Originally published at Notes from the bunker…. You can comment here or there.
A few months back I was talking to one of the local cops and, as often happens, the topic turns to gear. He had a new LED flashlight he was testing out and I asked if I could examine it. The flashlight in question was the Pelican 8060…an LED flashlight designed and marketed towards the LE community. I tried it out in the dark parking lot there at the police station and was mightily impressed. Most lED lights tend to have their beam diffuse over distance so that, up close, theyre great but at distant ranges they scatter and wind up being almost useless. Not this thing…this baby was like the landing lights on a 747. I lit up buildings a block away with concentrated, focussed light and it was mightily imrpessive. I dont think any of my Krypton-bulbed MagLites do as good a job.
The missus was in the market for a new flashlight, her rechargeable MagLite having gone MIA somewhere. So, biting the bullet, she dropped the $180 for the rechargeable Pelican 8060. After playing with this thing further, I can say that if you can afford it this is a great flashlight. Im not going to go over the details, you can get them here in this review. One thing I dislike is that if you , for whatever reason, want to swap out the rechargeable battery with regular batteries you have to use ‘C’-batts. Now, the only things Im aware of that take C-batts are sex toys and various obscure devices that are seldom encountered. If Pelican made this thing to take a rechargeable battery unit and the much more common D-batts I would be thrilled. My other complaint is that there is no attachment point for a lanyard, however the more creative amongst us can fab something up pretty easily with some zip ties, I’d imagine.
Not really a flashlight for looking under the bed for your shoes or creeping around in the attic, this flashlight is definitely geared more towards outdoor use and tactical/emergency use with its brilliance. It’ll blind someone quite nicely if youre needing that sort of ability. Although it is of plastic/polymer construction it feels solid enough that you could crack heads with it if the need arose.
Price aint cheap but, dude, this thing makes every MagLite I’ve ever seen look like a toy. And I like MagLites. If Pelican makes this thing compatible with D-batts Ill be one of the first ones in line for it.
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Ninety percent of the time, the gun Im carrying around is a Glock. However, I do like revolvers and have quite a few of them. Mostly in, unsurprisingly, the common caliber of .38 & .357. While I do use speedloaders (Safariland ones) I also keep a bunch of the Bianchi Speed Strips around. For those of you who arent revolver dinosaurs, the Speed Strips are little plastic strips that hold six rounds of .38/.357 ammo in a straight line. You slip two cartridges into your cylinder’s chamber and ‘peel’ off the rest of the strip. Repeat two more times and you’ve loaded your six-shooter. The design is actually rather old and similar products were in existence a hundred years ago. These were an alternative to speed loaders and they work quite well. Why would you use them instead of a speed loader? Well, for one thing, they are caliber specific rather than gun specific. I havea S&W 36, S&W 10, and an S&W 28…I would need three different speedloaders. However, the Speed Strip works with any .38/.357 swingout-cylinder revolver, regardless of maker.
Bianchi literature years ago suggested the Strips would be available in other calibers but that never came to pass. A shame since a lot of folks carry bigger guns these days than .357s. Since Bianchi has shown no interest in the subject, another company has started making Speed Strips under their own name and in other calibers. While I prefer speedloaders for their quickness, there is a very nice convenience to just grabbing a few strips of .38 ammo and walking out the door without having to worry if I picked up the correct speedloader for a particular gun. Anyway, for you dinosaurs that still use the wheelgun, I figured this link may prove interesting. I’ll be getting a few for my Smith .44 Special and a few other guns as well.
