# Who has actually used the "Tactical" aspect of their torch?



## hogx1 (Feb 7, 2006)

So how many people actually have had to use their light in a "Tactical" manner? I am using "tactical" in a self-defense type of way. 

I know that one of the selling features of these lights is that they can be momentarily blinding and or bludgeoning someone. Neither of which I have got the opportunity to do... er I mean had the need to do. I can only see three ways it could be used as self-defense. 

Temporarily blind someone
Hold in your hand to give your punch some extra oomph
Swing on the lanyard like a mace

We all trust these lights to help us out in a bad situation but would they really give us much of an edge?


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## Blazer (Feb 7, 2006)

Many times on traffic stops I'll pop (defined as momentary flash of the light) the passenger in the eyes (I'm always on night shifts and always approach on the passenger side) just so I have a second or two to check their hands and immediate area without them knowing where I am or what I'm doing while my partner deals with the driver. 
I use one of the following for this purpose:
SL 20-X LED
SL Stinger XT
SL Strion
Pelican M6 LED
Mag Charger or
Mag 3D
depending on what is available in the car and at beginning of shift.


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## Pydpiper (Feb 7, 2006)

I snuck up on a dark room once, but when I got there it was gone. :shrug:


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## iced_theater (Feb 7, 2006)

Pydpiper said:


> I snuck up on a dark room once, but when I got there it was gone. :shrug:


Carry a Minimag with you next time. I'm sure you would find it then.


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## greenLED (Feb 7, 2006)

Pydpiper said:


> I snuck up on a dark room once, but when I got there it was gone. :shrug:


 I wonder where it went! 
Afraid of the light, maybe?


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## VWTim (Feb 7, 2006)

Haven't used any of mine, but I have trained with my TL-2 in night fire exercises quite a bit.


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## Data (Feb 7, 2006)

Pydpiper said:


> I snuck up on a dark room once, but when I got there it was gone. :shrug:



That is funny.  Can I use that in my SPY ads?

Cheers
Dave


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## Fringe (Feb 7, 2006)

Not that this was a life or death situation, but my friend was dealing with one of his drunk "friends" a few months ago and the "friend" got really upset and began to challenge my friend to a fight. The guy would not back down he wanted to fight so badly, so as he was approaching my friend pushing and whatnot, my buddy pulled out his Mclux III PD and blasted him in the eyes with it at full power. This made the "friend" recoil each time and kept him at bay. I thought it was a great story.


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## webley445 (Feb 7, 2006)

Never "whacked" a person, but many times while patrolling and finding suspicious activity, have lit them up to the point that they immediately leave or at least try to make out like they weren't up to anything at all.


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## Coop (Feb 7, 2006)

A few years back I had a job as a security guard at a shelter for refugees. When doing my rounds during a nightshift I came across 2 men fighting. I tried to calm them down, but they did not speak dutch/english/french or german so I couldn't really communicate with them...
When one of them pulled out a razor (the old folding type) I felt it was time to take action. I decided not to wait for my backup and whacked razorguy over the head with my magcharger. He went down immediately. The other guy was pretty quick to grab the dropped razor and jumped at me. He was too close for me to swing the mag at him, so I jabbed him in the throat with the mags tailcap. Not hard but just enough to have him grasp for air. Worked him to the ground before he could recover and cuffed him with a heavy duty zip-tie. While I was doing that my colleagues arrived, they were just in time to cuff the other one who was starting to wake up from his mag induced nap and hand the 2 individuals over to our friends from the local police.

not really tactical... but the maglite saved my ***.


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## Pydpiper (Feb 7, 2006)

Data said:


> That is funny.  Can I use that in my SPY ads?
> 
> Cheers
> Dave



It'll cost ya..


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## Data (Feb 7, 2006)

Pydpiper said:


> It'll cost ya..



 :nana:


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## Safety1st (Feb 7, 2006)

Very much like our member Blazer, I use my flashlight regularly during traffic stops at night...

As I approach the vehicle, i'll use it to illuminate the interior allowing me to view the numbers of occupants and what they're doing...

then switch it momentarily off....

They always expect me to go to the driver's window...and BOOM...i'm there at the passenger one..

Always makes 'em jump...and keep 'em one step behind me....!..


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## Greens_Rules (Feb 7, 2006)

i used the Tactical part of one of my lights. Hit the back switch as i was looking at the light end. Was blind for about 30 seconds.

Rob


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## Fringe (Feb 7, 2006)

Good story Maycooper. Glad no one was hurt, especially you.


