big? Yeah. Well,
I mean the people who say you don't need to
like what they say, I'll see with the mousel flash,
you know, oh boy, oh boy, And I'm like, that's
(00:20):
probably not a good decision. I'm Ryan Gresham.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And this this is guntog Nation. Guntognation is brought to
you by fn MTM, Case Guard, Silence, are Central, Arcan
Firearms and Range Ready. Hey, welcome into Guntognation today on Guntognation,
(00:54):
and we're gonna be talking expressers and lights and we
may go a few other places because we got our
good buddy Andrew right from Surefire Surefire.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Welcome in dud. Thanks for having me, Ryan. Yeah, Andrew
you are how long have you been at Surefire? A
little over fifteen years now? Damn you know where the
bodies are buried and everything, just a couple of them. So,
I mean you've been doing with us. You're a guy
who you love shooting, You shoot competitively. You've gotten to hunting.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Surefire probably best known for lights yep, but also do
a bunch of other things.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Do a really nice job on suppressors. Yeah, I want
to jump into.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
The suppressor stuff because suppressors are just the hotness right
now for everybody. But you guys make suppressors primarily tell
me if I'm wrong for the military, but we'll sell
them to the consumers. Like it's designed for the military
first and foremost.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Would that be right? Yeah, I suppose that most of
the design criteria of our suppressors is is targeted towards
like a hard use, end user, you know what I mean.
So yeah, essentially that's that's that's true. We sell suppressors
to everybody. Obviously commercial markets a big market for us.
But the you know, the goal is to have the
(02:14):
best air quotes fighting suppressors that we can make, and
all that means is, you know, there's certain performance attributes
that people look for in a suppressor. In a consumer side,
maybe it's it's weight and sound. A lot of times
we see not as much long term durability. They're not
going to shoot the high round counts that some of
our special operations customers might shoot through their suppressors. So
(02:37):
with our you know, the military customers, we need to
make sure these are going to be very very durable,
extremely reliable above all else. Like that's the number one
thing is it cannot fail. You know, sound might be
a little lower on their priority list. Flash performance is
another key performance attribute for our military customers that we
focus and excel on, whereas the con uomer market might
(03:00):
not care quite as much about that. But the durability
thing is also a benefit for our consumers. You know,
they like to buy a suppressure and know that it's
something that that's probably going to last their lifetime. And
then nowadays, back pressure is a huge component, the amount
of gas being sent backwards, you know, out of the
ejection port and really out of every other hole of
(03:21):
the rifle, what whatever's not coming out of the muzzle.
It's a big focus these days. So with our latest
suppressors and even the generation previous, these are low back
pressure suppressors that you know, have the minimal amount of
gas coming back, less wear and tear on the gun,
a lot more controllable. There's a whole bunch of other
performance size you know, length, weight, and then the mounting
(03:43):
mechanism like for US majority, I mean pretty much all
of our suppressors right now use our SOCOM fast attached
mounting method, which is basically you put a muzzle device,
you know, it's a flash hider, a muscle break, or
a war comp We make a bunch of different thread
pitches for different rifles. You put one of those on
your and then our suppressor mounts on that with the
ratcheting ring and you can you can take it on
(04:06):
and you can put it on and take it off quickly,
and it has minimal impact shipped and completely repeatable impact shifted.
So the amount that you're you know, zero changes. You
can rezero the gun with the suppressor on when you
take it off to clean the gun, or put it on,
use the suppressor on it on the firearm. When you
go and put it back on, it's going to hit
exactly where it did before, so you don't have to
worry about your zero changing.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, that's and that's probably for like military applications. You know,
these guys you're sitting at to a unit, so it's
like it could be swapped out to different guns or
a different guy or whatever. Right, I mean, you know,
the consumer buys one he puts it on his gun.
Maybe he puts it on different guns, but maybe he
just leaves it on the gun.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So, yeah, I was going to ask you about the
ratchet system because for consumer stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
There's a lot of direct thread these days.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
But that system, the SOCOM mounting system you guys have,
is pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
It's super reliable, super robust. I mean, we've had tens
of thousands of these in the US military with very
like less than a percent of any issues. You know,
it's like they're super reliable, they're bomb proof mounting mechanism,
and it does allow you to you know, from a
military or even a civilian that wants to take some
(05:23):
force on force training. You know, if you want to
take the suppressor off to put a training device on,
or to be able to share some simmunitions or utms
or some type of training munition through it, you know
you can do it. And then when you put the
suppressor back on the gun, you know the zero is
going to to be right where it was before. From
a civilian standpoint, you know, I have a lot of rifles,
you know what I mean, So if I want to
(05:44):
bounce a suppressor back and forth between the rifles, it's
very easy to do reliably as opposed to when you're
direct threading, making sure it's you know, at the same
amount of torque that it was before there's a witness marker.
It's not quite as consistent and relying as a mounting
method if you're going to be moving suppressors around.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Someone I don't hear much talk about is the lifetime
use of a suppressor, And you were kind of alluding
to that of like, you know, you're building for these
these groups of people who are shooting tens of thousands
of rounds each year training and then you know, if
they have to go get deployed and do their thing,
you know, who knows, and it may be a lot
(06:25):
of rounds and a short amount of time. Right, But
what is the lifespan of a suppressor?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Are there some general rules as far.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
As round counts and what happens as you.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Get into higher round counts on a suppressor. Yeah, it's
a great question. It's almost like it's a very It's
very comparable to tires on a car, meaning you can
get a brand new set of tires and burn them
out in one parking lot session, right, doing some donuts.
Same thing with suppressors. You can also have those tires
last you, you know, seventy five eighty thousand miles if
(06:56):
you're rotating properly, et cetera, et cetera. With a suppressor.
If we go to the range and bring out some
big magazines, some hundred round whatever, you know, Magpool D
sixties and we do some full auto dumps, we can
blow up a suppressor, you know, relatively quickly, you know
what I mean. But if you're shooting it normally, like
(07:17):
a normal training cycle, normal around it round count, that's
still hard use. Don't get me wrong, burning it down
thousand round training days or whatever. We've seen suppressors over
one hundred thousand rounds okay, in documented on paper. Wow departments,
they're tracking you an exactly all that. Yeah, actually probably
well over it because that was the amount documented through it.
(07:37):
And I think those particular officers that I'm thinking of
had training outside of that. It was probably more like
one hundred and twenty thousand rounds.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Suppressor, Okay, it just depends on how you use it. Sure,
how do you tell you know, what's the what happens
to a suppressor when you shoot it? A lot carbon
build up is the main thing, you know what I mean.
