Video Transcript
The Surefire X300 has been the pistol light for a number of years now, and it still seems to be the gold standard today. However, Surefire does have a couple different flavors of X300 today, and that is because if it's not broke, you don't fix it, you just add some different options, and that's what Surefire has now.
Over the years, the Surefire X300 body and light itself has not hardly changed at all. The performance of the light has increased over the years, and like I said, we do have some different options that provide different types of performance output. So first and foremost, we have the X300U, so this is gonna be your Ultra Light. We sell this light with the A and the B model, so the differences in the models just comes down to how the light mounts to the pistol. So the A model is going to be kind of a quick-detached system that you just pull down on this little plastic lever here, you slide it onto your pistol, and you're good to go. Now, when you mount the A model to your pistol, you may notice it's a little bit wobbly. That's totally okay. What we generally do is just put some tape or some Velcro on the back of the light to remove some of that slack onto the pistol.
Next to the A model is the B model, and the B model is just a thumb screw method of attachment rather than that quick-detached. So when you put this light onto your pistol, you're just loosening the screw. You put it onto the rail space, tighten the screw down, and you're good to go. What I like to do is I just tighten it down finger-tight, and I take a screwdriver and give it about an eighth of a turn, and the light will stay nice and secure. Now, putting this onto a polymer-frame gun, there is the chance of over-tightening it and damaging the frame, so just be careful that when you put it finger-tight, just don't go more than really a quarter of a turn, because especially with the Glocks, if you do over-tighten it, one, it will permanently indent the frame, but it can also cause the frame to point up in the air, and then when you're shooting at a distance, your light will be kind of illuminating the sky rather than what you want to be pointing at. So that's the two base models of the Surefire X300, is the A and the B model. Now, the three different types of X300s are going to come down to the Ultra. The Surefire X300 Turbo and the Surefire X300 Vampire. So all of these lights have literally almost the exact same body. Well, the body itself is exactly the same. The switches are the same. The bezel for the vampire is a little bit smaller, but it does fit in the same holsters. You just tighten down the holster a little bit more because the bezel is a little bit smaller.
But the only difference between these lights, again, is the output. So with the Surefire X300 Ultra, this is the classic light. This is the one that's been around for years and years now. This is going to be more of your high lumens type light. So what that means for you is it's going to have more of a flood rather than a tight throw when it comes to the output of the light. So this is going to be 1,000 lumens, candelas around 11,000, and this is going to take two 123 batteries just like the other two lights. So if I have a target behind me, it's about 25 meters away. And as I illuminate the target with the Surefire X300 Ultra, I can identify that target pretty well.
So if you're looking for a light that has more of that flood option, obviously the X300 is going to be for you. So how do you know if the flood option is for you? So if you're shooting outside a lot and you're shooting through a lot of humidity, you're shooting through a lot of-- if you like to shoot in the rain, the flood option is going to be a little bit better for you comparatively to a tighter throw, which I'll demonstrate here in a second with the turbo. Because as you shoot, even with just the smoke that comes out of your gun, if there's any sort of, again, humidity or moisture in the air, a tighter throw beam is going to illuminate all that stuff a little bit more. So generally, the flood is a little bit better for shooting in a more stationary type manner outside. Also, if you're shooting indoors, generally the flood is a little bit better because that hot spot throw can be reflective off of bright walls. So generally, again, the flood is going to be a little bit better for you for those types of scenarios.
The X300 Turbo still has a lot of lumens, but it has a lot more candela. So this guy is going to have 66,000 candela. And if you're unfamiliar with what candela means, this means how tight of a beam the light is. So as I illuminate the same target behind me, you can see that I can identify that target much more clear. So this light is going to be more for shooting at distance. But again, like I mentioned, smoke and other debris in the air is going to be illuminated quite a bit more around this light. This light is good at is punching through photonic barriers. Yes, that catchphrase. So if there's other lights around you, say you're shooting through a window and there's a light above the window, this will help punch through that and illuminate what's behind that light a little bit better compared to the Ultra. So again, this just focuses the same amount of output actually just into a tighter beam.
