Gear

It was a dark and stormy night. But then it wasn’t so dark because I busted out my favorite super bright inexpensive prepper flashlight and lit up the whole room! No joke! My favorite flashlight ever is so awesome because it can light up the whole room! Let me tell you about it. It’s a sad story that has a happy ending!

As preppers, we like our gear. One piece of gear that is pretty important is a good flashlight. Back in the day, I always wanted one of those Maglite Flashlights that required 10 D-size batteries and looked like a baton. Ok, it wasn’t 10, but something like that!

Early on in preparedness, I almost bought one of those. But I couldn’t get passed the fact that I would pay a fortune for D-size batteries. And at the time, my kids would use every flashlight like it was a lightsaber or go all Indiana Jones on me and then I would never see it again. What a waste.

Finding My Little Buddy! I Mean The Best Prepper Flashlight!

One day though, as I was scrolling through Amazon, I saw a listing for the Elite Tactical Pro 300 Series Tactical Flashlight. It was a 1200 Lumen flashlight. It cost $18.99 and came in a hard case, with a 26650 rechargeable battery, charger, 12v charger, and an adapter so I could use 3 AAA batteries if I wanted. Surely, this was too good to be true!

It sucked because this item wasn’t an Amazon Prime item. I think it was literally coming from China or something because the delivery time was a few weeks. When it arrived, I plugged up the battery to let it charge. It took what seemed like forever, around 24 hours, for the light to stop blinking, but it did and I tested out the flashlight.

I was blown away. Like really! The first thing I did was flash the light in everyone’s eyes so I could blind them and they could complain and then ask what kind of flashlight I was holding. (Send all complaint emails about me shining a 1200 lumen flashlight in other’s eyes to idontcare@prepperwebsite.com.)

The two pics below are of the same scene, taken with my cellphone. No joke, I took the pic on the left without any lights on in my bedroom. The pic on the right is my bedroom with my favorite or should I say the my best prepper flashlight on. The flashlight lights up the whole room! The pics really don’t do it justice. I can sit it on my night stand and we can see everything in the room. I’m not going to show you the rest of my bedroom because, well, that’s weird!

I used it a few more times and then realized I need to buy another one for my dad. Back then, he had the country and this flashlight would be so helpful at night, being off-grid.

I ordered the flashlight and waited a few more weeks. Dad got his flashlight and loved it! He often commented on how he could light up all the trees from the house.

Read: The Need to be More Self-Reliant

The Sad Sting of Flashligtedness

Ok. Maybe flashlightedness isn’t a word, but it is cool to try and say! Anyway, after realizing that I struck gold with my new prepper flashlight, I decided to buy one for my brother. We could be the three amigos or the three flashes or something. I’m always looking for things to buy him because, well, I’m a guy and I don’t want to buy him a shirt and tie.

But when I went to Amazon to place my order, the dreaded “Currently Unavailable” showed up. To make matters worse, it also said, “We don’t know when or if this item will be back in stock.” I checked back several times and even to this day, it still says it!

I don’t have to tell you that I was heartbroken. And I will admit, every so often, I go look to see if the flashlight has magically reappeared on Amazon. But to no avail, I come up empty handed.

Other Flashlights

This isn’t the only flashlight I own. I have plenty of flashlights all over the house. Luckily, my kids are grown and although they sometimes take them and don’t put them back where they are supposed to go, they are not playing with them.

One type of flashlight that I have seems to be a style that gets used over and over again by certain companies. The only thing that is changed is the logos and lettering. These flashlights are good too. The battery is smaller, the 18650 type, but they are pretty bright. If I needed a backup flashlight, it would be one of these.

But thinking about these flashlights having the same body type made me think that my favorite prepper flashlight might be out there too, under another brand name.

Happy Dance and My New Prepper Flashlight

I wasn’t sure how to start searching, but I decided to search by looking for the battery type. My favorite flashlight has a huge rechargeable battery. It is a 26650. So I decided to search for that battery number and wouldn’t you know it, I struck gold!

I found the GearLight High-Powered LED Flashlight S1200 – Mid Size, Zoomable, Water Resistant, Handheld Light. And the good news was that it was on sale for only $13.99 and it was a Prime item!

Although it is the same exact flashlight body style as my favorite flashlight, there are two caveats to this purchase.

The first is that it doesn’t come with a battery. When I searched for the battery on Amazon, I couldn’t find any. I don’t know why Amazon doesn’t allow the 26650 battery to be sold on their platform. This was easily remedied as I went over to ebay and found many options. I ordered 4 and had them in 4 days! The 4 rechargeable batteries cost me $8.99 for 1 packaged of 2. However, this flashlight does come with an adapter that allows you to use the smaller 18650 battery if you like.

The other caveat is that the flashlight doesn’t come with a charger. That isn’t a problem for me because I already have a charger that came with my first flashlight. So if you don’t have a charger, you’ll need to pick one of those up too! Here is a dual charger that looks pretty good.

Conclusion

If you’ve never owned a high-powered flashlight, you will be amazed at how bright these can be. They will become your favorite prepper flashlight! And if you need to blind a bad guy, or just your kids, you can do that too!