Baffle erosion will eventually start to happen, But the main
detrimental thing that might be worth keeping an eye on
is carbon build up. And the easy way to check
that is weighing the suppressor. You know what it weighed
(08:07):
brand new, right. You can double check it yourself, put
it on a mail scale. But we list all the
weights on our website for our suppressors. I believe this
five five six many four silicon five six many four
suppressors around fifteen ounces or so. If you get you know,
ten twenty thousand rounds, you might start to see a
change in weight, maybe an ounce or so of carbon. Really,
(08:27):
it's not as much as you think. For most you
know consumers, you don't have to worry about cleaning a suppressor.
The real maintenance is the back end. You can take
a brush to the inlet of the suppressor where it
mounts on the flash hider, and then you can clean
your flash houterers, flash hiders bearing surfaces, just to make
putting it on and taking it off a little bit easier.
(08:48):
But for the most part, there's not much maintenance required.
But if you start to shoot, you know, a lot,
meaning I would I would consider a lot like ten
or fifteen thousand rounds or more a year. Then you
might want to start looking at cleaning solutions, which is
there's good bunch of companies making suppressor cleaning solutions. Now,
you basically fill up the suppressor with it. You can
plug the end, fill it up, soak it overnight, got
(09:10):
and then you shoot it the next day and a
lot of that carbon build up will will exit the suppressor.
It'll be a little messy obviously for the first couple
of magazines. Yeah, and then it'll be clean again. Loosens
up it, loosens it up, breaks it up overnight, and
then you shoot it out and that's the that's the
best way to clean them. But like I said, unless
you're shooting high round counts, it's really nothing to worry about.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
That's interesting And if you get a performance wise, if
you get into tens of thousands of rounds, what would
you notice from like would it be a sound difference,
would it be a different type of performance that you'd notice.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
No, Like those those super high round count suppressors that
we had, I think there was a slight a bit
more flash with the with a significant amount of carbon
build up. However, we did a bunch of soak and
shoot soak and shootsics and brought them down to really
close to within the original weight, and they were performing
(10:05):
pretty much just the same, you know what I mean,
like within a dB, all the impact, shift attributes, all
the flash. It was like it was it was just
like it was new. So no, not a whole lot. Now,
if you again torture a suppressor, you can. You can.
You can blow out baffles, you can do you can
you can blow up a suppressor and make the performance
drastically change. And I'm talking about they were using those
(10:27):
in a normal training cycle, normal round counts, nothing crazy
and abusive.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, and you touched on that of like, okay, when
we talk about one hundred thousand rounds, that's obviously not
all at once.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
This is over twenty or years and years. Yeah, we're
going to.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Talk about going back to the whole mag dumping a
lot of rounds and what happens and what can happen.
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MTM case guard, So Andrew, one of the things is
like heating up a suppressor right high round hen We'll say,
you know, is this suppressor full auto rated mag? Dumping
(12:38):
a bunch of rounds through a suppressor? I've heard it's
kind of a matter of you're heating up the suppressor.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
You kind of need it to give it time to cool.
And I guess you know.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Doing iterations of three and four and five shots and
then you have to that's not as big of a
deal as a bunch of rounds all at the same time.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Is that kind of what you're talking about? Yeah, I
mean mostly it's like full atto is what I'm talking about,
And these are full auto rated. But with that said,
that's usually like one or two mags of ful aatto
and that's about it. But you can very easily, you know,
hurt a suppressor if you did a bunch of back
to back full auto mags. You know, being real abusive
(13:23):
at that point, though, like are you mad if you
blow up a suppressor? You just spent probably the suppressor's
worth of money on the ammunition. I do that, yeah,
but no, like normal training. What I mean by a
normal training cycle is like you go to a car
being class, Right, what's your round count per day? Like
I don't know, five five? Yeah, yeah, maybe a thousand
at the really round intensive courses. That would be fine
(13:43):
at the normal training cycle because you'll go out, you'll
shoot your three or four mags, whatever you have on
your person. You're gonna go back, You're gonna load up
in between cycles. That's probably plenty of time for the
suppressor to mostly cool. You'll go back out and you'll
shoot another volley of training. Usually that's not thirty round
mag dumps on one target. That's you know, a beep,
and then you're shooting a couple of targets. So you're
moving around, you're doing you know what I mean, the
(14:05):
normal training stuff, target transitions, whatever it might be. So
you're you're not gonna that you're not gonna hurt the
suppressor with doing that. When I say abuse, I mean
sitting there with a table full of magazines and an
art or a full auto trigger. We're to talk about that, yes,
And you try to go to town, and it's like, what
are we doing here? I mean, these are lost a
fair amount in doing that, but eventually you can blow
(14:25):
up any suppress Yeah, it's possible, let's talk about it.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I mean, we used to say full auto rated, and
this was this mark of ruggedness of a suppressor. It
was also like, but like, nobody's shooting these full of
most of us don't own machine guns. That's all changed
with how common FRT triggers are, which I mean, we
don't have to get into the FRT thing, but just
like that seems like it would be a game changer
(14:53):
or consideration for a company that makes suppressors, like, oh,
there actually might be a lot more peaceeople running these
in sort of a high round count Filado type shooting.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah. Have you guys talked about that, Yeah, a little bit.
To be honest, it's not a concern because our suppressors
are still among the most durable suppressors on the market.
And again, most people are doing a couple nags of
laughing for the FRT crowd and then it's good, you know,
right right, and the suppressors will be just fine for that.
If somebody really wants to go to town, we still
(15:26):
make machine gun suppressors, which would be the best one
to go. Okay, A difference between full auto rated and
machine gun suppressor a lot more wall thickness and everything
inside there. So those are intentional or excuse me, those
are designed for going on belt fed machine guns in
the military. But if you want to get crazy with
an FRT that's what you want for sustained filato fire,
(15:48):
those are designed for it. They'll eat it up, gotcha.
And so we have an answer for that, you know,
in our showing.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, so full at means you can, ye, but it's
not going on a two forty nine or something that
you know, Yeah, that's a different type of suppressor totally.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah, okay, got it. So wrapping up this, this just
a thought for people listening who folks who go train
and courses, they shouldn't be worried about how many like
should I use my suppressor in a training course because
oh no, I'm going to shoot a thousand rounds in
two or three days. Now use the suppressor. Absolutely, use
(16:24):
the suppressor if you plan on having that in whatever scenario,
whether you're doing it for fun and you're going to
do some matches with it on or it's a home
defense gun, you should probably be shooting it in the
configuration that you will be using it. So also the
benefit as far as you know sound reduction and hearing protection,
it's huge. Being able to hear better, it's a gigantic
(16:45):
improvement and just quality of life, it's a huge advantage.
So yeah, absolutely use that suppressure. That's why you bought it. Well.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Also, i mean, think about running a suppressor in a
class that you're going to shoot a thousand rounds. The
recoil reduction is and it'd be kind of nice too.
