Viriidian C5L, TLR-2 Light/laser combos, LaserMax Unimax, luminescent sights & more
Lot's of catching up to do. I just reached the 10,700 round count for the year. I will break the 11,000 count by year's end. Yesterday and lately I have been enjoyed a surprisingly pleasant experience with laser sights and tactical light combos.
I've never really got into the laser sight but at the same time I could readily see the advantages of a laser sight. One primary advantage is, you can know where your impact is going regardless of where your gun is, i.e. eye level, shoulder/chest lever, waist level, or from some awkward position where you can't bring the gun up for visual indexing.
I'll have to do this in multiple posts because it is very pic heavy and you can only post 12 pics per post.
And, I'll make no pretense about this, the Viridian C5L light/green laser is my choice by far, even likely over the C5L's big brother, the X5L, which is not availabe yet. There are two reasons I like the C5L over the X5L, even though I haven't even tried an X5L yet, one reason is compactness, the other is Raven Concealment makes a Phantom holster for the Hk P30L/C5L combo.
Having stated my preference, my choice needs some qualifications. It's pretty simple really: I want a light/laser combo I can carry concealed. Given that alone, the pics will clearly show why the C5L wins for this application - it's small; it's light; it uses one battery; it does not extend past the end of the muzzle, even on a Sig 229R; it has a green laser and a tactical light; the mode programming is stupid simple for the different modes; and it has, IMO, one of the best operating switches available. But let's get on to the comparisons...
I already had a Streamlight TLR-2 and was pretty impressed with it's performance both as a WML and a laser sight. The tactical light is bright, the red laser is bright and it's easy to adjust. The TLR-2 'tips' on. Most weapon mounted lights (WML) slide on from the front of the rail and click in place. The TLR-2 installs in the position it will be in by kind of rocking it onto the rails and tightening down the mounting screw. That takes longer, but the upside is you don't have to place your hand forward of muzzle - that seems like a good thing to me. Well, let's take a look at the TLR-2 before we get into sight offset. Here's the TLR-2 on a Sig 226R SRT:
Notice two things in the pic: how low it sets below the frame (i.e. the laser) and how far it extends beyond the muzzle. And, the P226 is no small gun! For comparison, here's a Surefire X200 (no laser) on the same gun. Notice it extends past the muzzle a bit more than the TLR-2:
And before I forget it - a tactical issue arose while shooting the TLR-2. The switch on the TLR-2 is a rocker switch at the back of the unit - it's like little paddles on each side. Hang on to that for a minute. I shoot with a thumbs forward grip. On numerous occassions while shooting with the TLR-2 laser, I became aware that in recoil, muzzle flip was causing the paddle switch to contact my support hand thumb, knocking the switch to the off position. That can't be good!!! I've thought of two solutions to that so far - duct tape or cut the last joint of my thumb off. I don't think we use that part of our thumb much anyway.
So, that would complicate things for a carry gun - it just makes a large gun larger (longer). Then, here's the Viridian C5L:
It's important to realize the C5L is both a WML and laser. And before we leave size and compactness, let's look at the C5L on a smaller gun - the Sig P229R SRT E2:
Which brings us to laser sight offset.
If I measure the distance from the laser to the centerline of the bore for the TRL-2, I get 2.75". That means that if the laser is sighted parallel to the bore, you will hit about 2.75" high. That may or may not be a problem. E.g. if you put my upper lip, you'd hit me right between the eyes! :blink: I suspect that would be true for most 'heads'. And it would be a consistent offset. There would be some bullet arc/drop, but out to about 15 - yards it shouldn't be a problem. But there are some other approaches some might like better.
One would be to sight the laser in at a longer range, say 15 yds. So at 15 yds the bullet should hit right where the dot is. As you come back from 15 yds, you'll get that offset again, though not as much as with the parallel laser. I would think this could be a bit more challenging IF you want surgical shots at various ranges, because you would have a different offset as the range changes.
