Urban Survival Firearms - Tactical Handgun Lights

UrbanSurvivalSkills.com received the following comment on the Carbine Back Up Iron Sights post,....."Anonymous said.....Exactly the information I was looking for. I bought what they call an Optics Ready Carbine from a friend of mine, but there are no sights. I want to put a scope on it,..was thinking about a 2x9 rifle scope, but will wait until I get iron sights as I agree they are most important. Any chance of you doing an article on lights for handguns and rifles? Do I need one of those lights that attaches to my pistol? How about my carbine?

UrbanMan replies: I'll have to break weapons lights into two articles,...one for handguns and the other for carbines. There are many tactical handgun lights out there. Streamlight, Safariland, Blackhawk, and Smith and Wesson among others, but the tactical handgun lights I have the most experience with are from Surefire and Insights Technology (ITI) who pioneered handgun lights. These lights mount to picatinny (also called 1913) rails or a one groove rail section underneath the appropriate handgun.

The older lights, such as the Surefire Slimline, required an adaptor for handguns that did not have a 1913 rail and these were okay in most cases, but the new generation of handguns with the a section of 1913 rail are much better to mount tactical lights to. I know a gent, Jim from the Survival Chronicles, who has a Surefire light on his Walther .22 LR handgun for Urban Survival - Home Defense.

I only own Surefire X200 and ITI M3X tactical lights for my handguns. If I'm going to need another handgun light, then I would buy the more expensive but better Surefire 200X or 300X as the LED is more durable than a light bulb that the M3X utilizes even though the "X" in the M3X designation is for a more shock resistant Mil-Spec type construction. The ITI M3X is above LEFT and the Surefire X200 is above RIGHT. The Surefire is of aluminum construction and the Surefire is of Plastic. Both use 2 each DL123 lithium batteries and have adequate run time for the light produced. Both have a momentary on/off switch and a "constant on" switch in case you need to use your off hand to open doors, tighten flex cuffs or whatever. Surefire now has the X300 light available which produces 110 lumens of light with a 2.5 hour runtime.

I have a light for each of my M-4's, shotguns and Glock pistols. The tactical handgun lights would also mount to the 1913 rail on your carbines or shotguns. Shown RIGHT is two Glocks,...a Model 22 with a Surefire X200 and a Glock 19 with a ITI M3X light.

The ability to use a light to disoriented your attacker(s), illuminate targets, clear section of a dark building like your home at 3 am, are all great reason to own a tactical light for one or more of your firearms.

The video below will give you an idea of how valuable these handgun lights are for illuminating dark areas of your house. The Surefire lights, as well as others, are available from Brownells - click here.