High Exposure

Flawless.

We ordered 30 TLR-1s for my PD and I had a personally purchased one as well. We had enough problems with our lights that at my suggestion we switched everyone over to SF X300U. Some lights had multiple issues, some had just one. A few were fine. There was enough of a problem that it was worth it to switch.

I regreted both of my TLR-1s (one issued and one bought) then I still had to buy an X300U. One shattered the lens on the seatbelt in my patrol car (this happened to a few of us). The other had the switch give up the ghost after a few months. Seems being out in the weather in a holster wasn't so great for the light. I have been using SF since. I bought 30 X300Us when they came out to replace the TLR-1s we had issued. Haven't had a single problem with one yet.

I had a few TLR1s. Now I I have 5 X300U with DG11 switch. The DG switch is the most in-cumbersome switch out there, grab the gun like you are going to shoot and squeeze with your middle finger on your shooting hand. Even without the DG the toggle works well - Press in for momentary on either side of the switch. For constant on push the switch up or down on either side. For me the X300U is the answer. I tried the APL. Did not like it enough to switch. If I couldn't get an X300U I would get one of the TLR HLs. According to the manufacturers specs, the TLR at 4.18oz is heavier than the X300U at 4oz, the the TLR is .29" shorter. For all intents and purposes they are identical. As long as you have a holster that will fit your pistol with your light, a fraction of an inch or ounce doesn't matter. The APL is a different story as it was designed for smaller compact size guns such as the G19.

Completely False. 500L is where it's at for a pistol light. More is better, even inside. Here an example why: Oh hello. Are you a good guy or a bad guy? I can't tell.... that's weird. It's daytime, and bright enough to see inside. I should be able to see fine. Why can't I see his hands? Oh, he's backlit by the sunshine outside the vestibule. What is he doing. Is he texting? Carrying something heavy? Does he have his thumbs hooked in backpack straps? My 200L handheld (SF G2) isn't cutting through the glare. His posture is suspicious and he is an unknown. Maybe I should use my bright-ass weapon mounted light (X300U) instead and find out. Oh shit! You won't blind yourself, you won't distract yourself - that's all bullshit. Anyone who says that doesn't know what they are talking about and has never searched for a bad guy in a structure. Daytime, night time, dusk or dawn, there will be dark spaces in a structure. There will be backlit spaces. Light creates shadow so you need a light that you can move to erase those shadows and the light needs to be bright enough to be useful. I've searched a lot of buildings looking for bad guys. I have 1000L on my rifle, 1000L on my handheld and 500L on my pistol. I've never ever wished for less light. I've wished for more plenty of times. V9, my vote is for the SF X300U on any pistol. If they make a DG switch for your HK even better. No - it is actually a bonus. It keeps the lens clear from burnt powder that can coat the lens and rob you of lumens. It also acts as a standoff if you are in ECQC and have to make a contact shot - it keeps the gun from going out of battery when you push the gun against your threat.

Thanks!

Reader's digest version?

That's the one! Awesome, Thanks. NJGF comes trough once again.

Fun fact. You can fit an entire LPK (minus the pistol grip) in an Altoids tin with room to spare for some gas rings, an extractor, some extractor springs, a cam pin, and firing pin retainer. I keep one in each rifle bag with a rubber band around it. A firing pin, complete bolt and carrier and charging handle go in some old Oakley sunglasses cases I have.

So far you all are three for three with finding me some hard to find items. Lets see if you can do it again. I am looking for one of the old style Kydex Comp-Tac M4 mag pouches with the double retention screws, not that stupid shark fin that they have now, that will fit a 1.5" belt. I am stumped. Thanks NJGF!

I am on it like a hobo on an ham sandwich. A regular M-F schedule and working day time hours for the first time in 15 years will let me facilitate a nice get together. And as always, thanks Peel! ETA: I just saw the 1A thread. Funny stuff. https://www.njgunforums.com/forum/index.php?/topic/87394-why-high-exposure-did-not-make-the-meetup-excuses-thread/#comment-1123733 I'm still not getting notifications for any posts/likes/following in the 1A section.