Another way would be to set the laser on at 7.5 yds - half way to 15 yds. That would give you 2.75" high at 15 yds, right on at 7.5 yds, and about 1.6 inches of offset at 3 yds. I guess one needs to try each and see what works for him. I used the parallel method with my TLR-2. How about the C5L.
Well, the laser on the C5L is almost where it should be - on top of the light instead of on the bottom. That reduces offset and offset error a lot! The offset of the C5L is 1-5/8" - a full 1-1/8" less than the TLR-2 and I'd say the X200 series as well. The reason I say 'almost' is because it's offset a bit to the right of the centerline (referenced from the rear of the gun as you would see it in your hand). It's not much, looks like less than a quarter of an inch, so that's not so much of an issue. FWIW, Crimson Trace grip lasers have both offsets as well. So if I set the laser parallel with the bore, I would shoot 1-5/8" high and 1/4" to the left of the the laser dot.
The C5L has 6 modes of operation: Laser only, light only, laser strobe only, light only, light strobe with non-strobing, and laser strobe with non-strobing light. While there are a few other possiblities of light/laser flicker possiblities, only the six listed are implimented. Selecting the mode couldn't be easier - even I can do it!
There are two 'soft' switches, one on each side of the unit, located as close to the front of the trigger guard as they can be. Here's a closer look at the switch on one side. The C5L is mounted on a Hk P30L:
The C5L comes on in the mode it was last programmed to. You (re)program it while it is on and it is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get. To turn it on, you press either switch; there're on or off, i.e. neither is momentary. Once the unit is on, you can program it. You press both switches at once and each time you press and release (both) you get the next mode. When you get what you want, you stop and press one switch to turn it off.
The C5L uses one CR2 battery, that's good and it's bad. It's good because it only uses one battery; it's bad because now I have to keep CR2s, CR123s, and AA batteries on hand - I have a lot to worry about don't I . Like the programming, the battery couldn't be easier to install. Looky here:
You see that big ol' screw? Well that's where the battery goes - you don't even have to take the light off the gun to replace the battery! Show me another laser/light that will do that! No difficult 'rear' door to pry off, no worry about 're-alignment'.
The C5L comes with three mounting adaptors as seen here:
Hmmm, I don't know what's up with photobucket, I re-sized that and it's just as big as it was . Anyway, at first I thought these were to adapt to different rail widths, but I don't think that's the case. What they're actually for is to get the C5L closed to the trigger guard. Basically they change the slot cross bolt to different positions to locate the unit.
You can see from previous pics that I used one set and it worked on the Sig P226 and P229, no surprise there, but the same set also worked on the Hk P30L. However, I have found a use for the longer adaptor set. Remember the "Two is one, one is none" principle, well here's "two is one":
Did you see it! That's the C5L mounted underneath a LaserMax UniMax red laser! Here's the UniMax:
Pretty cool huh!
The reason you'd want to do this is because, you might....well....in case....hmmm, what if.....etc. Actually there might be a couple of reasons, one, "two is one", another is, you'd have a choice of a red laser or a green laser. Why would you want both? That's easy, because you might....well....in case....hmmm, what if.....etc. Well, for me, one would be a night laser (red) and the other a day laser (green). To wit:
I shot the C5L at the indoor range yesterday; I was shooting at a 2" diameter ShootnC at 10 yds. I think some of the range ligths were out; certainly plenty to shoot by, but slightly subdued. The laser was so bright at 10 yards, I could hardly see the ShootnC - I'm not kidding. I even went to the flicker mode, but that didn't help. At that point I realized a variable intensity laser would be nice, but since one of those isn't anywhere in sight, I thought, hmmm, what about the C5L with the red UniMax!
I didn't get to try that because I had been sighting in the UniMax another day and the windage adjustment screw quit windaging. NOW HEAR THIS!!! I called LaserMax and was kind of casually told, "Yeah, you over adjusted the screw." It turns out there no stop; the screw just goes in until it runs out of threads and then there's no way to thread it back out. So he gave me an RMA; they're gonna fix it - or more accurately they're gonna restore it to normal, which isn't a fix!
