Video Transcript
The Streamlight TLR1 has become one of the most popular pistol lights out there and for good reason. This light offers a lot of performance for a very good price point and it's actually become one of the more pistol lights among law enforcement because of its good performance for its price and also because of its durability. Now what we have here is the TLR1 HLX, which is an improvement over the TLR HL1 and that's exactly what we're gonna go over today is all of the improvements with the new pistol light. The performance of the light is actually very similar to the previous TLR1 HL, however, this guy comes with rechargeable batteries that does up the output a little bit. So the TLR HL1 has 1000 lumens with the rechargeable batteries, the new HLX has 1500 lumens and the candela on this new guy is now 20,000 candela and that's with the rechargeable batteries. Now this guy can also use standard 123's and if you use the 123's the output is exactly the same as the older light.
And now if you're familiar with the Streamlight TLR7A, it has fantastic switches. It's one of our pistol lights just because of the switches itself and also the light itself is a very good performer and extremely durable. But we've been looking for a full size pistol light that has those switches or something similar and finally the HLX has done just that. The light itself actually comes with a couple of different options for buttons. It comes with two options. So what comes on the light mounted standard is the regular mount and then there's gonna be some lower switch options. So that just lowers the switch, the switches on the light. So it's a little bit longer of a reach to activate what I like to do and what a lot of shooters like to do is they leave the standard switch for their support hand to reach. And then they use the low switch on the other side. So when they pull their trigger finger into the trigger guard, they don't accidentally activate the light. It's just a little bit more out of the way. So it's just something that you can do there. So going around to change the batteries on this guy. So if you're familiar with the older HL1, the batteries you had to take the light off and you had to open it from the rear of the light on this guy, it is now from the front. So you can leave the light attached to the gun, just like you would a TLR7.
So when I want to change the batteries on this guy, all I'm gonna do is there's a little button on the side of the light and I'm gonna press the button. I'm gonna flip the little switch over that's on the other side of the light. And then it's just gonna open up just like that. And then I can change my batteries on the fly if I need to. Now on the, basically the light head itself, there's gonna be a positive and negative sign. You just put the nipple up towards the positive and the nipple down of the battery towards the negative side and you're good to go. When I want to close the head, all I'm gonna do is push the head back up and just push the lever down. You'll hear it click and you're good to go. Just like the older TLR1, this light's gonna come with different keys for each key for specific handgun out there. So you just read through the manual and then pick out the key that you need for your particular handgun. We have a Gen5 Glock here. And the way you change that is you're just gonna loosen the thumb screw. The key will come out. You put the key in that you need. Once you have the thumb screw all the way loose, tighten the thumb screw back down and you're good to go.
Before I show you guys the performance of the light and I'm gonna go over with you guys what comes in the box. So in the box, you're gonna have a little plastic bag. You're gonna have a little tool, your different keys, again, for mounting your light on various different pistols and the different switches. Also in the box, you're gonna get a little USB cable that's for charging your rechargeable batteries that the light comes with. So also in the box, you're gonna have your rechargeable batteries and the pistol light itself. And then you're gonna have your owner's manual and stuff like that. On the back of the box, you're gonna get your exact output ratings and all of the other specific specifications of the light. So if you're interested in any of those nerdy things, just go ahead and look at the back of the box or check out the rest of the product page. Now for the performance of the light behind me, I have a target that's about 25 meters away and if I wanna activate this guy momentarily, as you can see, that target is very well illuminated and easy to identify with this type of output with about 20,000 candela, 1500 lumens, you'll easily be able to engage targets between 50 to 75 meters and probably push it even farther than that if you need to.
Now this light has two kind of operation modes. It's gonna be a strobe and a standard and this light is programmable. So you can turn off strobe or turn it on if you want to and the way you do that is you're just tapping the momentary 10 times and then holding it on the 10th click. So in this case, I have the light not on strobe so I'm gonna click it 10 times, hold it on the 10th click, which I didn't count properly so I'm gonna do it again. It'll strobe and I'm still holding it and once the strobe stops, I let go and now when I activate momentary on the second click, it strobes. This is also what we call party mode and these are for raves not for weapon lights so we're gonna turn that back off. So same thing, I just click the momentary 10 times and on the 10th click, I hold it down, wait for the strobe to stop and I'm good to go.
So let's mount this guy on to our Glock pistol here and then I'm gonna go over some different ways that you can activate these switches. So I'm mounting the light onto the pistol. All I'm gonna do is I'm gonna loosen the thumb screw all the way up and then I'm just basically gonna kind of rock it onto the rail because it's kind of got a spring in there. It'll lock onto place, make sure it's in the picatinny area on your pistol and then I'm just gonna tighten this thumb screw back down finger tight. Once I get it finger tight, I'm then going to use a spent casing or a flathead screwdriver and just give it about an eighth of a turn and you'll be good to go. Now it is important to note that if you have a polymer frame pistol, you can over torque this and damage the frame of your pistol. So just be careful not to go over an eighth to a quarter of a turn with the screwdriver after you get it finger tight.
To change this key out, then you want to change the key out because you want to make sure you have the proper key for whatever pistol that you're currently using. All you're going to do is unscrew the thumb screw all the way until it comes out. It's going to be a little bit of resistance because there's a capture guy on the other end. That's okay. Just screw past it. Once you get past it, the screw will come out. The key will come out. You replace your key with the one that you need and then screw the thumb screw back in. Now, the multi-tool that comes with the light itself has a little Allen key tool on the other side if you don't have a flathead screwdriver. So, once you get to that point of resistance and it may be a little bit difficult for you to do with just your fingers, you can use the multi-tool that the light comes with. Like I mentioned earlier, the best feature about this light, other than its performance and durability, is the switches itself and how easy it is to activate these switches. So comparatively to the Surefire X300, that light does require some training in order to activate the switches properly and consistently.
However, this pistol light will still require some training, but this pistol light itself is a little bit easier to use with minimal training. So here I have small to medium-sized hands. So what that means is that normal pistol lights, I have to break my grip to get to the switches. But with my normal grip, I can actually just reach down, hit the switch nice and easy, and I'm not compromising my grip to activate the pistol light. So that's the first way that I can activate the light of this pistol, is while I'm shooting, I'm just holding down on the switch itself. That way I can drive my thumb down, help mitigate recoil as I activate the pistol light, and I'll be good to go. The other option is that I can just use my thumb to click it, and I'll be on constant. And when I'm done firing, I can use my trigger finger on the other side of the pistol or my thumb again to click it again and turn the light back off.
Another feature that these switches have is that not only can I push down to activate the pistol light, I can push in kind of like a Surefire X300. Now, these switches are a little bit easier than an X300, you really have to mash on the X300 to get them to activate, and also there's not really a positive click to them. This one does have that positive click, so I can just push in on the light, I hear a click, and I can activate it just like that in a momentary or constant fashion, just like you would if you pushed down. So in my opinion, I think pushing down is a little bit, is the superior method. I'm just gonna push down in a momentary again, or a constant fashion. And if I'm using constant again, I'm probably just gonna use my index finger to turn the light back off.
If you guys are looking for a very good pistol light that comes in at a very good price, with some really good performance, good durability, and some fantastic switches, go ahead and check out the TLR-1 HLX. If you guys have any questions about this pistol, about mounting it, about holsters that go with the pistol, like really questions about anything at all, shoot us an email at [email protected].