Delayed double tap. Thank you very much for the well wishes everyone. It is appreciated

I am happy everyone had a good time and am very sorry I missed it. I was really looking forward to meeting everyone. Stories of my estrogen replacement therapy were greatly exaggerated. I ended up getting promoted to LT at work. The promotion ceremony and swearing in was on Tuesday night. Unbeknownst to me, my little brother (who just retired from the Army and is a new Police Officer in Waynesville MO) flew in on Monday night to surprise me and to attend the swearing in. I am honored he thought to do this. He's a good brother, and I am very lucky. Unfortunatley his flight home was last night and I had to get him up to the airport.

TYR is nice and very expensive. They are the new company started by the original owner and founder of Blackhawk. Then First Spear are the guys that owned Eagle Industries before selling it off. They also make great gear (Their Assaulters Gun Belt is the bees-knees) but is also spendy. Also, Velocity Systems makes great armor and gear as well. Fatty, I recommend Velocity Systems or one of the Paraclete setups offered through Point Blank.

The entire armor industry is black magic. The salesmen make used car dealers seem downright pious. It is important to know that not all armor can stop every threat. You need to do a realistic assessment of why you are most likely to come across threat wise - even in the same calibers. For example, ceramic armor will stop some things while others will whistle right through. Even in the same caliber. Rule of thumb - You armor has to stop the rounds that you and yours carry. After that its a caliber assessment of likely threats. Make friends with a cop. Find out what they are seeing in your area. Heavy (Rifle) armor has many options - ceramic, HDPE, Boron Carbide, Steel, Hybrid (HDPE and Ceramic). When buying you have 3 options, lightweight, affordable, effective. You get to pick two of the three. Avoid AR500 armor. I like the Hybrid. Stops a larger range of threats, both the fast lightweight rounds and the slow heavy stuff. The HDPE protects the ceramic and stops spall. It's lighter than pure ceramic and in the low end of the middle price wise. Soft armor is another story. I have been in charge of purchasing the concealable vests for my department for 10 years. In my opinion Point Blank currently has the best ballistics package out there in their IIIa vests since they bought Paraclete from MSA. That US Palm defender rig is nice too. Decent armor in a great "bump in the night" setup.

I thought it was common knowledge that the the Expanse line was manufactured by a different company to a lower standard than a regular Colt.

From a criminal law view, you don't have to be correct in your assessment - as long as your reaction is reasonable to your peers. Don't get me wrong, it's better to be right in many different ways, but it isn't technically necessary. That doesn't mean you can make shoot/no-shoot decisions lightly and rely on the reasonableness standard. It means if that metal shiny thing in his hand that you thought was a gun in the low light conditions your critical incident occurred in turns out to be a Coor's Light can, if your reaction was reasonable, your covered under the law. Civilly, you're screwed if you are right. You're screwed harder if you are wrong. But you're alive.

I have a 4x ACOG ( and a 1-6 Vortex. The vortex gets used way more than the ACOG. That being said my RDS rifles get used the most. Didn't mean to be rude buddy. The "stop" was to get your attention. You are a big boy and can totally make your own decisions. But, I know how your head works - you go down this rabbit hole and you won't come back and you'll end up with something that doesn't quite suit your needs.

Stop. For the money there are better options out there. The RMR on top is an early 2000's solution for a fixed magnification optic when the magnification will actually slow you down - say 0-75 yards or so. It was a decent option at the time for guy's in Afghanistan where they needed to shoot 600+ yards in the mountains on the way to the objective then switch to CQB type stuff in villages and compounds. It is less than ideal that required a weird and uncomfortable chin weld on the stock. If you go fixed mag optic like an ACOG, you are better off with a 45* mount for your MRDS. IMO Vortex HD 1-6 is the way to go if you are going to spend that money on an optic for a rifle that you plan on using from 0 to a few hundred yards. A quality RDS (Aimpoint) will serve you perfectly well from 0 to 100 yards.

Nope, not just you, I was talking to everyone. There are two really good books on this topic, referred to as "Killology" by the author. They are "On Killing" and "On Combat" both by Lt Col Dave Grossman. I highly recommend them to anyone who may have to use force or violence against another human. I agree violence must be met with violence. I certainly am NOT a "Violence never solved anything" kind of guy either. I agree that the bad guy sealed his fate by first being a bad guy, and second by choosing someone that will fight back as a victim. I know I will be happy that I won and I survived the encounter in the first few moments after winning a deadly force incident. I even agree that the world is a better place without real bad guys in it. What I won't do is wish to be a victim so I can kill someone, even a legit bad guy. And while I will certainly be glad I survived, I won't celebrate the death. The fact that my attacker has ceased to be an earthy oxygen consumer may very well be a good thing, but the fact that I was just forced to kill someone in defense of me and mine and all the associated headache and heartache that follows is certainly not good.

