Wednesday Weapon Accessories

Good lord, has it really been a month since my last Monday Gunday post? I really have been slacking off.

Anyway, for people who have been hiding during my MLP D&D series, it's safe to come out now. If you're one of the folks who started reading during that time, I feel I should warn you that I don't always talk about ponies. As a typical nerdy girl, I have many interests, and as a writer I get bored talking about the same thing all the time. Therefore, in a change of topic that makes sense only to me, we shift from talking about pretty cartoon ponies to hard-core weapon accessories (incidentally, that's the link -- I love to accessorize everything).

Last month (eeek), reader Niall Bole said:

Sadly, I live in Northern Ireland where gun ownership ain't quite so straightforward - however, I am rather interested in the flashlight o' doom you've strapped on to the side. Would there be any chance that you could dig out the model/link to it somewhere?

Certainly, Niall! It took me a bit of doing, since I got it last Christmas with my gift money, but I finally tracked it down. The equipment in question is the Guide Gear 240 tactical flashlight, available for $29.97 on Amazon.

As the same suggests, it projects a 240-lumen cone of light. It has two settings, continual and strobe, or as I said previously, "Ohmygod I'm blind" and "Induce epileptic seizure." Amusingly enough, it has a much larger brother that puts out 700 lumens for an additional $40. What's the practical difference between the two? To quote a reviewer:

If you're trying to decide which one to pick, the 700 lumen model is, of course, generally superior, but there are some differences in how they throw the light. The 700 throws a blinding wall of light maybe a couple hundred yards (I could be off on the range..I just estimated it for target acquisition). The 240 is more of a spotlight.

What this means is that although the 700 allows you to see basically everything in front of you up to its range almost like daylight, the 240 actually has a longer range (by maybe a little over 10% or so). Plus the spotlight effect could function almost like a very loose laser sight - if you have it lit in the center, there's a good chance of being able to put a bullet pretty close to the target with little aiming.

I'm quite happy with my 240, but I think either would make a good choice. They're made out of machined aluminum, have o-ring seals on them (I haven't tested the waterproofness on mine by immersing it yet, but I have no reservations about taking it out into the wind and the rain), and they've got that crennelated top around the lens so that you can use 'em as a skull-basher if necessary. But what impresses me most about these flashlights is that they're designed to withstand the recoil of a .50 caliber BMG round -- that stand for Browning Machine Gun, in case you didn't know. Fifty caliber recoil is... excessive.