We're all that high round count over a few days.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Absolutely, I mean, especially with these low back pressure suppressors.
I mean, the guns are returning and we'll see that
later when we when we get to the range, but
they feel really good. Yeah. Yeah, So let's talk about lights.
You guys are kind of known for them. You've you've
you've you've done a few lights and flash lights. Yeah,
for what do you what would you say?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Just the general trends in the last couple of years
are what are what are you guys kind of trying
to do and looking at or what are you hearing
from end users?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
General trend has always been since we started lights as
far as I can remember, and I can't remember as
far back as we started lights up back when you're
a wee babe, right, uh. Yeah. Company has been around
like well over forty five years now, coming up on
in a couple of years fifty. So it's always been
getting brighter though. And then you know, since when I started,
was when when I started at the companies, when LEDs
(17:53):
were kind of first coming onto the scene, at least
for us, and they were just rapidly getting more efficient.
When that meant was brighter and better run times. Brighter
and better run times, and that's still the case today
as far as trends go. I think you know, one
thing is that we started. I think you've used these
a lot. This is our Stiletto This particular lights are
Stillletto Pro too. We have another version, the Stiletto Pro.
(18:14):
It's a little bit smaller. We were the ones that
started these flat EDC style lights that you carry similar
to a pocket knife. Most lights previous to this were wrapped,
following the form factor of the batteries. Yeah, we still
make plenty of those lights too, but not as comfortable
to carry in the pocket. So a lot of companies,
(18:34):
pretty much everybody out there now wrapping you guys copied
us and made you know which is It's awesome. It's
an awesome form factor light. These have done super well
for MIL batteries rechargeable. Right, this is USBC rechargeable. Yeah,
with the internal lithium battery. This particular one, it's fifteen
hundred lumens thirty five thousand kindela, so super bright. With
(18:55):
those two LEDs we do. The two people are like,
why is it too It's just to keep it flat.
You know, if you make one bigger reflector, it's gonna
start to get wider than the form factor. So we
have two. It's to keep it flat but still get
a bunch of candela, which is the measurement for distance. Gotcha,
But yeah, you have a bezel switch. We can go low, medium, high,
super nice for just everyday task. If I want to
(19:16):
just see with a little bit of light and not
blind myself. And then there's a tailcap on the back,
we can still get the high output. I mean, I
feel like that Stiletto Pro Solo pro.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Right, this is the Pro two Pro two that's like
the Ferrari of handheld lights.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
It is it really is.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, Like I mean, I've got the one and it's like,
oh my precious. And when I show it to people,
especially like at night, like hey, you want to see
something kind of neat everyone everyone is going oh my gosh. Yeah,
like because it's just a handheld light. It's they're thinking
it's like a cubeam. I mean it it's for back
in the day. It looks like what you were used
(19:53):
to seeing from a Cubeam. Yeah, it's a little search
light in your pocket. It's a wireless amount of light
that we can carry now in like a tiny little form.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah, it's it's a pretty awesome light. You're exactly right. Yeah,
this is the top end of everyday carry flashlights for sure.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Is were you getting calls for even brighter lights because
like it is kind of like this torch in your pocket,
like they wanted something even brighter always?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Or was it just like your engine years ago? You know,
we could probably just make this like stupid bright. It's
a little bit of both, you know. Like I said,
LEDs are constantly getting better and we have more and
more capability, So with this particular one, it wasn't necessarily
I mean, consequently, we're at fifteen hundred uoms. It's very bright,
but it was more about getting to the candela. Yeah,
that is another market trend, you know. Yeah, is a
(20:38):
big focus across the board and in handheld lights and
in weapon lights. Now again that's just the measurement for distance,
but people have a you know, a little bit more
of a fixation on candela than we did in the
past and the benefits of it, specifically in the tactical
world with you know, whether it's sectors in depth seeing.
You know, if you're you got a shoot house here,
and if you're in one room and there's a hallway
(20:59):
and then another the room, how much light can you
punch through those different door thresholds to get to a
potential target that's a couple of rooms away. Yeah, having
a little bit more candela does a better job of
being narrow and pushing through that distance and then you know,
big piece of property, same deal. I want light to
be able to reach further and potentially see what's going
on with some detail at distance. The candela is what
(21:23):
you want for that as opposed to just overall lumens.
Still important, but the candela is a little bit more
of the focus these days. Long range precision lights reach
out and touch someone.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, it's it's one of those when they you have
a high candela, people look at it and they go, man,
that's bright.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
But it's not. It's like a different measurement. It's it's interesting.
Is is it possible to have too much light?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Are there times when you say we don't need that
much lumens or candela or whatever?
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah? In general I think so, Like for you know,
I do a lot of outdoor stuf for camping, for cooking,
you know what I mean? For reading a map, like
I want, generally speaking, the minimal amount of light required
to see what I want to see, If that makes sense,
so that I'm as close to as possible, not adapted vision.
(22:17):
Does that make sense? Absolutely? That makes you know if
you sit in the dark, anybody sits in the dark,
you know, I don't know, twenty minutes. As you get older,
it's longer twenty minutes for your eyes to kind of
adjust to seeing in a low light situation, and when
you turn on a light it kind of destroys that.
So generally speaking, I want to use, for like administrative stuff,
the minimal allow the amoun a light. Now that might
still be a substantial amount of light. But you know,
(22:39):
I won't be using fifteen hundred lumens to read a
you know, a book of climbing routes that's like right
in front of my face, right fifteen or whatever, So
lumins is probably fine for that. Yeah, you guys do
a good job about that. I think that you have.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Seems like a lot of your lights have different power modes.
I mean in people like they love the bright lights.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
But if it's if it's.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
A thousand lumens and it's just on or off, you know,
then you have to We're either going to blow yourself
out or you have to do some like funny you
covered up with your fingers or whatever.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
But yeah, on the tactical side, though, you know, there's
probably there's probably a point where there's too much light
and candela. I don't know if we're there just yet.
Generally speaking, I think most and I'm not one most
of the subject matter experts, you know, generally speaking, more
light is better, Yeah, more information. You know, in low
light scenarios, your eyes place tricks on you. A lot
(23:33):
of things are happening in a fast pace. I think
in the defensive civilian world, or if it's the law
enforcement and military side responding or going to a problem.
You know, generally speaking, more light means more information. You
can see, the sun's a lot of lumens, right, so
you could the more light we're making out of these flashlights,
the more information we have, the more we can see
what's in people's hands, what they're doing. Specifically, also a
(23:56):
little bit of a you know, offensive advantage as far
as you know, disturbing someone's eyes and kind of stunning
them and disorienting them. There could be a substantial advantage
to have in more light in those situations.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
You guys have been doing a lot of new products
in the last few years for specific lights on carry guns.
