Today’s pocket dump comes from Florida and features a Wilson Combat Protector Professional with a Surefire X300. WMLs – weapon mounted lights – are good idea on your carry gun if you know how to use them. Simply turning them on and shining the light all over the place is not a good way to use a WML.

So, with that in mind, before you get a WML consider training of some sort. It might sound silly but even lights require experience. Make sure you know how to use yours.

How about it. What’s the proper use of a WML?

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43 COMMENTS

  3. The X300 is a great light, but not on a compact pistol. I have to clean stippling off of the bezel every time I go shoot, and that’s on a full length Glock 34.

  4. I have a streamlight tlr-1 on my duty pistol, a Glock 22. It was issued with the weapon and I’ve had no issues with it. No light on my off duty carry, a Glock 26.

  5. Cmon! This is just bullshit.

    The proper use of a weapon light is illuminating what’s in front of you so you hit perp and not a friendly.

    You don’t use it to direct traffic and I don’t think most people would use it for that.

    If the damned pistol comes out, it is serious. Do you think most readers would be waving their pistol all around or focusing on a potential threat?

    Maybe most readers could decide on a light and then spend a little time to see its effect downrange. It ain’t rocket science.

    Jeez!

    • When clearing my house at night with a strobe WML, I like to wildly twirl my arm around my head in a rapid continuous circular motion to amplify the strobe effect.

      • The strobe technique is correct, especially if you’re also blasting really loud dance music from a home speaker system. An effective home defense strategy is to make the perpetrators think they accidentally stumbled into a popular night club.

        • These days with the proper wireless set up, you could probably rig a pretty insane system in your house connected to an alarm system, that would make all the lights and electronics in the house flash on and off rapidly while blasting death metal. Send the intruder into a seizure.

    • There’s a technique for that indoors. You use backscatter to navigate. Basically, point the light (and the pistol) at the floor and use it like a portable lightbulb. Indoors, it works fine.

      • “Basically, point the light (and the pistol) at the floor and use it like a portable lightbulb.”

        Why would that be preferable to pointing it up at the white ceiling?

        At least in my home, room lights (excepting lamps) shine down from above…

        • Two things I can think of. First, you might go outside, or somewhere with high ceilings, but pretty much anywhere you’re walking, there’s going to be a floor. Second is more individual, but low ready is halfway through the draw. If you encounter a threat, just finish the pushout. It seems to me like that would be easier and more consistent than coming down and trying to acquire the sights that way.

    • You think it’s as simple as just turning on the light to see any perps? Lmao, you would be the first one shot..

      • As opposed to NOT turning on a light and seeing the perps…….right.

        Whether you bounce the light or direct the light to sweep…..at some point you will pointing a weapon light directly at your target.

        Unless you have some Willy Winka Fluegal light that shines out your ass.

    • Clearly, that Glock 43 is a a trans-modeled firearm that self-identifies as three different kinds of guns depending on what day it is. Each identity was covered once in a pocket dump, in keeping with the ideals of inclusiveness and diversity.

      But what would you know about it? You are probably have cis-modeled guns which are the same model every day. That is so 2018 of you.

  8. “What’s the proper use of a WML?”

    I use mine as a reading lamp and for reading the addresses on houses as I cruise around at night.

    • I prefer to use them as reading lights when I go out. Like when it’s too dark inside the bank, and you need to read something. Just pull out my Weapon Mounted Light out and point it at whatever you need to read.
      Careful, for some reason they don’t like when you do it at schools..

    • “…and for reading the addresses on houses as I cruise around at night.”

      I’m surprised you’ve never had a beam of coherent shined back on *you* from one of those homes…

  13. I was at the High Liability Training Conference a few years ago and took a class on combat light techniques. Specialist38 is right. It ain’t rocket science, but there’s more to it than you might think. Light on. Shoot. Light off. Move.

    • Wait, you mean you need training to properly employ a WML?? 😉

      My first low light class was eye-opening… and it affected my carry gear choices significantly. People would do well to get in a class before deciding what they need, what is enough and how it should be used…

  14. When I review my needs, a WML makes sense for nightstand duty only. The odds of needing a handheld light are much higher than a WML. Night sights will suffice for many low light situations without adding bulk or increasing the draw speed or giving the perp something to aim at. KISS trumps extra gear in most situations.

    • One point that gets missed by some in these discussions is that a WML is not meant to replace a handheld under normal use. It is so, when it is time to shoot, you can put both hands on the gun and still see what you are shooting at.

      It should be handheld or handheld and WML.

      Of course, it doesn’t help that most have had zero training in low light techniques and how to properly use a WML. It isn’t a flashlight yet many think that is how it is used.

  16. Reading some of these hilarious comments has restored some of my faith in humanity. There really are some thinkin’ humans out there among the mass of robots.

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