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## PoliceScannerMan (Feb 7, 2006)

MayCooper said:


> the other one who was starting to wake up from his mag induced nap.




I love it! :rock:


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## Flakey (Feb 8, 2006)

Not sure how "tactical" this is but ahh hell, i was night hiking the other night, (my new hobby) i looked up the path a little bit and there was a pretty good sized coyote. i had my c3 (beamshaped) on to light up my path but i had the mag74 in my other hand. i made some "shoo" "get outta here" noises and i think he thought that was pretty funny cause he started walking towords me. i really didnt need that kind of friend at the moment so i gave him a shot of mag74 in the eyes. he let out a yelp and ran off, i had to giggle a little bit, how silly animals can be. then again if someone 4 times my size lit me up with a light so bright that i could feel the heat on my face ..... i'd probably let out a yelp and run away as well lol!


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## Mike Painter (Feb 8, 2006)

I had a friend who did just the opposite. He had his spotlight on a guy who was running away. It was down a steep embankment and he was not going to chase him.
After a few seconds he turned the light off.
It's hard to run in the dark.
The guy said that if my friend left the light on he would walk to the patrol car.


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## oklalawman (Feb 8, 2006)

Nightly


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## Colonial Marine (Feb 8, 2006)

Apart from using my M6 and 6p regularly on night shifts searching for disturbed burglary suspects, I also use it as previously mentioned when doing drug searches as a momentary flash to give me time to assess for any weapons or threats.

When I used to have my ASP triad light, I once used it to blind a guy who was stealing alloy rims off a car one night.

I snuck up on him and challenged him, he was a big fella and squared up to me when he saw he was cornered. This earned him a flash in the eyes and before his eyes readjusted he was in rigid handcuffs.


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## TORCH_BOY (Feb 8, 2006)

I found an intruder in our back yard, thats when the Blaster Flashlight
came in handy, pointed it at his face and told him to get going on his way


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## Colonial Marine (Feb 8, 2006)

TORCH_BOY said:


> I found an intruder in our back yard, thats when the Blaster Flashlight
> came in handy, pointed it at his face and told him to get going on his way


 
Where in Australia are you Torch_Boy?

We are emigrating to Perth on 1st march from the UK.

regards

CM


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## smoking (Feb 8, 2006)

encountered a bar brawl while working, took out my 6P with the p60 lamp and tried to blind the most violent guy but it didn't really work on him and kept on advancing towards me. i had to back off a little and took out a mag 3D ready for a swing at him then he backed off.
i think lights don't blind violent drunkards or the 6P is not enough.


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## Templar223 (Feb 8, 2006)

Kids drinking and smoking pot in a nearby park tend to scurry away when hit with spotlight from 100yards away. Done this a dozen or more times, especially back in the mid-90's in the years after I moved here.

Christmas eve I hit a group of nearly twenty teens fighting and trying to break windows with snow and ice balls with a Mag85 from 50+ yards away. Funny how the fighting stopped and they all started running away in every direction, including two that must have forgotten where the light came from as they started walking quickly in my direction. Another blast in the face at about 40 yards and they took off running in the other direction.

Funny how people misbehaving think a really bright light = popo.

John


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## zespectre (Feb 8, 2006)

Mike Painter said:


> I had a friend who did just the opposite. He had his spotlight on a guy who was running away. It was down a steep embankment and he was not going to chase him.
> After a few seconds he turned the light off.
> It's hard to run in the dark.
> The guy said that if my friend left the light on he would walk to the patrol car.


 
That so reminds me of my rookie days. We're on foot pursuit of a B&E and he dodges into a stand of trees and the training officer with me stops and tells me to turn my light off for a second. <crash, bang, thud> and we turn the light and the perp had run right into a tree and was laying on the ground.


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## depusm12 (Feb 8, 2006)

Use mine daily for vehicle approaches on traffic stops. Or while searching unsecured buildings. Especially now that I'm working midnight shift. I'm using my Surefire 8NX, Streamlight Strion on my belt and Brinkman Maxfire w BOG 3w Led module with Li-Ion battery in my pocket as backup and my SL-20XP in my gearbag.


