Expensive Batteries.

letschat7

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Dec 7, 2022
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West Virginia, North America
Way back in the day when Incans were commonly in use I went to CVS to get some CR123s or Ns. A 2-pack of Duracells were almost 30$, probably that with sales tax.

Well I visit today and they have them for pretty much the same prices. They have three single Duracell CR123s for 15.49$ apiece. How do people afford these? Back then 2-pack Energizer was $9.99 or so at Walmart and Surefire 2-pack was almost $5 at Lowes.

I used both in my Surefire 6p, Streamlight Scorpion, or Glock GTL 10. The cost of using for an hour was more than minimum wage but I was happy to have consistant and reliable lighting. 60-90 lumens was considered retina burning levels by gun magazine authors too!

I'll probably go back and buy them just because but I don't see how the members of the public afford these for tactical lights.
 

vicv

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Mar 22, 2013
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Southern Ontario
I'm not sure what type of local places you have around you, but I buy genuine Panasonic sells for two dollars apiece. Canadian so about $1.50 USD. But I got lucky finding this place because normally they are $10 apiece at any store, if you can even find them. I would check around to see if you can find any battery specific stores. I've also heard that places like battery station and Amazon are good in the US.
 

blah9

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Mar 10, 2011
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2,105
Yeah, that's rough. When I was younger and heard about Surefires I didn't think I could afford those batteries, so I never got a Surefire. I used eneloops and then later various 18650s and 21700s since I could amortize the cost over lots of charge cycles. Now I still kind of want to check out a Surefire light. :)
 

geisto

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Apr 12, 2011
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USA
Surefire sells a box of 12 CR123s for $24.95. I bought them on ebay.... those 72cell bulk box deals...it came to like $1.50 a cell. Still not cheap and I burned through them like candy in my M3T/125lumen bulb. Gamechanger when LED drop-ins came in and it basically doubled the output and runtime on the same CR123s. Once I bought 17500 Li-ions, those CR123s are just backups.
 

snakebite

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Mar 17, 2001
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dayton oh
Dont try to buy anything like this from cvs or any other drugstore.
Unless you need something medical you cannot elsewhere dont even go in.
 

cave dave

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Aug 15, 2001
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VA
Buc-ee's gas station near Sieverville, TN, passing through at Christmas

IMG_1746.jpg
 
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ABTOMAT

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Jan 9, 2004
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MA, USA
Those exist on the rack in CVS for when grandma needs a battery for her 35mm point & shoot camera in time for little Timmy's birthday party. But joke's on her, Timmy fell down the well again and she should be buying dog food for Lassie.
 

alpg88

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Apr 19, 2005
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5,343
that is what 2 alkaline AA would cost you in a drug store in nyc, i wonder what the date is on them, they may be very old hence the low price,
 

Poppy

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Dec 20, 2012
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Northern New Jersey
I bought a 10 or 12 pack of these years ago. They worked fine. I switched to rechargeables, and probably still have a few lying around. They are inexpensive enough to actually use though.

 
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