Don't confuse the completely natural and normal feeling of euphoria that comes after winning a deadly force encounter with bloodlust. That doesn't mean the loss of life is good. That "survivor's high" won't last forever though.

^^ This is truth. In reality, night sights are useful for about 20-30 minutes minutes at dawn and again for 20-30 minutes at dusk, or other occasional mesopic light conditions - such as heavy thunderstorms or being in structures with specific lighting conditions that can prolong a twilight like condition. Here's an example photo of an appropriate time to rely on night sights (taken from an article by I think Travis Haley): Note - It is enough light to identify your target as friend or foe at reasonable pistol engagement distances and there is still enough background light to wash the brightness out of the tritium, but it is too dark to rely on the crisp outline of your sights to aim. This is the "sweet spot" where the use of tritium night sights shines (forgive the pun). For the situations most people want night sights, what is actually required is a white light - either handheld or weapon mounted and preferably both are available. Because ultimately you can't shoot what you can't positively identify as a threat. And, if you have a white light, you no longer need those sloppy green dots, as the white light will provide proper background illumination to enable the proper use of the crisp outline of your iron sights for better accuracy. Remember, those dots are there for sight alignment and reference only under low light/no-light conditions. They are not for regular everyday aiming. You should still be using the crisp defined outline of the front sight evenly spaced in the rear notch and flat across the top as often as possible. The orange front sight on the Spartan Operators and Trijicon HDs is great for drawing the eye and getting that flash front sight picture, but before breaking the shot, you have to make sure your front sight outline is centered and flat to your rears. The orange flash isn't your aiming point. Smokin .50 brought up another issue sometimes encountered with night sights. Sometimes they are just too bright. They can create a "wall of light" that you can't see past - like trying to see the face of the driver of a car when they have their high beams on. A quick fix for this is to take a green or black sharpie and color over the dots to darken them a bit. I have also found that sets with a green front sight and yellow rear sights, instead of the standard all green, provide a much dimmer rear sight while maintaining the bright eye catching green front and frankly work better for social occasions. The downside is the yellow doesn't last as long at the standard green tritium that everyone is used to. I'm not trying to turn anyone off night sights. They are still useful tools and I have them on my guns and the Spartan Operator with the yellow rear is my go to set for my Glocks. It's just important to know the realistic limitations of tritium night sights before dropping 1/5 of the value of your pistol on them.

Newtonian, I am confused by your question. I am supporting stuckinnj's position to do what he is comfortable with. I didn't tell him to sell his stuff give up the hobby, That was another poster. For a climber I would advise to never climb above what you are comfortable doing. There are old climbers, and there are bold climbers. There are very few old AND bold climbers.

Ameriglo Spartan Operator sights are my preferred sights. You can find them for under $80 with a little work, Primary Arms often has them for sale. Usually they are around $90-$100. I work in Middlesex County, and have the Glock install tool. When you get your sights, whichever kind they are, let me know. I'll meet up with you and install them for free. Also, Atlantic Tactical on Worlds Fair Drive in Franklin may still carry some Glock sights and they used to install them for free if you bought them there. Not sure if they still do that though.

I agree with this. And in an of itself is a completely true statement. However, while using violence to defend yourself may be legally, morally, and ethically righteous, it still carries a cost on the psyche/soul/conscious/karma or whatever you want to call it. Even if you are physically unharmed, you will be fundamentally changed after the event. Many people win their deadly force encounter but can't live with the aftermath. They self destruct. The good guy might win, but the bad guy will continue to affect them long after the physical confrontation is over. With proper training and mindset prior to the event, a lot of the associated angst can be overcome and dealt with. But it is still present. Deadly force in the defense of oneself or loved ones is not something to ever be taken lightly or for granted and is never something to be looked forward to. Killing an adversary or a threat may be necessary, it may be righteous, the world may be a better place afterwards, but it is never wholly a good thing.