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## DonX_Fi (Feb 8, 2006)

This happend last autumn to me. I was on round as night guard. I heard nearby school yard noise. I was opposite of yard on incoming gate. I stopped right behind gate. I heard 'STOP POLICE' many times. The sounds of running was coming near by me, behind corner of building. I was ready; The SF 8XN, battery hot from charger, on my hand and other hand was the FoxLabs OC on quick release holder. There they came. Man was runnning getaway from Police. Bad guy was soon to be the winner, guy was making gap to Police. Police was running with opened telecopic baton in hitting position on his hand. Man was getting runnaway from Police. I just Hopped to front on the bad guy, from behind the gate.
It was dusky. BAM !
I shined guys face about 2 meters before he come up to me, by my SF 8XN and yelled: ' FREEZE THIS IS GUARD!'. The man was instanly blinded and unoriented.
:nana: 
I took submission on that man's throat and forced him to ground. He was lying on his belly down, me on top of his back. I put my knee on his face and shined his face. He tryed to wrestle on me, but he didn't see a thing.

The Police joined to wrestle and together with Police, we cuffed bad guy.
The 8XN made my day ! ( or should I say Night ? )
:twothumbs


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## ABTOMAT (Feb 8, 2006)

> So how many people actually have had to use their light in a "Tactical" manner?



I walked along the ceiling into the kitchen, dropped to the floor, upside down on a rope, illuminated the target with my 6P, then covertly de-animated the pile of envelopes with my Dark Ops ninja nailfile.


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## cratz2 (Feb 9, 2006)

Why is the theme to Mission: Impossible coming to mind as I read this thread?






Closest I've ever come to using a tactical flashlight tactically is shooting while illuminating a target with one. Just paper targets, mind you... but still...


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## laserbokkie (Feb 9, 2006)

I spent a few months in Cape Town-South Africa last year.
Although I lived in one of those enclosed security complexes in Table View, they once broke into my house (during daytime) and took almost everything that i brought to the country (laptop, clothes and so on).

That made me nervous, so whenever there was a noise or my staffordshire getting nervous, I would grab my M3, pepper spray and the dog and went on to look.
I know that was stupid to go out alone and unarmed but just sitting around was impossible for me. Once I cornered a guy and blinded him just to see it was the neighbour walking his dog at 2 am in the morning....he had trouble with hos wife.
We ended up having a beer in my front yard.

Called the cops twice since they also broke into cars (mine too-dyuricg daytime).
Took them once 30 mins to show up....

South Africa is a place where you go to jail for 5 yrs for not having a TV licence and murder gives you 2 yrs...


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## trivergata (Feb 9, 2006)

Not the trpical tactical situation or tool, but I got jumped by 5 guys and had a 6D mag. 1 broken arm and skull fracture later, they left (their arm and head, not mine).

Cops wanted to know why I was carrying such a large light. I told 'em "it's because it gets dark out here." 

When the cops finally caught them (30 minutes after they jumped me, as I was filling my report with the officer and the kids were in the middle of another felony) you could still see a pattern where the mag tailcap hit one kid in the temple.

Josh


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## cratz2 (Feb 9, 2006)

trivergata said:


> Not the trpical tactical situation or tool, but I got jumped by 5 guys and had a 6D mag. 1 broken arm and skull fracture later, they left (their arm and head, not mine).... you could still see a pattern where the mag tailcap hit one kid in the temple.



Sounds brutal! Hopefully I'll never have to fend off 5 guys while armed with just my L0P.


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## Cairo (Jul 10, 2012)

I use it to scare the crap out of my sisters with strobe and a Alien mask hahaha


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## Ragnar66 (Jul 12, 2012)

everytime i clear a building ill throw it on and off at the appropriate time....


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## [email protected] (Jul 12, 2012)

cratz2 said:


> Sounds brutal! Hopefully I'll never have to fend off 5 guys while armed with just my L0P.




It's not the size of the light in the fight it's the size of the fight in the light...




I don't buy lights because they're tacti-cool, I choose based on their UI, ruggedness and reliability but UI first and foremost as it's a tool I'll use over and over again every shift...


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## Leoht (Jul 12, 2012)

This story is a bit different. About a year ago I was moving our cattle from one paddock to another late at night. One of the steers took a particular disliking to my dog and charged at him, unfortunately I was between the charging bovine and dog. A blast of strobe from my TK40 stopped the angry 1000 kilogram beast in his tracks.


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## metalophile (Jul 12, 2012)

On the night of the 4th of July I took my two kids to the park to watch the fireworks. I gave my kids a couple of my AA EDC lights to light the path. After we had enjoyed the fireworks we were in the crowd of folks leaving the park. I also had my 18650 powered P7-C (approx 600 lumens) lighting the way, and on medium power (~300 lumens) I had by far the brightest flashlight in the crowd. I was using it sparingly. Well, two guys come up behind us on the path riding a golf cart and shining a flashlight (maybe 100 lumens) as the golf cart didn't have any headlights. Well, motorized vehicles are forbidden on the park paths, and I wasn't sure they could see my small kids flitting behind me on the path, so I ordered my kids close and shone my flashlight on medium directly at them for a couple of seconds just to make sure they saw us. Then I hear a voice from the golf cart, sounding somewhat irritated, "Don't shine that flashlight at us! We're the police!". I guess they didn't like being out-gunned flashlight wise. I declined to show them what my flashlight could do on HIGH power.


