300 lumens

Self-Defense
6

I don’t have a tactical background. I do, however, use flashlights almost everyday. I also often work in dirty environments, and use different flashlights depending on the job. Mud, salt, rain, sweat, garbage, sewage, moldy sludge, sawdust, snow, etc. are encountered commonly and usually for prolonged periods.

Your post doesn’t mention “defensive only” flashlights. Although I find myself gravitating to “all-around” flashlights that can stretch to defensive roles, I don’t carry a separate dedicated defensive flashlight with my EDC flashlight (which would be the better option). I will, however, switch out flashlights that are more utility for something with more defensive purpose when I think it is appropriate… although that usually means I probably won’t be using it that day.

Some things worth looking into (just my understanding, not stating these as facts)…

  1. Ultra-Fire batteries have had a history of lieing about their specs, e.g. amperage (A) and capacity (mAh). There are some reviews of UltraFire’s “9800” mAh and “5000” mAh 18650’s from a couple years ago which also state that the “protection” from overcharge and over discharge did not exist even though the wrapping said otherwise. Here’s a link to one review:
    Test/review of UltraFire CN18650 9800mAh (Yellow) | BudgetLightForum.com

  1. Be careful with even SF and SL lumen specs vs expectations. Streamlight goes the extra-mile in transparency by making the chart of their lumens vs runtimes available both on their website and often on the back of the packaging itself. Fenix, a Chinese brand, often has thier runtime charts posted as well.

Here’s a link to a 350 lumen Streamlight’s runtime chart from Streamlight’s product page (I own it amongst some other SL models). This 350 lumen flashlight seems to be more of a 200 lumen flashlight after 30 minutes. Although this is how many flashlights work, some might be confused when they actually use a flashlight for prolonged periods… at least for flashlights that will fit in a pocket. Significant decrease on some of their higher lumen models sometimes happens within the first 10 minutes. However, this is the norm for these types of lights.

Again, as mentioned before, beam profile is also going to play a role. 300 lumen at 900 candela is going to perform differently than 300 lumen at 10K candela.

Also… IIRC, Streamlight’s components are made in China and assembled in America. I could be wrong.

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