You do a lot of duty weapons, but lights on
carry guns really kind of leading the charge in that
world and for the guns that people actually carry. And
I want to get into that, do people carry lights
(24:31):
on their guns.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
We're going to get into all that after the break.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
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the gear and the training. Learn more at Rangereadystudios dot com. So, Andrew,
all these people carrying guns and this is very common now,
(25:35):
I mean concealed carry. And the question is I wonder
how many people carry lights? Because you and I we
work in the gun industry and we deal with what
everybody hears me say the word gun nerd gun enthusiast, whatever,
the folks who are really into it, not just the
iona gun guy or I bought a gun when you know,
(25:55):
the George Floyd riots were happening, but like actual, like
actively so carrying a light on your or putting a
light on your carry gun you guys are doing a
really good job with saying, Okay, we're going to make
small lights because people are carrying small guns.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Let's be honest. Most people aren't carrying huge, full sized guns.
And you did that forever.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I mean the the X three hundred and all these
got I mean these are what horseman carry. But talk
about kind of that trend and what you guys are
seeing out there.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Well, I don't know, Ryan, If you look at Instagram,
everybody and their mother is carrying a full size gun
with a compensator. Yeah, X three hundred totally. You know,
a full bag of medical supplies.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Everybody's I got my double stack nineteen eleven. Yeah, I'm
Carryingworer magazine. Yeah, I'm I'm carrying eighty three rounds on me.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Like, no, you're not for my route to Jambajuice to
get my Strawberry dream machine or whatever. No. Yeah, it's
it's very funny. But more and more than ever, Absolutely,
people are carrying weapon lights on a daily basis. There
are some people that are motivated and carrying X three hundred.
It's doable? Is it fun? I don't think so? Not
for me? Pretty big? Yeah, Well, I mean the people
(27:13):
who say you don't need to like what they say, Yeah,
i'll see with the muzzle flash, you know, oh boy,
oh boy, And I'm like, that's probably not a good decision.
But realistically speaking, I think most people still are not
carrying weapon lights, which is fine. You know, have a gun,
you need a flashlight. The Stiletto is a great edc light.
The whole you know concept is like you must be
(27:36):
able to identify which you're potentially shooting. At most situations
maybe that won't be required, you're probably going to see
what's going on whatever, But for the niche amount of
scenarios where it's a you know, dark parking lot, you know,
mom in the night, whatever it might be, you need
to be able to identify what's going on before you
can potentially lethally engage a potential aggressor. So the lights now,
(28:03):
they're getting smaller and more capable to where there's not
much downside to carrying one. You know, micro and subcompact
guns have become a huge market in these days, and
so we try and make lights to accommodate that market.
In my hands, we have our XC three sub, which
is our new, latest and greatest compact light specifically marketed
(28:25):
and designed for that particular segment of hand. And it's like,
you know, like.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
What we mean by that is like the the P
three sixty five, the hell Cat exactly shield like those
that category that size what what forty three forty three
x exactly those types of guns that are like the
common carry guns exactly those guns.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yep, we have real adapters that fit those pistols. Essentially,
this is very similar to our previous XC three with
a different mount that fits these super compact thousand lumens
thirteen thousand candela seed. That's wild. I mean, if anybody
even follows this, that was that on a carry gun
is wild. That's bright. It's basically like x three hundred
(29:08):
ultra output out of a small compact little light is
that run on batteries. It does so it has a
front loading battery. The new battery is called our rc
R one two three. It's basically a rechargeable twenty three
with a USB seaport on the battery itself. It can
(29:28):
also take a standard one twenty three disposable battery. You
do sacrifice some output, so the rechargeable one is going
to give you that full thousand Lumens a third five
thousand Candela switching his Ambidextris. But yeah, man, there's not
much you know, as we were talking about with the
carry guns these days, excuse other than just the price
point with with not having a weapon light. So I'm
pretty much every day I'm carrying a weapon light for
(29:51):
me personally, More and more customers are doing the same,
just because you're not sacrificing much as far as concealability.
These don't go further than the muzzle of most of
the gun, as we just said, they're not wider than
most of the guns we just said, so they're really
not You're not losing a whole lot, and then you
just gain a lot of a capability. You know, I'm
sure you've shot one handed with an with a handheld flashlight. Yeah,
(30:12):
I mean, it's it's a difficult task. You need to
train on it, so having it's kind of your you're
rubbing your head and patting your tummy kind of thing.
And then also you're shooting.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
A gun one handed, which listen, that's that's a compromise
shooting position. You can do it, Yep, you can send
us down range, but you're you are better with two
hands on the gun, obvious.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Everything is better. So that's what a weapon like gives
you is the ability to have way more control of
the gun, recoil control, if you have to reload, if
you have to interact with your environment, if you want
to call somebody, they call nine to one one, open
a door, open a car door. You know. Now I
can maintain light on a potential aggressor and do something
else at the same time. Well, here's the other thing.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
If you have a home defense gun, whether that's a
rifle or a handgun, probably a lot of people have
a handgun. Maybe it's like I've got the big, full
size handgun because it's just sitting in a like a
little handgun safe.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
I don't it's not a carry gun. You're crazy not
to have a light on it. One hundred percent. You're
not carrying it one hundred percent. Every home defense pis
I mean absolutely should have a light on it. It can
be a compact light, it could be a full size
X three hundred. It really doesn't matter. Yeah, in my opinion,
you'd need a weapon. We're not worried about size.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
You're not worried about weight because the thing is sitting
next to your night stand or whatever, like you gotta
have a light on that thing.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yep, you look at uniformed you know, police officers, military,
and if you have a full if you're in kit,
you were in armor, a helmet, you know what I mean.
You got all this stuff. Like everybody's got a full
sized weapon light. There's no reason not to, you know,
with the with the grand scheme of things, and it's
just added capability. Where do we go from here? Man?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
I mean, you guys have more stuff coming right, always,
always things in the.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Works, getting smaller, getting brighter. We've got some cool lights
coming down the pike. I can't talk about just yet,
but yeah, you'll see. It's, you know, just like this
micro slash subcompact. This weapon light is the same brightness
as an X three hundred. That's kind of the direction
everything's going. Everything's getting smaller and brighter, more efficient, better
(32:07):
run time. It's a cool time to be into lights.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
I'm really looking forward to seeing that one you were
telling me about called the toothpick ten thousand lumens.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Oh yeah, yeah, we weren't supposed to talk about that.