And now on to the second post because I need to post another pic and I've used up my 12 images in this post.
Lot's of catching up to do. I just reached the 10,700 round count for the year. I will break the 11,000 count by year's end. Yesterday and lately I have been enjoyed a surprisingly pleasant experience with laser sights and tactical light combos.
I've never really got into the laser sight but at the same time I could readily see the advantages of a laser sight. One primary advantage is, you can know where your impact is going regardless of where your gun is, i.e. eye level, shoulder/chest lever, waist level, or from some awkward position where you can't bring the gun up for visual indexing.
I'll have to do this in multiple posts because it is very pic heavy and you can only post 12 pics per post.
And, I'll make no pretense about this, the Viridian C5L light/green laser is my choice by far, even likely over the C5L's big brother, the X5L, which is not availabe yet. There are two reasons I like the C5L over the X5L, even though I haven't even tried an X5L yet, one reason is compactness, the other is Raven Concealment makes a Phantom holster for the Hk P30L/C5L combo.
Having stated my preference, my choice needs some qualifications. It's pretty simple really: I want a light/laser combo I can carry concealed. Given that alone, the pics will clearly show why the C5L wins for this application - it's small; it's light; it uses one battery; it does not extend past the end of the muzzle, even on a Sig 229R; it has a green laser and a tactical light; the mode programming is stupid simple for the different modes; and it has, IMO, one of the best operating switches available. But let's get on to the comparisons...
I already had a Streamlight TLR-2 and was pretty impressed with it's performance both as a WML and a laser sight. The tactical light is bright, the red laser is bright and it's easy to adjust. The TLR-2 'tips' on. Most weapon mounted lights (WML) slide on from the front of the rail and click in place. The TLR-2 installs in the position it will be in by kind of rocking it onto the rails and tightening down the mounting screw. That takes longer, but the upside is you don't have to place your hand forward of muzzle - that seems like a good thing to me. Well, let's take a look at the TLR-2 before we get into sight offset. Here's the TLR-2 on a Sig 226R SRT:
Notice two things in the pic: how low it sets below the frame (i.e. the laser) and how far it extends beyond the muzzle. And, the P226 is no small gun! For comparison, here's a Surefire X200 (no laser) on the same gun. Notice it extends past the muzzle a bit more than the TLR-2:
And before I forget it - a tactical issue arose while shooting the TLR-2. The switch on the TLR-2 is a rocker switch at the back of the unit - it's like little paddles on each side. Hang on to that for a minute. I shoot with a thumbs forward grip. On numerous occassions while shooting with the TLR-2 laser, I became aware that in recoil, muzzle flip was causing the paddle switch to contact my support hand thumb, knocking the switch to the off position. That can't be good!!! I've thought of two solutions to that so far - duct tape or cut the last joint of my thumb off. I don't think we use that part of our thumb much anyway.
So, that would complicate things for a carry gun - it just makes a large gun larger (longer). Then, here's the Viridian C5L:
It's important to realize the C5L is both a WML and laser. And before we leave size and compactness, let's look at the C5L on a smaller gun - the Sig P229R SRT E2:
Which brings us to laser sight offset.
If I measure the distance from the laser to the centerline of the bore for the TRL-2, I get 2.75". That means that if the laser is sighted parallel to the bore, you will hit about 2.75" high. That may or may not be a problem. E.g. if you put my upper lip, you'd hit me right between the eyes! :blink: I suspect that would be true for most 'heads'. And it would be a consistent offset. There would be some bullet arc/drop, but out to about 15 - yards it shouldn't be a problem. But there are some other approaches some might like better.
One would be to sight the laser in at a longer range, say 15 yds. So at 15 yds the bullet should hit right where the dot is. As you come back from 15 yds, you'll get that offset again, though not as much as with the parallel laser. I would think this could be a bit more challenging IF you want surgical shots at various ranges, because you would have a different offset as the range changes.
Another way would be to set the laser on at 7.5 yds - half way to 15 yds. That would give you 2.75" high at 15 yds, right on at 7.5 yds, and about 1.6 inches of offset at 3 yds. I guess one needs to try each and see what works for him. I used the parallel method with my TLR-2. How about the C5L.
