Surefire M3 Combatlight

[rmecapn]

I would not use the M3 for continuous heavy-duty use.

How come? Isn't that what it was designed for?

[Failure2Stop]

How come? Isn't that what it was designed for?

I think it is fine as a hand-held, but not as a dedicated mounted light.
The ones I have mounted broke rather rapidly. The glass broke on hard impact with bezel.
I prefer the M95/96 to the M3 as a hard use dedicated weapon mounted light attached to an issued RAS handguard during operations.
The M3 would be fine for most other applications that did not involve playing too hard.

Just my experience with "testing" a few M3s a couple of years ago. YMMV.

FYI- my definition of testing means "beating the shit out of an item in gradual, duty related incriments until failure occurs. May involve high round counts, heights, drops, slams, and poundings."

[lowspeed4u]

I think it is fine as a hand-held, but not as a dedicated mounted light.
The ones I have mounted broke rather rapidly. The glass broke on hard impact with bezel.
I prefer the M95/96 to the M3 as a hard use dedicated weapon mounted light attached to an issued RAS handguard during operations.
The M3 would be fine for most other applications that did not involve playing too hard.

Just my experience with "testing" a few M3s a couple of years ago. YMMV.

FYI- my definition of testing means "beating the shit out of an item in gradual, duty related incriments until failure occurs. May involve high round counts, heights, drops, slams, and poundings."

I like the way you test things, sounds like fun.

[rmecapn]

I think it is fine as a hand-held, but not as a dedicated mounted light.
The ones I have mounted broke rather rapidly. The glass broke on hard impact with bezel.
I prefer the M95/96 to the M3 as a hard use dedicated weapon mounted light attached to an issued RAS handguard during operations.
The M3 would be fine for most other applications that did not involve playing too hard.

Interesting! I just figured the M3 used the same bezel as the M96x. I knew the body was different because the M96x is machined to take an integral mount. I'm wondering if the M3 body doesn't have the battery retention lip the way the M96x body does? Maybe the batteries were slamming against the bulb and bezel causing the breakage.