But thank you.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
All right, Andrew from Surefire, thanks for being with us Man,
Thank you for having me all right.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
We'll see you guys next time on gun Dog Nation,
More and more than ever. Absolutely, people are carrying weapon
lights on a daily basis. There are some people that
are motivated and carrying X three hundred. It's doable? Is
it fun? I don't think so? Not for me? Pretty big? Yeah. Well,
I mean the people who say you don't need to
like what they say, I'll see with the mousel flash,
you know, oh boy, oh boy, And I'm like, that's
(00:20):
probably not a good decision. I'm Ryan Gresham.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And this this is guntog Nation. Guntognation is brought to
you by fn MTM, Case Guard, Silence, are Central, Arcan
Firearms and Range Ready. Hey, welcome into Guntognation today on Guntognation,
(00:54):
and we're gonna be talking expressers and lights and we
may go a few other places because we got our
good buddy Andrew right from Surefire Surefire.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Welcome in dud. Thanks for having me, Ryan. Yeah, Andrew
you are how long have you been at Surefire? A
little over fifteen years now? Damn you know where the
bodies are buried and everything, just a couple of them. So,
I mean you've been doing with us. You're a guy
who you love shooting, You shoot competitively. You've gotten to hunting.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Surefire probably best known for lights yep, but also do
a bunch of other things.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
Do a really nice job on suppressors. Yeah, I want
to jump into.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
The suppressor stuff because suppressors are just the hotness right
now for everybody. But you guys make suppressors primarily tell
me if I'm wrong for the military, but we'll sell
them to the consumers. Like it's designed for the military
first and foremost.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Would that be right? Yeah, I suppose that most of
the design criteria of our suppressors is is targeted towards
like a hard use, end user, you know what I mean.
So yeah, essentially that's that's that's true. We sell suppressors
to everybody. Obviously commercial markets a big market for us.
But the you know, the goal is to have the
(02:14):
best air quotes fighting suppressors that we can make, and
all that means is, you know, there's certain performance attributes
that people look for in a suppressor. In a consumer side,
maybe it's it's weight and sound. A lot of times
we see not as much long term durability. They're not
going to shoot the high round counts that some of
our special operations customers might shoot through their suppressors. So
(02:37):
with our you know, the military customers, we need to
make sure these are going to be very very durable,
extremely reliable above all else. Like that's the number one
thing is it cannot fail. You know, sound might be
a little lower on their priority list. Flash performance is
another key performance attribute for our military customers that we
focus and excel on, whereas the con uomer market might
(03:00):
not care quite as much about that. But the durability
thing is also a benefit for our consumers. You know,
they like to buy a suppressure and know that it's
something that that's probably going to last their lifetime. And
then nowadays, back pressure is a huge component, the amount
of gas being sent backwards, you know, out of the
ejection port and really out of every other hole of
(03:21):
the rifle, what whatever's not coming out of the muzzle.
It's a big focus these days. So with our latest
suppressors and even the generation previous, these are low back
pressure suppressors that you know, have the minimal amount of
gas coming back, less wear and tear on the gun,
a lot more controllable. There's a whole bunch of other
performance size you know, length, weight, and then the mounting
(03:43):
mechanism like for US majority, I mean pretty much all
of our suppressors right now use our SOCOM fast attached
mounting method, which is basically you put a muzzle device,
you know, it's a flash hider, a muscle break, or
a war comp We make a bunch of different thread
pitches for different rifles. You put one of those on
your and then our suppressor mounts on that with the
ratcheting ring and you can you can take it on
(04:06):
and you can put it on and take it off quickly,
and it has minimal impact shipped and completely repeatable impact shifted.
So the amount that you're you know, zero changes. You
can rezero the gun with the suppressor on when you
take it off to clean the gun, or put it on,
use the suppressor on it on the firearm. When you
go and put it back on, it's going to hit
exactly where it did before, so you don't have to
worry about your zero changing.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Yeah, that's and that's probably for like military applications. You know,
these guys you're sitting at to a unit, so it's
like it could be swapped out to different guns or
a different guy or whatever. Right, I mean, you know,
the consumer buys one he puts it on his gun.
Maybe he puts it on different guns, but maybe he
just leaves it on the gun.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
So, yeah, I was going to ask you about the
ratchet system because for consumer stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
There's a lot of direct thread these days.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
But that system, the SOCOM mounting system you guys have,
is pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
It's super reliable, super robust. I mean, we've had tens
of thousands of these in the US military with very
like less than a percent of any issues. You know,
it's like they're super reliable, they're bomb proof mounting mechanism,
and it does allow you to you know, from a
military or even a civilian that wants to take some
(05:23):
force on force training. You know, if you want to
take the suppressor off to put a training device on,
or to be able to share some simmunitions or utms
or some type of training munition through it, you know
you can do it. And then when you put the
suppressor back on the gun, you know the zero is
going to to be right where it was before. From
a civilian standpoint, you know, I have a lot of rifles,
you know what I mean, So if I want to
(05:44):
bounce a suppressor back and forth between the rifles, it's
very easy to do reliably as opposed to when you're
direct threading, making sure it's you know, at the same
amount of torque that it was before there's a witness marker.
It's not quite as consistent and relying as a mounting
method if you're going to be moving suppressors around.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Someone I don't hear much talk about is the lifetime
use of a suppressor, And you were kind of alluding
to that of like, you know, you're building for these
these groups of people who are shooting tens of thousands
of rounds each year training and then you know, if
they have to go get deployed and do their thing,
you know, who knows, and it may be a lot
(06:25):
of rounds and a short amount of time. Right, But
what is the lifespan of a suppressor?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Are there some general rules as far.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
As round counts and what happens as you.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Get into higher round counts on a suppressor. Yeah, it's
a great question. It's almost like it's a very It's
very comparable to tires on a car, meaning you can
get a brand new set of tires and burn them
out in one parking lot session, right, doing some donuts.
Same thing with suppressors. You can also have those tires
last you, you know, seventy five eighty thousand miles if
(06:56):
you're rotating properly, et cetera, et cetera. With a suppressor.
If we go to the range and bring out some
big magazines, some hundred round whatever, you know, Magpool D
sixties and we do some full auto dumps, we can
blow up a suppressor, you know, relatively quickly, you know
what I mean. But if you're shooting it normally, like
(07:17):
a normal training cycle, normal around it round count, that's
still hard use. Don't get me wrong, burning it down
thousand round training days or whatever. We've seen suppressors over
one hundred thousand rounds okay, in documented on paper. Wow departments,
they're tracking you an exactly all that. Yeah, actually probably
well over it because that was the amount documented through it.
(07:37):
And I think those particular officers that I'm thinking of
had training outside of that. It was probably more like
one hundred and twenty thousand rounds.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Suppressor, Okay, it just depends on how you use it. Sure,
how do you tell you know, what's the what happens
to a suppressor when you shoot it? A lot carbon
build up is the main thing, you know what I mean.
