x300 at 12 o'clock... too much smoke to use?

[Noodles]

I have no idea who Mike Seeklander is, other than a quick google search saying he was on top shot. But this is the first time I've seen anyone talk about mounting an x300 at 12, then not being able to use it because of the smoke.

http://www.personaldefensenetwork.com/articles/defensive-firearm-training/low-light-environment-training/
(important part starts at Test and Modify Your Gear)

I know rob_s uses his x300 at 12 among plenty others and all the mossie mount users and whatever. So I would think it's a legit setup.

I'm currently looking for a new light setup and was considering this, but now I'm curious what x300 users think. The main platform I'm looking for this setup on is a 12.5" barrel with an 11" rail, suppressed I could see it being less on an issue, but I'm not sure about unsuppressed now. If there is an issue with this, I'd rather look into a different solution before I ride the gear carousel again.

Discuss?

[Failure2Stop]

I never had an issue with it.

[Guns-up.50]

With any flash hiders that have slots beveled to the rear your gonna get some blast. I run an x300 12o clock as well and never had a problem with "smoke" yes sometimes they can get carbon build up on them but its no different than with a pistol.. If it builds up wipe it off ect. I wouldn't let one review make me think otherwise, besides that yhm brake doesn't help either

[jklaughrey]

Never had any issues that were problematic enough to cause me grief.

Also just because you are on "Top Shot" doesn't entitle one to be an expert on firearms and gear. I would base my decision more on real world end users versus Hollywood action sports.

Sent from my LS670 using Tapatalk 2

[matemike]

I have an X300 at 12 o'clock via a 12" FSP Centurion Rail on my 16" gun, standard bird cage flash hider and no problems. Not with smoke or flash or anything. I do have the light set as far back on the rail as the front sight post will allow; so it's about 5 inches from the muzzle.

Now,

I also have an X300 at 12 o'clock on a 10" rail with a 11.5" barrel and a AAC Brakeout muzzle device (waiting on suppressor). A good portion of the blast is directed upward from the brakeout, and in this case the light was only an inch or so behind the muzzle. This didn't necessarily break my light; it still worked and it was still bright too. But the light lense was shocked loose; it wiggled and spun freely inside it's bed. I knew it was not waterproof anymore and was weakened, only to be broken worse if I kept this set up. Thanks to Surefire's CS, they fixed the light no charge to me. I have only shot that gun without a light since, and I'm just waiting on the suppressor now. To put the light back.

I guess I could try to move the light back a couple of rail notches and give it a go; really test the product. But I'll just wait. I've got a gun with a light for hunting and HD.

[Failure2Stop]

Mike is a legit dude, I simply disagree with his findings on this subject.

[Surf]

I will also say that Mike S. is legit, but I will also say that I tend to disagree on the light placement as far as my preference is concerned. I prefer a 12 o'clock mount and on an SBR with a FSB I will mount at 10 or 2 o'clock.

I run low light training and courses fairly often and have yet to have a big issue with smoke unless if there are large volumes of fire from multiple shooters and poor ventilation or no wind. However light placement would not make much of a difference in these situations.

I also scratched my head and disagree with a couple things briefly discussed in that article as to the use of the light.

[JSantoro]

Concur.

I'm puzzled at what conditions he was under and what kind of ammo he was using to produce that level of screening. Indoors, with nothing to blow obscurants aside...okay, that sorta tracks, but I also have to cop to asking myself a bit of "how is this news...?"

Firearms produce smoke...duh...and LED weaponlight bulbs produce a harsher, whiter light than the more yellowish incandescent ones that tend to penetrate further into smoke like that somewhat better....though not better enough to, in my mind, to overcome the other advantages LED provides.

(Nitpick of the Day, brought to you by the letter Q and the number pi...."blindness" is a permanent condition; one cannot be "temporarily blinded." The correct term is "ocular interruption," though "dazzled" is a less-technical colloquialism that actually fits what happens. Mea culpa, it's a professionally-spawned pet-peeve....)

Positioning....we've got enough threads that discuss elements of all of them, plenty of info that included time, throughput, oddities, involved practices, methods to mitigate percieved shortcomings.....lots of depth, there. But, this baked my noodle a bit...


