Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Glock 19 light, light/laser

Glock 19, light or laser/light combo.

Which is "best"?

Wanting flush with the end of the barrel or maybe a little shorter, I don't want the light sticking out farther than the end of the barrel.

600 or so lumens enough or are the 1000+ handy?

Strobe a must or no?

I like the Streamlight TLR-6 on my gen 3 G19. It doesn't meet your lumen requirement, but it sure lights up a dark room.

10G

Strobes are neither needed or wanted. In actual use they adversely affect the end user when they should simply be trying to focus on a threat's hands or search an area. They can make it difficult to catch critical details that are phenomenally important. Those details can make the difference between shooting someone or not, getting shot, or not, and making mistakes that may cost you beyond what is immediately happening, later in a court. The only people I generally see recommend strobes are those with little to no experience. Generally "Good Idea Fairy" fairy types. I have had my gun out literally thousands of times doing building, area searches and holding people at gunpoint, etc and I very definitely do not want a strobe. Just a light with an on off feature. No gimmicks.

As far as power, for a pistol mounted light, 600 to 1K is fine. You use it to see what may be in a person's hands, to ID threats, etc. You need to have a separate handheld light though. People with pistol mounted lights and little training tend to get accustomed to searching and ID'ing bumps in the night with their pistol.

In practical exercises training people, when you put them under just a little bit of stress, 95+% of people without extensive training will automatically point their pistol that has a light attached to it, at whatever they perceive to be a "possible" threat, long before they have verified it actually to be one. In role playing they point guns at little 14 year old kids who are sneaking around their yard and in and out of the house, doing dumb things kids do.

The problem is that not every bump in the night, or even a fraction of them are lethal threats and you are pointing a deadly weapon at something that you should not be. Not trying to start a debate, just reminding you to also have a separate powerful handheld light for actual bump in the night investigatory tasks.

I kind of wondered about those strobes.

Not as bad as looking into them but I definitely see where they would mess the shooter up.

What are your thoughts about the laser combo? Waste of time?

Lasers when used correctly are absolutely a practical and useful tool. Bear in mind that in the context that we are talking about, they are a low light only tool. In daylight, sunlight, etc, a normal red dot optic sighted, or iron sighted pistol is going to be faster in practical application. Lasers, when used in low light however allow one to focus on the threat rather than their sights, as well the fact that they can be a significant advantage for those with vision issues, as they don't have to worry about focusing on small iron sights in low light. They simply put the dot on the target and press.

In the case of my elderly father, who has vision issues, I set up his HD guns with red dots and lasers.

His Model 19 S&W .357 wears a set of Crimson Trace grips.
His Glock 19 wears a set of Crimson trace grips.
His Colt 6920 has both a Surefire flashlight and an Aimpoint PRO.

The Aimpoint PRO optic is always on, and I change the battery every Christmas, even though they are good for 3+ years of being constantly on.

Simple solutions and operating procedures are best when people are under extreme stress.

Your old man still carry that old glock 21 you gave him?

He does.

He tends to carry it more when we are in big critter country. I find he is carrying the Glock 19 with the heavy hard cast bullet load I produce pretty frequently for a good part of the year. He turned 80 so he goes for easy to shoot/carry, and the G19 gets used probably 75% with the G21 25%. He has a number of revolvers but he does not carry them often, other than just to do some recreational shooting every now and then. A Glock in a Milt Sparks 55BN is his daily wear.

But he is still out there every year climbing the hills:



This is him at 80. You can see the road we came in off of in the background. He is doing pretty good for someone born 2 months after Pearl Harbor was attacked.

Great news Mackay! Gives me hope.

Right, hope I'm half as spry in 45 years time.

I use SurefireX300 Ultra. I can recommend this brand. They probably have better illumination now, mine is couple years old. No comment on lasers because I do not use them