About a week ago (as of this writing) I went on a little journey to Wal-Mart with the wife and kid. While they were busy doing their shopping, I was content to look at the things that interest me - knives, guns, fishing stuff, flashlights, and computer games. I wound up leaving with a new knife and a new light - both much needed tools. One can never have enough knives, or flashlights (or guns, or computer games, or fishing rods)

The light I came home with is a Dorcy 1 watt Luxeon LED light. I couldn't find it anywhere on their website, so I'm not sure if it's a new product, or an old one. I think it's a new product, because it seems to have integrated current design trends into this light.



The light body is constructed of lightweight black-anodized aluminum, with a plastic lens, and a recessed tailcap activation switch. The body has the trendy anti-roll flat spots machined in a octagonal (is that even a word?) pattern, and the foreward end of the body is checkered. The light comes with a pocket clip - which I have found to be rather inadequate at holding, but we'll get into that more in a bit.

The light wasn't on sale, and was marked at the regular price of $18.99 - a dollar less than Brinkmann's Surefire clone. The Dorcy light, as I mentioned earlier, is an LED based light - no bulb to break, no filament to burn out. That was a plus - as I'm pretty brutal on my equipment. LEDs in general stand up better to abuse than conventional lights. Another feature I liked was that the light is light-weight, while I don't have a scale to measure it with, I would say that the light weighs maybe 8 or 9 ounces with batteries installed. Another selling point was the batteries - instead of using the uber-spendy CR123 style batteries of the Brinkmann light - the Dorcy uses 3 AAA size batteries - batteries cheaply and easily found almost anywhere.

This isn't my first Dorcy made flashlight, and to be honest I was leery of purchasing another. I'd purchased a Dorcy Spyder Xenon light about six months ago - it's another one of the CR123 powered "tactical" style lights. That light lasted all of about a week before it gave out. I thought it was the batteries - as it ate batteries rather quick. I popped two fresh-from-the-package batteries in, and still nothing. Checked the bulb - nope, bulb was OK. I surmised that something in the switching assembly in the tailcap had gone bad. I'm not one to keep receipts unless the purchase is rather expensive, so I wrote off the Dorcy Spyder as a no-go and tossed it in the junk drawer. So, was this new LED light going to wind up serving the same fate, or would it shine? I decided the best way to test the light was simply by using and carrying it with me at work, as I had planned. I'm constantly crawling on the ground, getting in and out of my truck, and generally beating the hell out of myself and my gear. If the light made it a week, I would be impressed.

Well, I'm impressed. To date I've put in 7 full working days since purchasing the light, crawling in and under cars, climbing through brush, jumping in and out of my truck, and generally doing what tow truck drivers do. I can't count the number of times I've dropped the light or had it fall out of my pocket getting in or out of the truck, or while walking from the truck to a vehicle I'm servicing. The driver's seat of my truck sits about 4 feet off the ground, and half the time my light has fallen, it's been when I was exiting the truck. I wear the light clipped to the inside of my right front pants pocket, the light itself actually seems to ride on the side of my leg given the pocket's size and shape. This means that when I'm crawling under a car to hook up a winch cable or safety chain, I'm rolling around on my side, or laying on my side, on top of the light. There's a few small dings and dents in the body, and some scratches in the finish. The finish is also wearing on the high points on the pocket clip, the screws that hold the pocket slip in place, and the end where the tail cap switch is. I have some how avoided getting the lens scratched yet.

So far I've only got two complaints about this light - the pocket clip, which is improperly shaped, and made out of weak metal, and the tail cap itself. The pocket clip is simply not shaped properly and is not very strong - it doesn't hold very well. I've tried carrying the light on my belt - but it simply slips off. Pocket carry of the light is better, but it still seems to fall out of my pocket about 6 times a day or so getting in and out of the truck, and it slips out of my pocket much more frequently when I'm sitting in the truck. I've determined that reshaping the clip by bending it may be a quick fix, but I'm not sure how well the metal is going to hold up, and I personally believe that Dorcy should look in to using sturdier metal for the clip.

