TVGuy wrote:While I understand the concern of giving away your position, you should go to a pitch black environment and try shooting accurately at 10 yards while holding a flashlight with your support hand. Now add the stress of it being an actual deadly encounter.
This is extremely difficult to do well, even for people that train often. I can guarantee the results of the above experiment will be eye opening at the very least.
I use a Streamlight TLR-1 on my EDC and a TLR-2 (with laser) on my bedside weapon. The HL versions are too powerful for indoor use, they will blind you in confined spaces.
The training technique we use to diminish the effect of giving your position away is to only activate the light when on your threat, assess the situation and fire if needed, follow through to ensure the threat is stopped, and turn the light off while shifting your position to move from where you fired the light. This is done quickly and will greatly diminish the fact that you gave away your position with the light.
yes, the streamlight and surefire lights are very easy to flick on or off with minimal effort. I keep a surefire x300 on my HD and its very easy to hold and manipulate the controls if needed.
I also have an TLR-1S that i intend to use at some point, I like the ability to strobe and disorient someone