Ah, April Fools’ Day. My least favorite calendar day. Still it can be fun, and what better fun to have than to review a completely irrelevant light. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Today I put before you a Surefire G2, with the original incandescent bulb. BULB. First time I’ve said that on this site….

Official Specs and Features

Here’s a link to the official product page.

Versions

I have no idea how many versions of this light there are. I think there are a number of nitrolon color options, including at least yellow, an OD green, and tan. And of course, black as seen here.

Price

I bought this one well-used, and for a great price. I have no good suggestions where to buy one now, but it’s still possible to find them!

Upon further research, I might have bought a fake. It’s hard to know, but I’ll cover a couple of key reasons I think this. That said, the bulb p60 dropin is a replacement, and could actually be a genuine Surefire product.

Short Review

This is a fun excursion from my normal lighting tools, and one I’ll probably keep. I have LED dropins for it, but the warmth of incandescent is not to be discounted. The build and body of the light is great. I could probably wish for more than one mode, though, and as usual, twisty isn’t my favorite.

Long Review

The Big Table

* Standard measurement disclaimer: I am an amateur flashlight reviewer. I don’t have $10,000 or even $1,000 worth of testing equipment. I test output and such in PVC tubes!! Please consider claims within 10% of what I measure to be perfectly reasonable (accurate, even).

What’s Included

Bought this one used, and only the light was included. Normally the Surefire package would include at the least, a host and dropin, and two Surefire cr123 cells, too.

Build Quality and Disassembly

I’m hesitant to say too much about the build quality of this light, given the possibility that it’s not a genuine Surefire product. Having said that, it’s still nicely built. There’s really only two things that make me think it might be fake, anyway.

The first is the dropin, which as I said, is a replacement anyway. I can’t find the “TD-1” listed as any Surefire product. But since it’s a replacement, I’ll let that slide. It does work…

The real fly in the ointment for me on this light is the lens. See below, there’s a bit of wavy meltedness to the lens. As far as I can tell, there should be a tempered pyrex lens there. This incandescent wouldn’t melt that pyrex, but it could melt plastic. So I think the lens is plastic, and I don’t think that’d ever come on a genuine Surefire product.

The switch is a solid metal piece where the clicky would be.

It’s very easy to disassemble.

The replacement bulb is an actual bulb, and has very warm output.

Nothing about the actual nitrolon body makes me think this is a fake product. Really, it’s well built. The threads are smooth, and are compatible with other P60 host items I have and use.

The nitrolon body is lined with a metal sleeve, which allows electrical contact from the tail to the head.

The dropins don’t really sit into the light until the head is screwed on. That’s normal.

Size and Comps

I measure 32.21mm bezel diameter. 26.11mm tailcap diameter. And tip to tail length of 125.02mm (when off).

I actually love this light because it’s very flashlighty. Fits in the hand very nicely.

Retention and Carry

Nothing is included for these lights for carry. I did find that the Solarforce stainless collar clip fits the G2 perfectly.

Power and Runtime

This light is designed to run on a 6V, 2xCR123 setup. Since those are primary cells, and this light is basically ancient at this point, I opted to runtime test with a 16650 4.2V Li-ion cell. Yes, output will be lower, but it is what it is. I’m accepting donations of CR123 cells for testing this type light.

Output is very low. But more interesting than that, is something that we can infer from this run. Based on this runtime, it’s possible to understand just how much more efficient LED emitters are. A shutoff after 2 hours of only 25 lumens or so means that so much of the energy from the cell went to waste heat! A led makes heat, but just about any current generation [flashlight] LED could make 25 lumens for ages.

PWM

As you’d expect, there is no PWM.

For reference, here’s a baseline shot, with all the room lights off and almost nothing hitting the sensor.

User Interface and Operation

The G2 is technically a twisty. Twist for on, loosen for off. But if you set the level of twist just right, the button on the end can serves as a momentary.

There’s only one mode, so there’s nothing more at all to the UI.

Modes and Currents

Mode Mode Claimed Output (lm) Claimed Runtime Measured Lumens Tailcap Amps 6V – – – 0.90 4.2V – – 25 0.78

LED and Beam

Not a LED this time!

The reflector is an orange peel, but it’s quite textured.

These beamshots are always with the following settings: f8, ISO100, 0.3s shutter, and manual 5000K exposure.

In person, though it doesn’t show on camera, there’s a lot more going on in the beam. For example, it’s possible to see the bezel indention, meant for the removal tool. That’s no problem, but it’s there.

Tint vs BLF-348 (Killzone 219b version)

It’s much easier to see what I meant above, in the beam profile below.

I compare everything to the Killzone 219b BLF-348, because it’s inexpensive and has the best tint!

Conclusion

What I like

The body material is great in hand.

The size and shape are also very good.

Appears to once have been available in the superior orange colorway.

What I don’t like

Potential for fakes make buying this an utter crapshoot

Not available new any more

Just one mode

Lack of LVP

If someone knows more about fakes of these, I’d love to hear it. If this one turns out to be genuine, sorry for saying fake so much in a review of a light you can’t really even by any more…..

Ultimately on this review, if this light was indeed fake, I suppose the joke is on me! Which makes me the April’s Fool!

Notes

This light was provided by me for review. I was not paid to write this review.

This content originally appeared at zeroair.org. Please visit there for the best experience!

Whether or not I have a coupon for this light, I do have a bunch of coupons!! Have a look at my spreadsheet for those coupons. It’s possible to subscribe and get notifications when the sheet is edited!!