Does anyone have a mounted light on their CCW pistol?

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Don't have one. I think it is more practical to carry one of these instead of having one attached to a CCW gun.

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It can be done. Requires a holster that is bulky..i use my P-01
with a M3 light in a Don Hume TAC paddle holster. Hides well
under a winter coat.

I just like it because it is different and a project for me.
You get some interesting looks from folks when you are
out on the shooting range. with everything being Tactical
nowdays....and more guns coming out with the accessory
rails..look to more people using lights on CCW guns.

Wish i could afford the M-6 light/laser combo like the Test
P-01 in the recent issue's 500 round (flawless) test in Guns & Ammo.


In a land of Glocks and SIGs, there is CZ.
 

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Hkmp5sd -

I do carry one of those (a 6P, actually.) I was doing some dry-fire presentations in my darkened apartment the other day, and found that juggling the light and the gun is a major hassle. It ties up both your hands, greatly reduces your control over the weapon, and is in general slow and cumbersome. So I got to thinking about a mounted light, and the rest is history.

I'm still up in the air about the idea, but honestly I see little downside to having a light on a CCW gun (assuming you could buy or make a sufficently small/bright lamp.)

Irregardless, I'd still carry a handheld Surefire. If nothing else, it's good to have when you drop your car keys in a snow-covered parking lot at 0-dark-30...

- Chris
 
I carry a SureFire C2 in my left jacket pocket. I also practice shooting while holding the light. I think the light might be good for a HD handgun, but not for a CCW. There might be a time when you do not want to give away your position and switching the light on and off would be difficult as a weapon light. A freestanding flashlight is much easier to operate. The flashlight can also be used as a weapon as it can temporarily blind (P61 lamp assembly, P60 is also harsh).

-SquirrelNuts
 
The wisdom of C.R. Sam, paraphrased

If you point your gun at "potential" targets, you are violating basic gun-handling rules. How would you feel if you unknowingly lit up your child or someone else's by pointing a gun at them?
 
NO on CCW, YES on HD pistol.

Too bulky (for me) to carry IWB and such, but it doesn't matter how big my pistol in the Handgun Safe is.
If you point your gun at "potential" targets, you are violating basic gun-handling rules.
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People say that a LOT when arguing against a dedicated light attached to an HD pistol...

But lets be honest, if it's 3:00am, you hear glass break, you get up from your bed with a pistol in one hand, flashlight in the other, and you see a dark figure sneaking around your hallway, how many of you would REALLY point the flashlight but NOT the pistol to light up this figure? Unless your name is CR Sam, (or 1 or 2 others on here) I say BULL! Just keep your finger off the trigger, just in case it's your alchoholic brother in law who "let himself in" to your house because your sister kicked him out of his.
 
Ledbetter -

If I "light someone up" with a weapon-mounted light, that means my gun is out. If my gun is out, it means that my life is in danger. The light is to identify the target in case it turns out not to be a threat. I'm not seeing the problem here.

Now in the matter of searches, that's a different story. But I'm not a cop, and I don't plan on stalking any bad guys through the shadows...

Lone_Gunman -

I read that some large percentage of gunfights take place in low light. If that's the case, then a light on a gun might be a good thing to have. Nu?

- Chris
 
Do not. Leave it off for flexibility of technique and bulkiness.

Depends (you know I'd say that) on what you wish to do. Lights are usually for hunting. If I'm a DDD (Dreaded Demon of Darkness), with one hand on the pistola and one on the shield or whatever, yea, sure. For me, a DDOG (Dreaded Demon of Office Geekiness), nope, at least not on the pistol.:)
 
Sorry, wrong.

If my gun is out, it means that my life is in danger.

Nope, it means you THINK it's in danger. World of difference. And think about that statement.

Does it make sense to say "If my flashlight is out, it means my life is in danger?"

No, because you use a flashlight to investigate and a gun to kill.

I don't expect to change anyone's mind that's already made up, but I consider it needless and dangerous to mount a flashlight to a home or self defense weapon.
 
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I do carry one of those (a 6P, actually.) I was doing some dry-fire presentations in my darkened apartment the other day, and found that juggling the light and the gun is a major hassle. It ties up both your hands, greatly reduces your control over the weapon, and is in general slow and cumbersome.
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I have an Insights M3 mounted on my Glock for home defense, but when I carry it concealed the M3 comes off (too bulky) and I carry a Surefire E2 Executive fitted with a battle lanyard. The battle lanyard eliminates "juggling the light and gun" when the support hand is needed to do a two handed task, such as racking the slide.

