Rifle mounted lights, why?

[nagorb]

So people can get their panties in a bunch over what I have on my rifle.

Exactly why I do it to, I've got a afg, front grip, two lights, bayonet, taser, pepper spray and a few others just to piss people off.

Question to the OP why would you need 9 pistol mags?

[707electrician]

Because no wear = no practice.

It's like a mechanic opening a new package of tools before working on your car...

That is not a very good analogy

[tonytony86]

locosway, I get what your trying to say. there's a lot of people that spends 1000s of dollars on accessorizing their firearms and never use them. But what i believe is "all that crap" as you put it, may save you life in a SD or survival situation some day. Better to be safe and over prepared then sorry.

Locosway i respect you opinion this is just mine.

Tony

[Vtec44]

Just make sure that you aren't going to get a shadow with that setup. Best place for a light is either at 3 or 9 o'clock and either farther forward or kicked out a bit. With a tight 6 o'clock mount like that you can get a huge shadow over the target's face, which kind of makes the light more or less useless.

No shadow, and it's adjusted to shoot where the light shines out to about 20 yards. Tested and approved, by me.

[Vtec44]

And the lights in your house don't work because?

zombies chewed through the main wiring...

[capitol]

These are what I use. But I hunt at night.

Hope thats not your set up when hunting in California

[dls]

Won't a light or laser on your rifle make a good target or ID your location to an armed intruder or zombie.Unless you only use it a millisecond before you fire.


I myself have a 12g mounted to my goto bump in the night noise investigating flashlight.

[707electrician]

And the lights in your house don't work because?

Someone breaks into your house in the middle of the night while you are asleep, are you going to get up and say "excuse me dark figure I need to get to that light switch"?

Also, there are few statistics about break-ins/home invasions and I think it would be difficult to prove they happen majorily at night. I don't believe there is any clear pattern, however to me a daylight break in makes more sense because the homeowner is usually not home and at work. I suppose if the intentions are violent it is more likely to happen at night since the homeowners will likely be home, but I'd imagine most break ins aren't about violence but about theft. My only close-to personal experience with home breaks ins are two houses a few doors down frome me who were both burglurized when the sun was up.

Just because there are very few or no statistics that say that break-ins happen at night doesn't mean it doesn't happen. This is where a weapon light would fall under "better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it."

[dominic]

Hope thats not your set up when hunting in California

Why not? It is not illegal to hunt furbearers and non-game mammals with a spotlight in my area of California as long as it is not during deer season.

[jermzzzzzzz]

Won't a light or laser on your rifle make a good target or ID your location to an armed intruder or zombie.Unless you only use it a millisecond before you fire.


I myself have a 12g mounted to my goto bump in the night noise investigating flashlight.

Thats why there's training available for when and howto use your light or laser in low-light conditions.

[russ69]

Why a light on a rifle? Here, kitty, kitty, kitty...........

[M. Sage]

Won't a light or laser on your rifle make a good target or ID your location to an armed intruder or zombie.Unless you only use it a millisecond before you fire.

A laser might, a light won't so long as it's a bright enough light. Quality weapon lights fall under the "bright enough" category.

In a darkened room, they're blindingly bright. I wasn't joking about being able to hide behind my light, and I'm running a light designed for use on a pistol (Streamlight TLR-2). This light is bright enough that if it's dark and your eyes are adjusted to the dark, you use it in a room and the splash back off the walls is almost enough to dazzle you for a moment. I can point it at the ceiling and read a book (if I don't mind burning up $4 worth of batteries to read for a couple of hours) in my living room, which is a big room with a 12' ceiling.

I was checking my carbine light setup to make sure it worked well one evening, lights all on, rifle unloaded. I walked past my bathroom door, and opposite the door is the mirror. Well, I swung up on "myself" and hit the light... and took a step backward. It hurt, and my eyes weren't even dark-adjusted. I was seeing spots for a while after that.

No, my light isn't going to give anybody a good target to shoot at unless they're wearing an auto-darkening welding mask. What it will give them is pain, disorientation and confusion.

[SAR_boats]

Because you can only hit what you aim at, and you can only aim at what you can see.

Since night vision/starlight scopes are illegal in CA that doesn't leave us a bunch of options.

[TacticalMoose]

I just have a light fetish.

I could argue about all the benefits that everyone has already mentioned. But I'd rather have it and not need it than not have it and need it.

I've had my AR (the most tacticool of all my guns) for about 9 months now and I've put around 5,000 rounds through it already (rough guess, figure 500 rounds with the club a month, plus misc training and zeroing). I add and take toys off as I found out what works best for me. Seems to be working so far.

I do enjoy going to the range and seeing the ultimate tactical sniper ninja guys with the grip bipod and aimpoint/magnifier/laser all held together by some crazy rail set up and some coyote tan style paint job. I really love shooting tighter groups at 100y with irons than they can at 25.

[tuna quesadilla]

So everybody is claiming the light is for home defense. That's fine. But most of the tacticool flashlight builds I see are fixed mag builds built more for looks than practicality. What exactly do you plan on doing when you fire the last round out of your fixed magazine and the bad guy is still coming at you?