The tailcap is my other issue - the switching mechanism doesn't have a momentary on feature like the Brinkmann light I mentioned earlier, or the more spendy tac lights. It's simply a click on click off ordeal. That's not horrible, but when I was working as a security officer, I really came to appreciate momentary on/off capability in my light. The recessed 'bowl' the switch sits in bugs me too - the outer rim is too tall and digs in to my thumb when trying to activate the light. This can be alieviated by gripping the light closer to the rear, and resting the pad of the thumb over the entire rear of the light (I've got big paws) - but I usually don't wind up gripping the light that way when I need light now - so it bugs me. I might wind up grinding the rim down eventually, for more comfort. For now though, it'll remain as it came from the factory.

As for lumenosity - this light really shines. It's advertised as being ten times brighter than a 2AA cell mini-maglight. I think they're being conservative. I found this light to throw a tight, white beam of light at upto 30 feet (about the furthest distance you can find in my house) - which is more than enough for me, given the purpose of this light is for up-close work related tasks, and for defensive use in and around the home, or for up-close and personal defensive encounters. I think it'll do just fine for that role, as I did the 'blind myself by blasting a mirror and looking in to it' test - it worked.

For a controlled demonstration, I tested this light against a 2 D cell light from Garrity (because I can't find my 2 D maglight or my 3D maglight at the moment) - as you can see from the pictures below, this light is bright. The top picture is the beam of the Dorcy LED light, distance from the wall is about 15 feet. Notice the beam is on the cooler side of the spectrum, is fairly wide (if you can make out the portrait-size picture in the background) and it's bright.

The bottom picture is the beam from the 2D cell light. The 2D light is using fresh batteries - the Dorcy LED light has seen a lot of use over the last 8 days, i'd say run time so far is on the order of 3 or 4 light-on-hours. The batteries included with the Dorcy light were Energizer AAA batteries.

Notice the Dorcy light puts out a wider, brighter beam from a much smaller package.


the Dorcy light


The Garrity 2 D-cell light


All in all, I am pleased with this light, for $18.99 I am planning to pick up another one for my wife, and probably one to throw in the glovebox of the car. Until I find a better light, this is my go-to illumination source for bump-in-the night events, work related tasks, and general illumination purposes.

This post has been edited by hkriflenut: October 30th 2005 4:39 AM

Good deal. I saw those when I was at Chinamart last, I might have to get one now.

I did a quick review on this awhile back here, look in the Equipment & Accessories forum for a thread titled "Must have LED lights".

Just to follow up on hkriflenut's great review, this light is known as the Metal Gear from Dorcy, it is available in silver and black from Wal-Mart.

The pocket clip does suck, while it serves it purpose it gets bent easily and begins to rattle even when screwed down tightly. For the price of the light I can't b**** too much though.

The "clicky" tailcap is not a traditional "clicky" that you may expect. Most "clicky" tailcaps you may have had or used in the past will turn on momentarily with slight pressure applied to the tailcap without pressing all the way in to lock the light onto the on position. The tailcap on the Metal Gear is known as a "reverse clicky" which means it does not have the momentary feature. For the light to come on it has to be clicked all the way in and locked.

One caveat I want to make aware to everyone who might go out and pick this up, look in the bezel when buying and make sure the LED is somewhat straight! I have looked at many of these and some of the LED's have been so far off center it shines way off center which is annoying. A little off is okay, the reflector will compensate but some I have seen have been waaaaaay off which makes the beam lopsided.

Battery life is very good with the Metal Gear, the 3 AAA batteries it uses should run for over 4 hours without a diminish in beam output. That is pretty damn good considering the lumen output is somewhere in the mid to high 40's I would guess.

Overall it is still a lot of light for the money and still rates as "best buy" in my book.

Thanks Wiseman, I should've figgered the Deity of All Things Flashlight would know of this light, and have some experience with it. :howdy: