Loads of Balls!: Weapon Light Shootout

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L-R: WF-503a, UF-762, L2

Review Scores

Item name: Ultrafire UF-762 with Pressure Switch

Item type: Torch body

Cost: £22 including XML bulb

Overall rating: 3/5

Item name: Ultrafire WF-503a with Press Button

Item type: Torch body

Cost: £12 excluding bulb

Overall rating: 3/5

Item name: Solarforce L2

Item type: Torch body

Cost: £17 excluding bulb new

Overall rating: 4/5

Item Name: Ultrafire Cree XM-L T6 P60 Drop-in (single mode)

Item type: Torch bulb

Cost: came with UF-762

Overall Rating: 4/5

Item Name: Ultrafire Cree XR-E Q5 P60 Drop-in (single mode)

Item type: Torch Bulb

Cost: came with L2 second hand

Overall Rating: 5/5

Introduction

Sorry to begin a post with that horrendous list of items and review scores, but I like to put the summary at the top of the posts. Anyway, on to the interesting bits now.

For years I thought my Maglite Mini was a great torch - it was bright, well made and looked the part. Then I got into airsoft and started looking for a weapons torch for my rifle in preparation for a weekender back at easter. I initially settled on the Ultrafire UF-762 as it was cheap, had a built in rail mount and came with a pressure pad. Ideal.

Shortly after getting this torch and discovering how monstrously bright it was I purchased an Ultrafire WF-503a, intending to mount it on my bike and transfer the bulb from the 762 over to it. This I did, and was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the torch. Around this time I started to have issues with the pressure pad on the 762 and so I started to look for a better alternative, however I soon discovered that I really needed a Solarforce L2 to have access to quality accessories. So I bought a second had Solarforce L2, leading me to this review.

Before reviewing these torches in greater depth, I really need to explain a little bit about the type of torch these are all based upon, and what some of the numbers and letters that retailers like to put in the names for these torches mean.

History

I am not sure how, but SureFire rose to prominence as a US based maker of high performance torches and weapon lights, and one of their most successful models was the SureFire 6P. Designed to take 3V CR123a lithium batteries, the torch initially shipped with a xenon incandescent bulb, which apparently wasn't that bright. The bulb unit that it took was called a 'P60 drop in', and shortly LED drop ins were available, increasing battery life and lumen output far beyond the original design.

At some point a company called CREE rose to the position of making the best high output LEDs on the market, and as SureFire began to expand the range of 6P based torches, the imitations soon followed. First and foremost amongst them is the Solarforce L2 - according to many users on flashlight forums it is simply the best P60 host (body into which you place a P60 drop in) that one can buy. Other off-spec imitations followed (they are numerous), and the user can select from a wide range of P60 hosts, and a wide range of P60 drop ins.

UltraFire WF-503a

WF-503a without extension tube

Tailcap and extension tube

First off - the Ultrafire WF-503a. This is an interesting torch, based off the Solarforce L2m originally. The idea of this torch is that you can run it from a single CR123a battery, or by using the included extension tube expand it up to full 6P size and use two batteries. The extension tube is good quality, with a big chunky anti-roll ring machined into it. O-rings are fitted behind the tail threads, in front of the head threads and also on the extension tube.

The tailcap is well machined, featuring a hole to fit a lanyard and a rather hard to press tailswitch. I improved the quality of the tailswitch by putting a little bit of sheet plastic underneath the rubber cap - this meant the cap had to be pressed in less before the switch was triggered. The switch assembly is not sealed against water.

Head Assy on UF-762 Body

Dismantled Head Assembly

The head assembly looks and feels good, with a second anti-roll ring and the Ultrafire logo and torch
model cleanly engraved. The only two downsides of the head assembly are the bezel and the covering glass. The covering glass is quite thin - only 1.5mm, and the bezel (the ring that holds the glass into the head assembly) is made of plastic - I don't anticipate either of these components surviving a strike from a BB. There is a glow in the dark o-ring that seals between the glass and the head, meaning that water can only ingress from the rear of the torch.

The torch is bored out to accept high capacity batteries - I currently run it on 16340 rechargeables, which are the same size as CR123a batteries, however it can take larger diameter cells such as 18500 and 18650 cells if the right extension tubes are fitted. The torch came with a sleeve to stop 16340s from rattling inside the torch - a rather neat feature.

UltraFire UF-762

UF-762 with ARMS #17 clone installed

The second host I'll talk about is the UF-762. Specifically this is a clone of the SureFire M620 weapon light.

The provided rail mount

This comes in a flat black finish, with a built in rail mount. The machining of the threads of the tailcap is not that good in quality, and after repeated screwing and unscrewing the o-ring tore, meaning that there was no seal against water on the back of the torch. The head thread on the other hand is very good quality, as is the rail mount. It snugs up tightly against on-spec rails and potentially against some off-spec rails, and really looks the part.

The rail mount can be removed, and replaced with any mounting
system that fits a milspec channel, such as the ARMS #17 mount (my old friend), meaning you have a quick release torch that will solidly mount to your weapon system of choice.

The bottom of the mount

The pressure switch that came with the torch was horrendous. It required an incredible amount of force to press, and even then wouldn't always light up. Complete failure occured shortly after I bolted the torch to my rifle and actually tried to skirmish it, whereupon I damaged the wire as it came out of the tailcap.

UF-762 Head Assy

Dismantling the tailcap revealed a complete lack of waterproofing, and absolutely no strain relief whatsoever. The wires had snapped away from their
soldered contacts, and the wire itself was incredibly stiff. Cutting open the pressure pad at the other end (by this point the heatshrink was already starting to tear) revealed very stiff springs and thin sheet brass as the connectors. The copper traces that completed the circuit board were completely worn away, explaining the intermittent connection problems.

The mount removed from the torch

I made my own pressure pad and re-soldered the wires, and for a time it was good - but the poor quality wiring let me down twenty minutes into the weekender, and I switched to the button tailcap that came with the 503a.

The head assembly is identical to the 503a head assembly apart from the torch model number.

Solarforce L2

This is the cream of the bunch - I snapped this up for 20 quid second hand including a bulb, rail mount, clicky tailcap and pressure pad tailcap. This was in response to a thread on zeroin forums in which I found out that Solarforce tailcaps were not compatible with the Ultrafire torches that I had (although Ultrafire do make a torch that is supposedly entirely 6P compatible).

The L2 Head Assembly

Despite being a cheap chinese copy, this torch still blew me away - everything is very well manufactured. The head assembly sports an aluminum bezel and 3mm thick glass, as well as an anti-roll ring. The head assembly is compatible with the head assemblies of the two ultrafire torches, however the bezel thread is not.

The body sports crisp markings, including the Solarforce logo, the torch model and a (legitimate) serial number.

Markings are crisp and high quality

Sure enough, as I had read the tailcaps were not compatible with the 503a and the 762, however they were of much higher quality. The tailswitch is a "forward click" switch, meaning that the light switches on before the switch goes "click". This is great for momentary switching on of the torch. The ultrafire tailcap is a "reverse click" switch, meaning that the opposite is true - this makes momentary on far trickier to manage.

Solarforce Pressure Switch

The solarforce tailcap is fully sealed against water ingress, with o-rings between the switch and cap body. I have seen pictures of these flashlights being switched on and submerged in a sink full of water for ten minutes without any problem! The tailcap also has Solarforce's website etched on it.

The pressure switch tailcap is very well built, with the pressure pad giving a tactile click when it is depressed.

The wire is also shorter, and much more flexible, however once again strain relief is not really provided for, the glue that bonded the insulation to the body of the cap having long since failed. I intend to fix this by "potting" the wiring, where one fills the hollow interior of the cap with epoxy, both water proofing it and providing strain relief at the same time. Once again, the cap is fully waterproof.

Ultrafire Cree XM-L T6 P60 Drop-in

Installed in the WF-503a

The first of the two drop-ins I'm reviewing is a very bright, unfocused unit. The name is quite complex, so I'll break it down. Ultrafire refers to the company that has assembled the P60 unit, consisting of a brass pill, an LED, a driver circuit and a reflector. Cree refers to the LED manufacturer, in this case CREE, and XM-L is the model of LED used in the drop-in.

On manufacture no two LEDs are created equal, and CREE tests them all with the same voltage and current to measure the lumens output. The LEDs are then separated into bins, with higher letters and numbers indicating better (brighter) LEDs. The bin codes vary from model to model, and T6 is about mid-range for the XM-L, with U2 being the brightest bin available. Needless to say, an XM-L U2 based drop-in is going to be more expensive.

Left: XR-E Drop-in Right: XM-L Drop-in

Theoretically the XM-L LED can output 750 lumens (and ultrafire tell you this), however to do that you need a much higher quality driver circuit and much bigger batteries in order to hit the current flow required.

The unit seems to be averagely assembled - the reflector has mucky manufacturing markings on the outside, and a few minor flaws on the smooth reflector surface. The circuit board is soldered to the pill in two places, so I wonder whether this would withstand real weapon recoil.

Ultrafire Cree XR-E Q5 P60 Drop-in (single mode)

Installed in the L2

This drop-in has much more of a long-throw beam, but overall is not as bright as the XM-L. The assembly quality is much higher on this as well. The reflector is dimpled, and well made, with none of the blemishes on the outside that were evident on the XM-L drop-in. The springs are higher quality, and the soldering is better quality.

What I did find was that the XR-E LED delivers a very good aiming spot - from 5 metres away the spot is torso sized - if your gun is well set up you can just place the light spot on target and pull the trigger to get a hit, making it very useful in CQB situations. As you can see from the pictures the LED itself is a lot smaller, with a larger aspherical lens. I have a poor quality Insight M6 clone that uses the same LED - once again the targeting capability of this torch really is useful.

Beamshot comparison. Left is XR-E and right is XM-L

Conclusion

This has been a bit of a mammoth review, but there was a lot to talk about. Sorry for the quality of some of the pictures - they were taken quite late in the day, and I didn't have a tripod handy to stabilise the camera.

Overall I'd recommend all of these torches to people wanting weapon-lights for airsoft, but to the discerning user I would say that the L2 is the best host, and the XR-E the best LED for the job on this budget.

The L2 can be fitted with a wide array of accessories, made by surefire and solarforce. These include rail mounts, agressive bezels, head assemblies, extension tubes with built in QD rail mounts, combo pressureswitch/button tailcaps etc.

The UF-762 is a great torch, let down only by its rear tailcap thread. Currently I have a broken arm so I can't do machining myself, however I have a friend re-machining the rear of the 762 so that it can accept solarforce and surefire tailcaps. Once I have had this done I will be installing a solarforce head and tailcap and an ARMS #17 rail - then I will have arrived at the ideal budget torch (though by that point it won't be that budget any more).

Here are a few comparison photos of things that weren't included in the review: