Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/06/07/shore-up-your-emergency-kit-wi.html
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Flashlights that provide just enough light to read a map and (hopefully) not give away your position are also military-grade. Just saying. 
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And I thought that “military grade flashlights” were powered by plutonium…
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“Military grade” means it was built to a specification that was not necessarily determined through any reasonable or even understandable process, right?
(I had to use some milspec duct tape once back when I was in the aerospace biz. It was considerably worse than commercial grade tape as I recall.)
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This:
Is the only “military grade” flashlight I’m aware of.
And they’re crap.
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“Uncover child-sex-trafficking conspiracies with this military-grade flashlight”
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In those stealth Satanic FEMA pizza camp secret tunnels?
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I’ve found 9 times out of 10 a headlamp is way more handy in emergency situations, because, well, hands.
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Hey look! It’s a more expensive, unbranded, battery/charger not included version of this! They’re not amazing, but they’re cheap and you won’t feel terrible if they quit working or you lose one. Battery life is meh, and they’ll slowly drain the battery even if they’re off. I’ve tried three different versions of 18650s.
I’ll stick to my 6 D cell Mag-lite. Which, while not as bright, can be pressed into service as a plausible baseball bat if necessary. I can also be certain it wasn’t made by a political prisoner forced to work against their will in an unsafe plant spewing pollution into the environment.
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Sold out anyway.
Built by the lowest bidder, unless it’s the end of the fiscal year.
Still same guy, just the cheap parts become really expensive.
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In the context of flashlights; ‘military grade’ tends to mean ‘tacticool’.
Black, anodized(describe as ‘hard anodized’, ideally without going into specifics, for full credit) aluminum(say ‘aerospace grade’, ideally without going into specifics, for full credit), be sure to knurl aggressively, excursions well beyond ‘improve grip’ and into ‘more random grooves than a prop lightsaber’ are a plus; ‘assault crown’ cut into the bezel, because bezels are totally for ramboing OPFOR in the face rather than protecting the optics; tailcap switch; because only losers and civilians carry flashlights at waist height when they could carry at shoulder height with a thumb on the tailcap.
Niceties like ‘constant current driver that wouldn’t make the UL cry’ definitely optional.
(All snark aside, the sheer adequacy of even fairly dodgy LEDs of unknown provenance is pretty good at making downright autoparaodic examples of the genre genuinely useful, often rather superior to a classic mag light still hobbled by a filament bulb; but if you want niceties like ‘drive circuit not so dodgy that flashlight flattens batteries even when ‘off’’ the cheap seats can have some surprises in store.)
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Never thought I’d see the day when Boing Boing was shilling anything “tactical”.
“Milspec” often, but not always, means that it meets some minimum standard of durability, e.g. milspec laptops are legitimately tough as hell. But, as with your duct tape, “durable” doesn’t always mean “fit for purpose.”
“Military grade” doesn’t even mean that, AFAIK. It’s completely meaningless, like “tactical.”
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In the earlier days of GPS, soldiers would use commercial receivers by Garmin because they were way better than the military ones, which were bulky and didn’t even use common batteries, IIR.
But I have several of the Chinese ones advertised and they are well made, though I only paid half that for them. (Plus, who needs a case for a flashlight?)
Well, mostly pens, but there’s been a fair bit of other nominally tactical schwag.
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It means that it’s air-droppable.
Maxim 11
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My experience is the opposite. Soldiers getting in trouble for bringing the early mil-spec GPS home because early hiking GPS units were legally restricted from using the full system. So why pay for something that didn’t quite work.