After I mounted the light at the six o’clock position, the smoke problems became almost nonexistent, due to the fact that the light was no longer illuminating the smoke in front of my scope

Okay....I've done this dance, in training and under....uhhh...less-optimal....conditions, with lights in every clock position one could care to name, with and without tape switches, various wattages/lumens/colors, with and without sprinkles on top, and I have a hard time reconciling the mental math of moving a light perhaps 4" in any direction, and having it suddenly produce a palpably different effect on a cloud of smoke to my direct front (putting aside how there's lots of ammo that produces more, or denser, than others; can't be accounted for, here...) that's assuredly taking up more than 4" of volume astride the long axis of the bore. That light's gonna be bouncing around the molecules of that cloud and illuminating it no matter where the source of the light happens to be for as long as that cloud is betwen the emitter and whatever target/environment the user is trying to illuminate.

I ain't buying it....BUT he's not asking anybody to do so, and I'm in no position to see what he saw.

There's no equipment/mounting solution that overomes all conditions, only equipment that overcomes conditions up to a certain point. After that point, one needs to be able to engage in some critical thought, and maybe think about moving, or changing levels, or something related, even if it's just being aware of this is gonna produce smoke, perhaps too much for my 8000-lumen light/rotisserie-heating-element-that-cooks-great-gyro-meat to defeat, and better be mentally prepared for that possibility no matter where their light resides.

[Noodles]

Cool, thanks for the input guys.

I'll plan on an x300 12 o'clock mounted (without a brake as I'll be pretty close to the barrel on my setup) then give it a go for myself.

I see that Seeklander may come through my town for handgun and rifle training. You two think he's legit enough to take classes from? Or he's just a good shooter?

[MistWolf]

I tested my x300 on a Mossie Midnight Mount at an indoor range while using the 22 rimfire adapter. After just a few shots, the light backsplash from the smoke made seeing the target difficult. Using centerfire ammunition outdoors did not prove to be a problem. As far as smoke residue goes, I found an old Storm Queen 1 inch see through scope cap and installed that on my light and it works very well without adding any weight.

Indoors with low air circulation, there will be smoke build up and light backsplash from it. Outdoors with a light breeze the smoke will dissipate better and backsplash will be less of a problem. Each weapon mounting option has it's pros and cons, like every other choice we make. It's up to the shooter to shoot with the gear and find out what compromises work the best

[krisjon]

LAV has put enough smoking rounds downrange with a 12 o'clock light setup to remove just about any doubt as to whether it's viable or not. As others have said, smoke is smoke - no matter where the light is.

It really comes down to personal preference, sight/FSB position and your grip. I'm a lefty and am happy/perfectly functional with my 2 o'clock Gear Sector mounts for my x300s.

[AZ-Renegade]

I did a night shoot a while back where I experienced issues with smoke while shooting with a white light.

We were shooting a kind of catch up drill where the first shooter used his/her light to engage two seperate targets while the second shooter had to fire using the light from the first shooter. [Clear as mud?]

I noticed when using my light after the first shot it was difficult to see the targets due to the reflection of the light shining on the smoke.

We were shooting from 35-40 yards at white painted steel that at this point had been mostly covered in lead residue.

I did find that I would see and shoot the second target faster when the other shooter was using his light than when I used my light.

I was using a 14.5 mid-length with H-1 Aimpoint, A2X flash suppressor, Surefire G2 LED mounted at 2 o'clock, and shooting Speer 64 grain 223. The G2 is set with the front of the light bezel even with the front of the FSB. It had rained earlier that afternoon so their was alot of humidity in the air and little to no wind.

I imagine shooting at closer ranges with a white light at night isn't a big deal, but shooting at smaller targets farther away may make the "driving through fog" effect more noticeable.

[highlighter]

Never had that problem.

[TehLlama]

Any light with usable throw for indoor use is going to exhibit a good bit of glare if you're making big clouds of muzzle smoke, but I haven't found the 12:00 positioning to make that much worse, even when I was stuck using a white light for illumination and using PVS-14's to try and see through that.