How many lumens do you really need for home defense? When is it too bright?

[thatpanda]

With the current state of flashlight technology reaching retina burning levels of brightness, I'm wondering where people stand on what level of brightness is too much? As a civilian my use for carbine mounted lights is strictly home defense and I personally like about 200 lumens for that application. Anything more than 200 and the light reflecting off the walls actually blinds me seriously effecting my night vision, in addition to drowning out my aimpoint. I recently purchased a surefire z2x rated at 325 lumens and it's so bright that I feel it's unusable for handgun use indoors. I've since reverted back to my original z2 with a malkoff M61L rated at 170 lumens which is about perfect. Bright enough to blind a person at room distances, and not so bright it kills my eyes. My HD carbine is fitted with a 200 lumen surefire scout m600 and it's perfect for my application as well.

With weapon lights reaching 500+ lumens now does anyone else think that's way overkill for most folks? I can see where 500 lumens might be useful in law enforcement or military applications, but for me I think the brightness ratings are getting a little out of hand. Am I the only person that thinks there's a problem with lights being too bright these days for home defense applications?

[LoveAR]

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[ffusaf23]

My home defense light is 125 lumens and I'm still concerned that it may be too much when waking up from a dead sleep in the middle of the night.

[ggammell]

I am very comfortable with the 200-300 range. I even use a 200 lumen scout on my personal rifle, 300 lumen tlr-1 on my work rifle.

[Voodoo_Man]

What exactly are you doing with your flashlight?

Are you searching your home? Doing room clears? Then yea, anything in the 200+ lumen area of LED white light is going to kill your night vision when you hit a white wall with it.

At work I use a streamlight stinger ds hl led rated at around 600-700 lumens. I use it outside, for carstops and the like, inside homes however, I carry a microstream.

I have had positive results with the TLR1s (my review) - http://vdmsr.blogspot.com/2013/11/st...l-mounted.html - while it is fairly bright if you know what you are doing you will have minimal white walling.

There is a tactical application to a high lumen flashlight mounted on a weapon system. My Stinger HL blinds people and hurts their eyes almost immediately inducing their hands to come up to stop the light or cause an unconscious squinting. Both are favorable results and should be considered.

[ra2bach]

think of lumens as volume.

low lumens can be made very bright if confined into a very narrow beam but it won't be useful for searching with no spill. however, when you try to spread that light, it becomes to dim.

a High lumen light, with the proper reflector can throw light over a very wide area but not be too bright.

it's how you employ the "amount" of light you have. personally, I think all the lumen upper limit talk is bogus. I want the brightest light available, given a good reflector.

I would rather see the discussion focus on beam pattern and spread, and how many lumens are required to fill that pattern...

[Failure2Stop]

think of lumens as volume.

low lumens can be made very bright if confined into a very narrow beam but it won't be useful for searching with no spill. however, when you try to spread that light, it becomes to dim.

a High lumen light, with the proper reflector can throw light over a very wide area but not be too bright.

it's how you employ the "amount" of light you have. personally, I think all the lumen upper limit talk is bogus. I want the brightest light available, given a good reflector.

I would rather see the discussion focus on beam pattern and spread, and how many lumens are required to fill that pattern...

There is much wisdom in this post.

[wichaka]

What he said above!

I've always been a bit baffled by the line about killing night vision when employing a light.
Hmmm, seems to me the night vision will take a hit anyway. I don't need to worry about night vision, when I have a light to use.

I used to use the original G2Z light which was around 80 or so lumens. Then I had the AZ2, which was a dual output of 150/35.

Now I carry two, a G2ZX at 320 lumens, and a P2ZX Fury at 500 lumens.

Like what was said above, it all depends on the volume of light being thrown, which brings the reflector into the equation.

I routinely use the 320 inside a close quarter area like a house, and never felt over lit. Same goes for the 500, when used in a more open area such as a large basement/room.

As for getting blinded by white walls...uh...don't directly shine at them. The same for mirrors in bathrooms etc. Its not that hard to avoid such things.

The more the light the better. I get asked often how bright a light should be for such uses. I tell folks get nothing less than 200 lumens, but again that depends on the volume of the output. In comparing Surefire lights, my suggestion is nothing less than 320.

[thatpanda]

Primary use of the light for me is clearing the inside of my home. With my 200 lumen scout my eyes do not take a noticeable hit when using an illuminate and move approach. With my z2x using a syringe technique my vision definitely takes a hit when the lights are off and I'm on the move. I don't just walk around with the light constantly on so my night vision is definitely important to me when shooting or clearing in the dark. Even illuminating my hallway, as in not directly pointing at the wall is borderline painful. Like I said, I know there's an application for the ultra bright lights such as law enforcement or military. I guess I'm in the minority of people who think there is such a thing as too bright.

[Chameleox]

Voodoo Man and ra2bach win it!

Light/lumen issues have been discussed many times before, and three interesting points come up...

1. Lumen count is like volume. How the beam is shaped is also a big factor in whether or not you have "too many" lumens.

2. While a certain lumen count and beam shape may be ideal for a certain scenario, it may be woefully inadequate or inefficient for another role. If you're not an LE or military long gun user, you may still find yourself in a scenario where you're stretching the limits of your indoors light. Limiting your lights based on lumens and planned use is like zeroing your long gun at 10 yards because "you only do entries".

3. We've had this discussion here and elsewhere before. That isn't to say, "do a search!", but every time a light comes out that boasts 100 lumens more than the comparable Surefire model or the older Surefire model, people immediately worry that they're going to melt their own face when using it with a firearm in their home. Yes, there's a training and tactic component to this, but also keep in mind that people were worried about the same thing when the "tactically blinding 120 lumen" P61 incandescent bulb was available.