Baffle erosion will eventually start to happen, But the main
detrimental thing that might be worth keeping an eye on
is carbon build up. And the easy way to check
that is weighing the suppressor. You know what it weighed
(08:07):
brand new, right. You can double check it yourself, put
it on a mail scale. But we list all the
weights on our website for our suppressors. I believe this
five five six many four silicon five six many four
suppressors around fifteen ounces or so. If you get you know,
ten twenty thousand rounds, you might start to see a
change in weight, maybe an ounce or so of carbon. Really,
(08:27):
it's not as much as you think. For most you
know consumers, you don't have to worry about cleaning a suppressor.
The real maintenance is the back end. You can take
a brush to the inlet of the suppressor where it
mounts on the flash hider, and then you can clean
your flash houterers, flash hiders bearing surfaces, just to make
putting it on and taking it off a little bit easier.
(08:48):
But for the most part, there's not much maintenance required.
But if you start to shoot, you know, a lot,
meaning I would I would consider a lot like ten
or fifteen thousand rounds or more a year. Then you
might want to start looking at cleaning solutions, which is
there's good bunch of companies making suppressor cleaning solutions. Now,
you basically fill up the suppressor with it. You can
plug the end, fill it up, soak it overnight, got
(09:10):
and then you shoot it the next day and a
lot of that carbon build up will will exit the suppressor.
It'll be a little messy obviously for the first couple
of magazines. Yeah, and then it'll be clean again. Loosens
up it, loosens it up, breaks it up overnight, and
then you shoot it out and that's the that's the
best way to clean them. But like I said, unless
you're shooting high round counts, it's really nothing to worry about.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
That's interesting And if you get a performance wise, if
you get into tens of thousands of rounds, what would
you notice from like would it be a sound difference,
would it be a different type of performance that you'd notice.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
No, Like those those super high round count suppressors that
we had, I think there was a slight a bit
more flash with the with a significant amount of carbon
build up. However, we did a bunch of soak and
shoot soak and shootsics and brought them down to really
close to within the original weight, and they were performing
(10:05):
pretty much just the same, you know what I mean,
like within a dB, all the impact, shift attributes, all
the flash. It was like it was it was just
like it was new. So no, not a whole lot. Now,
if you again torture a suppressor, you can. You can.
You can blow out baffles, you can do you can
you can blow up a suppressor and make the performance
drastically change. And I'm talking about they were using those
(10:27):
in a normal training cycle, normal round counts, nothing crazy
and abusive.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Yeah, and you touched on that of like, okay, when
we talk about one hundred thousand rounds, that's obviously not
all at once.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
This is over twenty or years and years. Yeah, we're
going to.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Talk about going back to the whole mag dumping a
lot of rounds and what happens and what can happen.
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MTM case guard, So Andrew, one of the things is
like heating up a suppressor right high round hen We'll say,
you know, is this suppressor full auto rated mag? Dumping
(12:38):
a bunch of rounds through a suppressor? I've heard it's
kind of a matter of you're heating up the suppressor.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
You kind of need it to give it time to cool.
And I guess you know.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
Doing iterations of three and four and five shots and
then you have to that's not as big of a
deal as a bunch of rounds all at the same time.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Is that kind of what you're talking about? Yeah, I
mean mostly it's like full atto is what I'm talking about,
And these are full auto rated. But with that said,
that's usually like one or two mags of ful aatto
and that's about it. But you can very easily, you know,
hurt a suppressor if you did a bunch of back
to back full auto mags. You know, being real abusive
(13:23):
at that point, though, like are you mad if you
blow up a suppressor? You just spent probably the suppressor's
worth of money on the ammunition. I do that, yeah,
but no, like normal training. What I mean by a
normal training cycle is like you go to a car
being class, Right, what's your round count per day? Like
I don't know, five five? Yeah, yeah, maybe a thousand
at the really round intensive courses. That would be fine
(13:43):
at the normal training cycle because you'll go out, you'll
shoot your three or four mags, whatever you have on
your person. You're gonna go back, You're gonna load up
in between cycles. That's probably plenty of time for the
suppressor to mostly cool. You'll go back out and you'll
shoot another volley of training. Usually that's not thirty round
mag dumps on one target. That's you know, a beep,
and then you're shooting a couple of targets. So you're
moving around, you're doing you know what I mean, the
(14:05):
normal training stuff, target transitions, whatever it might be. So
you're you're not gonna that you're not gonna hurt the
suppressor with doing that. When I say abuse, I mean
sitting there with a table full of magazines and an
art or a full auto trigger. We're to talk about that, yes,
And you try to go to town, and it's like, what
are we doing here? I mean, these are lost a
fair amount in doing that, but eventually you can blow
(14:25):
up any suppress Yeah, it's possible, let's talk about it.
Speaker 2 (14:29):
I mean, we used to say full auto rated, and
this was this mark of ruggedness of a suppressor. It
was also like, but like, nobody's shooting these full of
most of us don't own machine guns. That's all changed
with how common FRT triggers are, which I mean, we
don't have to get into the FRT thing, but just
like that seems like it would be a game changer
(14:53):
or consideration for a company that makes suppressors, like, oh,
there actually might be a lot more peaceeople running these
in sort of a high round count Filado type shooting.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah. Have you guys talked about that, Yeah, a little bit.
To be honest, it's not a concern because our suppressors
are still among the most durable suppressors on the market.
And again, most people are doing a couple nags of
laughing for the FRT crowd and then it's good, you know,
right right, and the suppressors will be just fine for that.
If somebody really wants to go to town, we still
(15:26):
make machine gun suppressors, which would be the best one
to go. Okay, A difference between full auto rated and
machine gun suppressor a lot more wall thickness and everything
inside there. So those are intentional or excuse me, those
are designed for going on belt fed machine guns in
the military. But if you want to get crazy with
an FRT that's what you want for sustained filato fire,
(15:48):
those are designed for it. They'll eat it up, gotcha.
And so we have an answer for that, you know,
in our showing.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yeah, so full at means you can, ye, but it's
not going on a two forty nine or something that
you know, Yeah, that's a different type of suppressor totally.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Yeah, okay, got it. So wrapping up this, this just
a thought for people listening who folks who go train
and courses, they shouldn't be worried about how many like
should I use my suppressor in a training course because
oh no, I'm going to shoot a thousand rounds in
two or three days. Now use the suppressor. Absolutely, use
(16:24):
the suppressor if you plan on having that in whatever scenario,
whether you're doing it for fun and you're going to
do some matches with it on or it's a home
defense gun, you should probably be shooting it in the
configuration that you will be using it. So also the
benefit as far as you know sound reduction and hearing protection,
it's huge. Being able to hear better, it's a gigantic
(16:45):
improvement and just quality of life, it's a huge advantage.
So yeah, absolutely use that suppressure. That's why you bought it. Well.
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Also, i mean, think about running a suppressor in a
class that you're going to shoot a thousand rounds. The
recoil reduction is and it'd be kind of nice too.