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## Dankung (Jul 12, 2012)

Do you do some night hunting or fishing?
if you do, you will find 'tactical' are useful


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## novice (Jul 13, 2012)

I don't know if this is 'tactical' or not, but I walk my dog almost every evening in a small park about a block away, right next to a bike path where a young man was brutally murdered last year. It is a small park, and the baseball diamonds/bathroom building break it up into medium-sized areas. I always take a couple of throwers, and I am able to sweep each area fairly well, with no dark corners left for anyone to really hide in. I would feel much more vulnerable without the ability to do that.

On a separate note, a few years ago, while walking my dog, an aggressively-curious pit bull charged from across the street. Fortunately all he did was sniff my dog. I was shining a Fenix P2D on 'turbo' directly into the dog's eyes at close range, and shouting 'NO!', and it did not appear to make the slightest difference to the other dog.


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## Xacto (Jul 15, 2012)

Not "used" but "considered using" my Surefire G2X Tactical two times within the last few weeks. One time was in the mid-evening, it was already dark but still plenty of people outside when I went to the ATM and got approached by a hobo (he used that word on himself) who was standing at a kiosk. He asked me if he could ask me a question. I turned around, left hand on the holster where the Surefire rides on my belt and and answered him "Yes, but with two meters distance!" I had to repeat that order and he just lamented why I reacted that way... he finally asked if I had some spare money (of course not, the rest of my words wasn't PC). 

The next situation came when I was walking around the neighbourhood (walking in the Nordic Walking sense) around midnight since the schedule of that day and the "steam" in my head after an argument with my wife (not about flashlights ;-) ) just drove me out of the house. Since there are still parts of our small city I do not really know, I went in the direction of a larger sub-suburban living area. When I came to a small traffic circle with three directions, another pedestrian came from the lane in my 8 o'clock position. The lane to my 12 o'clock position lead beneath an autobahn overpass, so I had no real other option than to keep on walking straight ahead. I was a little bit quicker than the "bogey on my six", so I was suddenly in front of him. I switched from the sidewalk to the middle of the street, used my Surefire G2X to shine underneath the overpass (and generally show the "bogey" that I have a situational awarness). While walking in the middle of the street, I glanzed over my shoulder to check where he is, when he asked me a question "Can I ask you a question". This time, I replied with "Yes, but with 5 meters distance" hand again on the already reholstered flashlight and checking any for any defensive means I was carrying. All the while I was walking backwards, hand on the Surefire pouch, checking where I was going and keeping an eye on him, he lamented why I was acting that way and that he only came to live with us etc.... (who in his right mind would react the way I did when walking past midnight, I usually expect not to be talked to). Since he did not stop in his tracks, I decided to quickly walk to the still open BurgerKing. Once there, he too entered the building, waiting 2meters behind me but saying nothing. I ordered a small Coke (good thing that I had my wallet with me) waited till it was his turn at the counter and so that I could use the time to gain some distance.

In the end, what was planned as a "short" 3-4km walk turned into an 11km / 2h walk. Although I had never the need to actually shine the Surefire in someones eyes, I was glad that it would have been available if the situations would have turned out otherwise.

a picture of the traffic circle, my path in red, the other ones in blue.






Cheers
Thorsten


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## Chrontius (Jul 16, 2012)

Coop said:


> A few years back I had a job as a security guard at a shelter for refugees. When doing my rounds during a nightshift I came across 2 men fighting. I tried to calm them down, but they did not speak dutch/english/french or german so I couldn't really communicate with them...
> When one of them pulled out a razor (the old folding type) I felt it was time to take action. I decided not to wait for my backup and whacked razorguy over the head with my magcharger. He went down immediately. The other guy was pretty quick to grab the dropped razor and jumped at me. He was too close for me to swing the mag at him, so I jabbed him in the throat with the mags tailcap. Not hard but just enough to have him grasp for air. Worked him to the ground before he could recover and cuffed him with a heavy duty zip-tie. While I was doing that my colleagues arrived, they were just in time to cuff the other one who was starting to wake up from his mag induced nap and hand the 2 individuals over to our friends from the local police.
> 
> not really tactical... but the maglite saved my ***.



Are you kidding? That's more or less the _definition_​ of tactical.


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