I also have Surefire 6P, fitted with a battle lanyard (not a Surefire factory wrist lanyard), which I keep stored inside the GunVault with my Glock 19. The 6P is my primary light, and the M3 serves as a backup.

However, my favorite light is the E2.
 
Nope, no way.

My Surefire is in one hand, my pistol in the other. I can bring them together (that's an option) if it's appropriate and safe.

But remember, that light acts as a bullet magnet that tells the bad guy you missed - standing over there - "Please shoot here." :eek:

Moving around with the light joined to the gun is only aggravated by the use of the "strobe-light" technique, whereby the light is flicked on-&-off intermittently, giving off a kind of uneven "staccato" effect. :scrutiny:

To anyone hiding in the vicinity (long angled hall, large furnished room, basement, under something) this acts as a homing beacon. And, with the light on your gun (assuming you're holding it in typical two-handed fashion), the BG's fire is then easily directed at your COM.

Again, having the option of easily extending the light away from your COM allows for an extra margin of error on your part, unless of course you're one of those "tacticool" operators who never makes a mistake when clearing a structure. :p

Call me Old School, but searching thru a structure, room-to-room, with handgun and light glued together, while doing that neato "strobe light shuffle" thingy just strikes me as both unsafe and something you'd see in the latest Hollywood action flick. :rolleyes:

:cool:
 
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Chris Rhines:

Yes, I would think a lot of ccw encounters would occur in low light, but that is not the same as no light.

Where would you be that would be so dark that you would need a flashlight to see your adversary? I mean we are talking about concealed carry, which implies this is not a home defense scenario. If you are out somewhere that is so dark that you need a light on your gun, then you also need a flashlight to see how to get around, so you wont step in a pothole or trip over something.

Dimly lit buildings, alley ways, parking lots, etc, will probably have enough ambient light for you to be able to see well enough to walk, and if so, then you can also identify potential adversaries.

Also, on another point, I agree with Ledbetter. If your gun is out, it only means you think you have a problem. Around my house, if I hear glass breaking at 3 am, it probably means my wife or 6 yr old dropped a glass while getting a drink of water. I really dont want to come downstairs pointing my gun-mounted flashlight at either of them.
 
hmmm i think theres a light somewhere........i dont know, but when i pull the trigger i always hear someone go "AHHHH!!"

HAHAHA sorry that really isnt my gun, but wouldnt it make a nice CCW.
 

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I don't expect to change anyone's mind that's already made up, but I consider it needless and dangerous to mount a flashlight to a home or self defense weapon.
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In your situation... in many situations, but NOT in all situations.

I do not need a light to identify people in my home. I keep a nightlight in the kitchen (for 3:am
coffeecup.gif
), there's a nightlight in the bathroom (for 3:am toiletpaper.gif ) and there's one in the baby's room (for 3:am 15_weeping.gif ) . You can walk from one end of my house to the other with enough ambient light from nightlights and streetlights shining through the windows that you can pour a glass of water, see and recognize faces, identify and avoid baby lego foot-traps on the floor, all without turning on any additional lights

So in my situation, I'd 1) know if my wife was in the bed as I got up to go examine the noise 2) know it ain't the baby getting a glass of water 3) be able to visually identify if it were indeed my wife (darn pillows) or other friendly (?:confused:?) or an unknown.

Should it turn out to be an unknown (that's unknown, as in a person not known to me, not an unidentified figure) THEN I'm perfectly justified pointing my pistol at them, and the light attached to my pistol in that case is to be able to better see if they have a weapon, and where that weapon may be pointing while at the same time leaving my other hand free to dial 9-1-1.

For my situation, it works QUITE well indeed.
 
No I don't, but I do on my duty weapon.

A common fallacy is that you have to point your weapon at the object you want to illuminate.
The lights are bright enough to light up items with ambient light, so you don't have to point the weapon at something to light it up.
Try it sometime, you will be enlightened. Get it en"light"ened. ;)
 
Just because you have a light on your pistol doesn't mean you have to turn it on. It just gives you another option.
 
A common fallacy is that you have to point your weapon at the object you want to illuminate.
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Yep! You can "splash" light onto a threat my reflecting it off a wall, floor, etc.
I do not need a light to identify people in my home.
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In many cases, a verbal challenge is sufficient to --initially -- identify a threat in the home. However once you determine you have a problem, then you gotta be able to identify your intended target, if the threat decides to become a target.
 
Okay, second related question. For those of you who are mainly concerned with weight and bulk issues (a valid concern) -

If somebody came up with a 50-lumen-or-so light that did not add appreciably to the weight or bulk of your pistol, would you then be interested in having such a light on your carry pistol?

- Chris
 
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