We're all that high round count over a few days.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
Absolutely, I mean, especially with these low back pressure suppressors.
I mean, the guns are returning and we'll see that
later when we when we get to the range, but
they feel really good. Yeah. Yeah, So let's talk about lights.
You guys are kind of known for them. You've you've
you've you've done a few lights and flash lights. Yeah,
for what do you what would you say?
Speaker 2 (17:22):
Just the general trends in the last couple of years
are what are what are you guys kind of trying
to do and looking at or what are you hearing
from end users?
Speaker 1 (17:31):
General trend has always been since we started lights as
far as I can remember, and I can't remember as
far back as we started lights up back when you're
a wee babe, right, uh. Yeah. Company has been around
like well over forty five years now, coming up on
in a couple of years fifty. So it's always been
getting brighter though. And then you know, since when I started,
was when when I started at the companies, when LEDs
(17:53):
were kind of first coming onto the scene, at least
for us, and they were just rapidly getting more efficient.
When that meant was brighter and better run times. Brighter
and better run times, and that's still the case today
as far as trends go. I think you know, one
thing is that we started. I think you've used these
a lot. This is our Stiletto This particular lights are
Stillletto Pro too. We have another version, the Stiletto Pro.
(18:14):
It's a little bit smaller. We were the ones that
started these flat EDC style lights that you carry similar
to a pocket knife. Most lights previous to this were wrapped,
following the form factor of the batteries. Yeah, we still
make plenty of those lights too, but not as comfortable
to carry in the pocket. So a lot of companies,
(18:34):
pretty much everybody out there now wrapping you guys copied
us and made you know which is It's awesome. It's
an awesome form factor light. These have done super well
for MIL batteries rechargeable. Right, this is USBC rechargeable. Yeah,
with the internal lithium battery. This particular one, it's fifteen
hundred lumens thirty five thousand kindela, so super bright. With
(18:55):
those two LEDs we do. The two people are like,
why is it too It's just to keep it flat.
You know, if you make one bigger reflector, it's gonna
start to get wider than the form factor. So we
have two. It's to keep it flat but still get
a bunch of candela, which is the measurement for distance. Gotcha,
But yeah, you have a bezel switch. We can go low, medium, high,
super nice for just everyday task. If I want to
(19:16):
just see with a little bit of light and not
blind myself. And then there's a tailcap on the back,
we can still get the high output. I mean, I
feel like that Stiletto Pro Solo pro.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
Right, this is the Pro two Pro two that's like
the Ferrari of handheld lights.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
It is it really is.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, Like I mean, I've got the one and it's like,
oh my precious. And when I show it to people,
especially like at night, like hey, you want to see
something kind of neat everyone everyone is going oh my gosh. Yeah,
like because it's just a handheld light. It's they're thinking
it's like a cubeam. I mean it it's for back
in the day. It looks like what you were used
(19:53):
to seeing from a Cubeam. Yeah, it's a little search
light in your pocket. It's a wireless amount of light
that we can carry now in like a tiny little form.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Yeah, it's it's a pretty awesome light. You're exactly right. Yeah,
this is the top end of everyday carry flashlights for sure.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Is were you getting calls for even brighter lights because
like it is kind of like this torch in your pocket,
like they wanted something even brighter always?
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Or was it just like your engine years ago? You know,
we could probably just make this like stupid bright. It's
a little bit of both, you know. Like I said,
LEDs are constantly getting better and we have more and
more capability, So with this particular one, it wasn't necessarily
I mean, consequently, we're at fifteen hundred uoms. It's very bright,
but it was more about getting to the candela. Yeah,
that is another market trend, you know. Yeah, is a
(20:38):
big focus across the board and in handheld lights and
in weapon lights. Now again that's just the measurement for distance,
but people have a you know, a little bit more
of a fixation on candela than we did in the
past and the benefits of it, specifically in the tactical
world with you know, whether it's sectors in depth seeing.
You know, if you're you got a shoot house here,
and if you're in one room and there's a hallway
(20:59):
and then another the room, how much light can you
punch through those different door thresholds to get to a
potential target that's a couple of rooms away. Yeah, having
a little bit more candela does a better job of
being narrow and pushing through that distance and then you know,
big piece of property, same deal. I want light to
be able to reach further and potentially see what's going
on with some detail at distance. The candela is what
(21:23):
you want for that as opposed to just overall lumens.
Still important, but the candela is a little bit more
of the focus these days. Long range precision lights reach
out and touch someone.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, it's it's one of those when they you have
a high candela, people look at it and they go, man,
that's bright.
Speaker 1 (21:42):
But it's not. It's like a different measurement. It's it's interesting.
Is is it possible to have too much light?
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Are there times when you say we don't need that
much lumens or candela or whatever?
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Yeah? In general I think so, Like for you know,
I do a lot of outdoor stuf for camping, for cooking,
you know what I mean? For reading a map, like
I want, generally speaking, the minimal amount of light required
to see what I want to see, If that makes sense,
so that I'm as close to as possible, not adapted vision.
(22:17):
Does that make sense? Absolutely? That makes you know if
you sit in the dark, anybody sits in the dark,
you know, I don't know, twenty minutes. As you get older,
it's longer twenty minutes for your eyes to kind of
adjust to seeing in a low light situation, and when
you turn on a light it kind of destroys that.
So generally speaking, I want to use, for like administrative stuff,
the minimal allow the amoun a light. Now that might
still be a substantial amount of light. But you know,
(22:39):
I won't be using fifteen hundred lumens to read a
you know, a book of climbing routes that's like right
in front of my face, right fifteen or whatever, So
lumins is probably fine for that. Yeah, you guys do
a good job about that. I think that you have.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Seems like a lot of your lights have different power modes.
I mean in people like they love the bright lights.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
But if it's if it's.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
A thousand lumens and it's just on or off, you know,
then you have to We're either going to blow yourself
out or you have to do some like funny you
covered up with your fingers or whatever.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
But yeah, on the tactical side, though, you know, there's
probably there's probably a point where there's too much light
and candela. I don't know if we're there just yet.
Generally speaking, I think most and I'm not one most
of the subject matter experts, you know, generally speaking, more
light is better, Yeah, more information. You know, in low
light scenarios, your eyes place tricks on you. A lot
(23:33):
of things are happening in a fast pace. I think
in the defensive civilian world, or if it's the law
enforcement and military side responding or going to a problem.
You know, generally speaking, more light means more information. You
can see, the sun's a lot of lumens, right, so
you could the more light we're making out of these flashlights,
the more information we have, the more we can see
what's in people's hands, what they're doing. Specifically, also a
(23:56):
little bit of a you know, offensive advantage as far
as you know, disturbing someone's eyes and kind of stunning
them and disorienting them. There could be a substantial advantage
to have in more light in those situations.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
You guys have been doing a lot of new products
in the last few years for specific lights on carry guns.
