Colin Miller from United States, CA Public Profile

If you get a good unit, these are pretty nice lights for the money, but so far anything from Streamlight that includes laser alignment has a very high chance of being defective right out of the box.

You can play returnicake with optics planet, and hope that within your returnable limit (I think it allows one exchange), you get a fully functional unit, or you can send the unit into warranty repair at Streamlight, which is the cost of shipping each trip, and they mostly tend to get them fixed the first time, but not always.

I don't know a better alternative for the money, overall, so I bake this possible hassle factor into the pricing. You save a little on factory assembly QC, you may or may not pay it back and a bit more in shipping cost and your time.

I have this, and other streamlight TLR products, and once I get a good one, they're awesome. However, my experience also jives with every negative comment.

Their warranty process is painless, but include the prospective cost to include cost of priority mail and insurance.

The laser adjustments on all of them have been all over the place in terms of consistency or quality. Some of them are absurdly tight to the point of being unmoveable. Some of them are so loose I worry about it moving. If you adjust it too much in one direction, something goes out of kilter and you cannot get it near center ever again. If you get a good one, cool, adjust it to your zero, and never tempt fate by seeing how far it can move out. If it gets screwed up, or is screwed up out of the box, send it in for warranty repair.

I've had the same issue with the laser working and not the light, and this is probably a documentation problem. I have returned units thinking they were defective, but what is likely the case is that you simply need to press both side buttons simultaneously to switch operation modes. I don't have the manual to reference, but I recall it not being described. If you get a 'blazing deal' or a demo unit, it may be that somebody discovered this mode, or maybe it just got shipped by the factory.

I cannot say that I ever got one that didn't have a key to stay on the rail, but I certainly believe that. The haphazard variance on assembly fit with the laser adjustment suggests th

I got two of these running, and they seem fine, though I had to put the barrel on a drill press in 'V' blocks with a cleaning rod 'stop' to prevent accidentally going too far. I don't remember the final dimensions, but in my 'kit of everything' drill bits, I had to go up at least a couple steps to get the thing to cycle reliably with wolf ammo.

If you're not open to doing this kind of thing, while I like the barrel, I would suggest something else for 7.62x39.

So, it seems that a lot of 7.62x39 steel cased ammunition has unreliably deeper seated primers. A regular AR-15 firing pin with this ammo may result in light primer strikes. I replaced the firing pins with enhanced firing pins, which are slightly longer, and no more light primer strikes with steel cased ammo.

Whatever I saved went out the window with extra warranty shipping costs.

This unit is going back again. Maybe 4th time will be a charm?

I don't mind paying for 'Made in America', but I'd like it to be built by somebody other than Century Arms reject monkeys.

I am very grateful for opticsplanet's free returns, because this is the second unit in a row that needed to go back. I gave it two stars, instead of one, because eventually I'll get a working unit. But the first one wouldn't turn on the light portion, and the second one had a frozen up/down adjustment.

Streamlight warranty repair is great, and I now I'd get a working one back from them, because this isn't the first light that has had an issue out of the box (I think they're batting alightly above 500), but I'd rather not pay the return shipping.

I think it's funny that this thing is assembled in the USA, and whoever they're paying to do it can't seem to get their head together.

The light is DOA. The laser works, but the light does not.

I've dealt with streamlight in the past, and eventually you will get one that works fine, and their warranty service is great, but disappointing that nobody checked this.

For me this is a great combination of features I wanted, FFP, parallax adjustment, consistent and generous eye relief, useful reticle. I expect that it should work as well as other Vortex scopes I have, and if it doesn't, I believe they've got a good track record with warranty support. That it has an illuminated reticle is a nice feature too, but really bonus. I can tell people it's a built in 'night sight'. Also, not made in China.

Glass and reticle look good, not difficult to position the eye with maximum magnification, and close out pricing that makes it easy to say 'Yes'.

I'm happy to buy soon to be (if not already) discontinued items, because almost all of them will be that way soon :)