Well, the laser on the C5L is almost where it should be - on top of the light instead of on the bottom. That reduces offset and offset error a lot! The offset of the C5L is 1-5/8" - a full 1-1/8" less than the TLR-2 and I'd say the X200 series as well. The reason I say 'almost' is because it's offset a bit to the right of the centerline (referenced from the rear of the gun as you would see it in your hand). It's not much, looks like less than a quarter of an inch, so that's not so much of an issue. FWIW, Crimson Trace grip lasers have both offsets as well. So if I set the laser parallel with the bore, I would shoot 1-5/8" high and 1/4" to the left of the the laser dot.
The C5L has 6 modes of operation: Laser only, light only, laser strobe only, light only, light strobe with non-strobing, and laser strobe with non-strobing light. While there are a few other possiblities of light/laser flicker possiblities, only the six listed are implimented. Selecting the mode couldn't be easier - even I can do it!
There are two 'soft' switches, one on each side of the unit, located as close to the front of the trigger guard as they can be. Here's a closer look at the switch on one side. The C5L is mounted on a Hk P30L:
The C5L comes on in the mode it was last programmed to. You (re)program it while it is on and it is a what-you-see-is-what-you-get. To turn it on, you press either switch; there're on or off, i.e. neither is momentary. Once the unit is on, you can program it. You press both switches at once and each time you press and release (both) you get the next mode. When you get what you want, you stop and press one switch to turn it off.
The C5L uses one CR2 battery, that's good and it's bad. It's good because it only uses one battery; it's bad because now I have to keep CR2s, CR123s, and AA batteries on hand - I have a lot to worry about don't I . Like the programming, the battery couldn't be easier to install. Looky here:
You see that big ol' screw? Well that's where the battery goes - you don't even have to take the light off the gun to replace the battery! Show me another laser/light that will do that! No difficult 'rear' door to pry off, no worry about 're-alignment'.
The C5L comes with three mounting adaptors as seen here:
Hmmm, I don't know what's up with photobucket, I re-sized that and it's just as big as it was . Anyway, at first I thought these were to adapt to different rail widths, but I don't think that's the case. What they're actually for is to get the C5L closed to the trigger guard. Basically they change the slot cross bolt to different positions to locate the unit.
You can see from previous pics that I used one set and it worked on the Sig P226 and P229, no surprise there, but the same set also worked on the Hk P30L. However, I have found a use for the longer adaptor set. Remember the "Two is one, one is none" principle, well here's "two is one":
Did you see it! That's the C5L mounted underneath a LaserMax UniMax red laser! Here's the UniMax:
Pretty cool huh!
The reason you'd want to do this is because, you might....well....in case....hmmm, what if.....etc. Actually there might be a couple of reasons, one, "two is one", another is, you'd have a choice of a red laser or a green laser. Why would you want both? That's easy, because you might....well....in case....hmmm, what if.....etc. Well, for me, one would be a night laser (red) and the other a day laser (green). To wit:
I shot the C5L at the indoor range yesterday; I was shooting at a 2" diameter ShootnC at 10 yds. I think some of the range ligths were out; certainly plenty to shoot by, but slightly subdued. The laser was so bright at 10 yards, I could hardly see the ShootnC - I'm not kidding. I even went to the flicker mode, but that didn't help. At that point I realized a variable intensity laser would be nice, but since one of those isn't anywhere in sight, I thought, hmmm, what about the C5L with the red UniMax!
I didn't get to try that because I had been sighting in the UniMax another day and the windage adjustment screw quit windaging. NOW HEAR THIS!!! I called LaserMax and was kind of casually told, "Yeah, you over adjusted the screw." It turns out there no stop; the screw just goes in until it runs out of threads and then there's no way to thread it back out. So he gave me an RMA; they're gonna fix it - or more accurately they're gonna restore it to normal, which isn't a fix!
And now on to the second post because I need to post another pic and I've used up my 12 images in this post.