Like most gear enthusiasts I have a problem not putting the “best” gear on my rifle. What is the best? Gear that is used and vetted by only the most accomplished / published gunfighters in the business.  For the longest time I’ve only trusted Surefire lights on my weapons. They’ve never failed me at home or abroad and it’s what is issued to me as well. Plenty of warfighters before me have trusted Surefire weapons lights to work when they are needed. When I was building my latest rifle I decided to break with tradition and take a look at a different weapon light. Not a newcomer but rather one that has been proving itself time and timer again.

Streamlight has been used in rough and tough conditions for a long time. Many have said that the Streamlight is every bit of light that the Surefire is but at less than half the price. I decided to order a Streamlight Protac Rail Mount 1 with Arisaka mount through Arisaka’s excellent website. My particular Arisaka mount is the inline keymod mount which I can’t recommend highly enough.

What impressed me upon receiving my Streamlight ProTac was the amount of stuff that came with it. Pressure pads, zip ties, tailcaps, and other misc items. It was a very convenient package with everything needed to mount it to a rifle. The ProTac “Rail Mount 1” is 4.25 inches in length and can accept either a CR123A, AA alkaline or AA lithium. Pretty nifty though somewhat unnecessary as CR123A’s aren’t particularly rare. Though it certainly adds redundancy to the system. To my untrained boot stomping brain the Streamlight ProTac looks very similar to my SureFire M300 Mini Scout though is it slightly longer.