LED upgrade for Surefire G2

[Tiny86]

Here is another vote for the Malkoff drop in. They are expensive but there are great quality and made in the usa. There regulation and heat sink is very good.

[currahee]

I ordered a G2X, will upgrade the G2 to LED later for use as a spare house flashlight

[PLCedeno]

Upgrading a G2 is impossible. EVERYTHING sucks about those lights. The switches, the lamps... not worth it.

Can you elaborate on this?

[Gatorbait]

I switched out all of my G2 lights with Cree drop in's and metal bezels. I have found this is a great, working combination for a weapon mounted light.

I have spent a few nights in shoot houses / mock environments as a role player re-enforcing the consequences of poor choices improper light management via simmunitions. One of the great things about G2's is the lock out feature and momentary pressure operation, along with the ability to twist it to a constant on mode(if really needed)......although it has been my experience that the majority of the use of the light will be split second operation/illumination.

Inexperience with constant on features and controls( in less than ideal environments) on an illumination device can be a very painful experience in the least, cause for terminal stupidity at the worst....one you can think about it for the rest of your life....

The G2 lights I use now have withstood a lot of abuse with hard contact of metal doorways, concrete walls and floors, and gravel surfaces. I have replaced 1 lens so far, the G2's still work great.

When I started out role playing, I had a mounted light on my rifle, that had an easy to activate/constant on feature. Sure enough, just at the wrong time, it hung up in the "constant on" position(which happens more than you think when working or training in low light/no light environments) and the bezel / bezel lens was literally shot out of it:





Yo Quiero Surefire....

It was a very painful experience(one that I do pass along from time to time), but one that has not been repeated in 3 years. This experience that would have turned into a terminal case, had they been shooting something else...

I like the G2 & Cree combination.

Cheers,
GB

[cynical]

I would never buy a G2 to use as a platform to upgrade, once you replace the bezel and switch, and put in a good drop-in LED, you've spent more then buying a decent light outright, or even just buying the tube and adding on the parts. That really goes for most lights.

That said, I have two G2s that were just lying around, and they've made very good lights once I replaced the parts I needed. The G2 can use a mclicky switch, or any of the Surefire clicky switches. Some people don't want a clicky switch, in that case I think the factory switch is fine. A good LED drop-in, like the Malkoff, will work just fine once you replace the bezel/head with a metal one.

One warning: I tried to cheap out and got Solarforce bezels. What could go wrong with that? There's nothing complicated, no electronics, right? It turns out that the depth on all three I got were too deep, all of my LED dropins would only work sporadically, and would easily die if given a good bump. There just wasn't enough contact. Replaced the bezels with ones from Surefire 6Ps, everything works great.

[currahee]

I just upgraded my incandecent G2 with a Cree IR drop in (from lighthound.com)

I am quite pleased with it thus far- makes like daylight for my cheezy NOD

[Victor]

Our TNVC Q5's are still running strong after all these years. :-)
http://tnvc.com/shop/q5-cree-led-drop-in-lamp/

Vic

[Javelin]

Just buy a new one for like $55-$65 depending on the G2 model.

[MrCleanOK]

I have a few G2's. One was a G2L that I found out in the field, original owner nowhere to be found. If I were to upgrade one of my original G2's, I'd just get the Surefire KX4 or buy a whole new G2L. A 3rd party LED drop in still leaves you without a metal head on an original G2.

For what it's worth, I used that G2L in a VTAC mount on my M4 on my last deployment. It has been banged around up in the turret, knocked on door frames, etc. It held up great with just a few minor scratches and some dust in the nooks and crannies.

[PLCedeno]

Anybody have a problem with the wife having a good old fashioned G2 with regular incandescent, knowing it will only be used if the bad man comes knocking?