Every home’s junk drawer, garage, or basement has a flashlight for around-the-house jobs. However, you may need a tactical flashlight for tougher tasks. These go beyond normal models with added strength and features. Let’s shed a little light on this subject and tell you what to look for in a tactical flashlight as you equip yourself.

Lighting Specifications

A tactical flashlight isn’t for helping you fish a lost cat toy out from underneath the refrigerator. You’re looking for maximum illumination in the field here, and the best flashlights use premier LED technology to provide that. Two specifications to consider here are lumens and candelas. Tactical uses require at least 300 and preferably 700 lumens. This number will tell you how much lighting power the device has, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. The candela, also known as the foot-candle, measures how many square feet a light can illuminate. The best tactical flashlights boast over 200,000 candelas—equivalent to half a mile of illumination.

Variable Power

With the different situations where you may need to deploy handheld lighting, you want this tool to provide versatility. It’s not enough to simply have an on-off switch. Your flashlight should go beyond the binary options with multiple settings for whatever you might face. In addition to the low, medium, and high settings, your flashlight should come equipped with a strobe setting for disorienting effects in self-defense situations. Some tactical flashlights also include a beacon setting for signaling your location when a group splits up. Think of it as a portable lighthouse.

High-Quality Aluminum

Aluminum goes into much more than your beer cans. Manufacturers and recyclers alike are after good old Element 13 thanks to its malleability and resistance to corrosion. But what they really appreciate is its unrivaled combination of strength and low density. It’s these properties that make aluminum the building material of choice for airplanes. Back at ground level, the best tactical flashlights use high-quality aluminum to keep this key accessory as light as it is strong. It’s not hard to imagine how much a steel flashlight would weigh you down in action. Look for aircraft-grade aluminum, especially with anodization for added strength. This comes in handy when you need to use your flashlight as a blunt-force weapon in a pinch.

Power Source

When we’re talking about lights with over 500 lumens and the capacity to act as beacons, we must consider that these features expend energy. Battery life and charging or battery-replacing methods are big parts of what to look for in a tactical flashlight. High settings can drain a light in as little as an hour. So, while USB rechargeability is a plus at home, you may want the ability to swap in fresh batteries in the field as well. At Kel-Lac Uniforms, our military gear for sale includes various tactical flashlights with varied power sources, among everything else you need to equip yourself.