You do a lot of duty weapons, but lights on
carry guns really kind of leading the charge in that
world and for the guns that people actually carry. And
I want to get into that, do people carry lights
(24:31):
on their guns.
Speaker 1 (24:32):
We're going to get into all that after the break.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
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You be the best you can be. You'll be safer,
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the gear and the training. Learn more at Rangereadystudios dot com. So, Andrew,
all these people carrying guns and this is very common now,
(25:35):
I mean concealed carry. And the question is I wonder
how many people carry lights? Because you and I we
work in the gun industry and we deal with what
everybody hears me say the word gun nerd gun enthusiast, whatever,
the folks who are really into it, not just the
iona gun guy or I bought a gun when you know,
(25:55):
the George Floyd riots were happening, but like actual, like
actively so carrying a light on your or putting a
light on your carry gun you guys are doing a
really good job with saying, Okay, we're going to make
small lights because people are carrying small guns.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
Let's be honest. Most people aren't carrying huge, full sized guns.
And you did that forever.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
I mean the the X three hundred and all these
got I mean these are what horseman carry. But talk
about kind of that trend and what you guys are
seeing out there.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Well, I don't know, Ryan, If you look at Instagram,
everybody and their mother is carrying a full size gun
with a compensator. Yeah, X three hundred totally. You know,
a full bag of medical supplies.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Everybody's I got my double stack nineteen eleven. Yeah, I'm
Carryingworer magazine. Yeah, I'm I'm carrying eighty three rounds on me.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Like, no, you're not for my route to Jambajuice to
get my Strawberry dream machine or whatever. No. Yeah, it's
it's very funny. But more and more than ever, Absolutely,
people are carrying weapon lights on a daily basis. There
are some people that are motivated and carrying X three hundred.
It's doable? Is it fun? I don't think so? Not
for me? Pretty big? Yeah, Well, I mean the people
(27:13):
who say you don't need to like what they say, Yeah,
i'll see with the muzzle flash, you know, oh boy,
oh boy, And I'm like, that's probably not a good decision.
But realistically speaking, I think most people still are not
carrying weapon lights, which is fine. You know, have a gun,
you need a flashlight. The Stiletto is a great edc light.
The whole you know concept is like you must be
(27:36):
able to identify which you're potentially shooting. At most situations
maybe that won't be required, you're probably going to see
what's going on whatever, But for the niche amount of
scenarios where it's a you know, dark parking lot, you know,
mom in the night, whatever it might be, you need
to be able to identify what's going on before you
can potentially lethally engage a potential aggressor. So the lights now,
(28:03):
they're getting smaller and more capable to where there's not
much downside to carrying one. You know, micro and subcompact
guns have become a huge market in these days, and
so we try and make lights to accommodate that market.
In my hands, we have our XC three sub, which
is our new, latest and greatest compact light specifically marketed
(28:25):
and designed for that particular segment of hand. And it's like,
you know, like.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
What we mean by that is like the the P
three sixty five, the hell Cat exactly shield like those
that category that size what what forty three forty three
x exactly those types of guns that are like the
common carry guns exactly those guns.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Yep, we have real adapters that fit those pistols. Essentially,
this is very similar to our previous XC three with
a different mount that fits these super compact thousand lumens
thirteen thousand candela seed. That's wild. I mean, if anybody
even follows this, that was that on a carry gun
is wild. That's bright. It's basically like x three hundred
(29:08):
ultra output out of a small compact little light is
that run on batteries. It does so it has a
front loading battery. The new battery is called our rc
R one two three. It's basically a rechargeable twenty three
with a USB seaport on the battery itself. It can
(29:28):
also take a standard one twenty three disposable battery. You
do sacrifice some output, so the rechargeable one is going
to give you that full thousand Lumens a third five
thousand Candela switching his Ambidextris. But yeah, man, there's not
much you know, as we were talking about with the
carry guns these days, excuse other than just the price
point with with not having a weapon light. So I'm
pretty much every day I'm carrying a weapon light for
(29:51):
me personally, More and more customers are doing the same,
just because you're not sacrificing much as far as concealability.
These don't go further than the muzzle of most of
the gun, as we just said, they're not wider than
most of the guns we just said, so they're really
not You're not losing a whole lot, and then you
just gain a lot of a capability. You know, I'm
sure you've shot one handed with an with a handheld flashlight. Yeah,
(30:12):
I mean, it's it's a difficult task. You need to
train on it, so having it's kind of your you're
rubbing your head and patting your tummy kind of thing.
And then also you're shooting.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
A gun one handed, which listen, that's that's a compromise
shooting position. You can do it, Yep, you can send
us down range, but you're you are better with two
hands on the gun, obvious.
Speaker 1 (30:30):
Everything is better. So that's what a weapon like gives
you is the ability to have way more control of
the gun, recoil control, if you have to reload, if
you have to interact with your environment, if you want
to call somebody, they call nine to one one, open
a door, open a car door. You know. Now I
can maintain light on a potential aggressor and do something
else at the same time. Well, here's the other thing.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
If you have a home defense gun, whether that's a
rifle or a handgun, probably a lot of people have
a handgun. Maybe it's like I've got the big, full
size handgun because it's just sitting in a like a
little handgun safe.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
I don't it's not a carry gun. You're crazy not
to have a light on it. One hundred percent. You're
not carrying it one hundred percent. Every home defense pis
I mean absolutely should have a light on it. It can
be a compact light, it could be a full size
X three hundred. It really doesn't matter. Yeah, in my opinion,
you'd need a weapon. We're not worried about size.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
You're not worried about weight because the thing is sitting
next to your night stand or whatever, like you gotta
have a light on that thing.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Yep, you look at uniformed you know, police officers, military,
and if you have a full if you're in kit,
you were in armor, a helmet, you know what I mean.
You got all this stuff. Like everybody's got a full
sized weapon light. There's no reason not to, you know,
with the with the grand scheme of things, and it's
just added capability. Where do we go from here? Man?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
I mean, you guys have more stuff coming right, always,
always things in the.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Works, getting smaller, getting brighter. We've got some cool lights
coming down the pike. I can't talk about just yet,
but yeah, you'll see. It's, you know, just like this
micro slash subcompact. This weapon light is the same brightness
as an X three hundred. That's kind of the direction
everything's going. Everything's getting smaller and brighter, more efficient, better
(32:07):
run time. It's a cool time to be into lights.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
I'm really looking forward to seeing that one you were
telling me about called the toothpick ten thousand lumens.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
Oh yeah, yeah, we weren't supposed to talk about that.
But thank you.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
All right, Andrew from Surefire, thanks for being with us Man,
Thank you for having me all right.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
We'll see you guys next time on gun Dog Nation,
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