The Surefire X300 Vampire is a little bit different because it can do white light and IR. So let's talk about the white light first. So the white light itself has a output of 350 lumens, which doesn't sound like much. But the candela is actually higher than the Ultra. It's kind of an in-between the Turbo and the Ultra. However, the Turbo does have a significant more amount of candela. However, the color of this light is a little bit more of a blue color. It looks more of like an LED if you compare old school car headlights to the new LED headlights. It's going to look more of like a newer school light. So as I illuminate this target behind me at 25 meters, you can see the throw is a little bit better than the Ultra, not as good as the Turbo. And this is actually my favorite light because, again, it's kind of that in-between. But the other benefit to it is that it can illuminate in the IR spectrum. So if you're shooting under nods, this guy puts out a ton of power under IR. It is extremely impressive how bright it is.
And the other thing that it has is it has an off switch. So if I don't want to activate this light whatsoever, I can just turn the head, turn it off, and I won't indeed the light at all. Now, the Surefire X300 Ultra and the X300 Turbo, we offer both in the A and B model. However, the X300 Vampire, we only offer in the B model. Like I said, I prefer the B model. I think it's just a little bit more secure on the pistol. But we're going to go ahead and mount up both options onto the gun on a Glock real quick just to demonstrate. So, within the box for all of these lights, you're going to get different keys. And what these keys do is just allow the pistol light to mount two different types of pistols. For Gen 5 Glocks, what we're going to mount all three of these lights to in this video is going to take a Picatinny mounting solution. Now, there's multiple different keys. Whatever pistol you're using, just look through the owner's manual that comes with the pistol light and use the key that's appropriate for your pistol. If you're using the A model, all you do to change out the key is you have three little Allen keys on both side of the light. You unscrew those. The key will come off. You put the one that you need on there, tighten it back down, and you're good to go. Mounting the A model to the pistol is quite simple. All I'm going to do, make sure my pistol is loaded. And it's safe. I just slide the light on, and you're good to go. So as you can see, this one has a little bit of slop going on there. So what I can do is I can add some tape to the back of the light or some Velcro, something of that nature. And that will prevent a lot of that slack.
For the X300s that are the thumb screw model or the B model, if I want to change the key out on this guy, I'm just going to take the screw and loosen it up all the way. I then put the key onto the light that I need to mount onto the pistol that I'm using. In this case, again, it's in 5 o'clock, so I have what I need. But when I'm mounting this light onto the pistol, I'm just going to loosen this thumb screw up pretty far, get it onto the pistol. And then, like I said, I'm just going to hand-tight the screw down. So once it's hand-tight, make sure it doesn't wobble, make sure it's all the way up to the trigger guard. I'm then going to take a flathead screwdriver or even a casing from a 9-mil and just give it about a 1/8 turn. And that pistol light's not going to go anywhere.
What comes in the box for all of these lights is pretty much the same thing. You're going to get the light itself. You're going to get two, 123 batteries. That's what this light operates on. You're going to get the various different keys for it. And then if you have the B model of the flashlight, you're going to get some Loctite to add to the thumb screw if you so wish to. I've never added Loctite to these. They've never come off. But if you want to, you can do to activate this weapon light under actual use case, we're going to talk about just changing the battery. So on bottom of the flashlight is this little button. It will open up the flashlight, and you'll see the two 123's in there. On the switch itself, there will be a positive and negative. You just put the batteries in according to what the switch tells you to do, and you're good to go. So if you do need to change the batteries in this light, yes, you do have to take it off the gun, but not the big a deal. You don't have to zero flashlight or anything. So when it comes down to activating this pistol light, this is one pistol light that does require a little bit of training to get used to. It's not as user friendly as something like a TLR7 Alpha or anything like that. So with this switch, you can activate it momentary by just pushing down on the button. So when I press this button down, it'll be momentary. Or if I flick the switch, it'll be constant.
So there's really two ways of activating the light when you are shooting. One is constant, one is momentary. So if you are shooting and you want to do constant only, you just drive your thumb forward. You engage your target, and you're good to go. Or if you want to shoot constant, then this is what I recommend and prefer to do with X300s. I'm just going to use my thumb, push the light or the switch down, engage my target, and then I'm going to use my palm to disengage the light and turn it back off. And that's how I prefer to use it. Now, the reason why I like to do that instead of constant is because these switches aren't the easiest to actuate comparatively to, again, something like a Streamlight TLR7 alpha. So if you have a normal sized hand or a smaller hand like mine, you're going to have to break your grip in order to reach the switch. So I just like to go constant so that way, I don't have a compromised grip as I'm shooting with the pistol.
The exact specifications and battery runtime, all of that sort of information we have on the product page above and below this video. And if you guys have any questions regarding this pistol light, how to install it, help with picking out which one you may want. Go ahead and shoot us an email at [email protected].