We’ve had really good luck with Olight weapons lights in the past. They’re well built, intelligently designed, and priced reasonably. For a good overview, see some of our other posts here, here, and here.
Every other weapon light or light/laser combination we’ve tried has been a USB rechargeable design using Olight’s distinctive magnetic charging cord, but with the new Baldr Pro tactical light with green laser, Olight’s elected to power the unit with a couple of CR123 batteries.
This is a full-size light for mounting on compact and full-size pistols.
In terms of size, the Baldr Pro is the same size as the Valkyrie PL-Pro…with the addition of the laser at the bottom.
The user interface is the same. Rocker switches let you activated it from either the left of the right side. A quick click turn the unit on. Another quick click and it’s off. Click and hold the switch for about a second and the unit will turn off when you take your finger off the switch.
Pressing both switches at the same time puts the Balder Pro into strobe mode. Double-tap either button and the light toggles between 300 lumens and 1350 lumen turbo mode.
There’s a three-position switch on the bottom to let the user select light only, laser only or both.
The batter compartment is accessed at the back. Lift up the black latch and the rear tilts open.
CR123 batteries aren’t cheap, but they’re powerful and long-lasting (especially the lithium variety). Olight rates it with a maximum run time (light only) of four hours. Ours lasted about a half hour more than that in low power mode.
Having trained with both red and green lasers, there’s really no doubt that green is the better choice. While it sucks more power and tends to cost slightly more, green laser light is more visible in all lighting conditions, especially in daylight.
Olight’s MSRP is $149.95 but they sell it at their store for $97.47 or about $105 from that big Bezos store. That puts a very good, very versatile light for a home defense or duty gun in reach for just about anyone.
Specifications:
Length: 3.30 in
Width: 1.44 in
Height: 1.75 in
Weight: 4.55 oz
Mode 1: 1350 (just under 2 hrs, laser off)
Mode 2: 300 (4 hrs, laser off)
Waterproof: IPX4 rated
That choice of battery would make me look elsewhere. CR123’s don’t get weak, they drop dead. I’d take alkaline batteries over those every time.
Alkaline? Still living in 1960?
Best price round for C123 batteries are for Streamlight multipacks 12x (or 400x). Don’t buy from the anti-Americans at Amazon.
WHERE are the Olights made? Chicomland by the PLA?
They’re straight Chinesium. I often wonder if OLIGHT pays TTAG like they paid IraqVet8888 to shill their substandard shit product.
Yeah, well. I have a few and they have been good lights. Battery life has been good, I’ve beat the hell out of them, they have been wet and cold and hot, and have never failed on me. On the other hand I had a brand new stream light, less than a day old, fail on me when I needed it most.
China. I have several. Got them when on sale for dirt cheap. Very good lights for the $$ I paid. have both rechargeable and CR123A types. I buy from http://www.olightstore.com
Don’t post it on Reddit
Why not?
I have one and I like it just fine. It would be nice not to have to buy Chyna stuff but that’s not the reality in today’s world. There is no getting around that we are going to have to buy the stuff occasionally and I’m a Proto, Snap-On guy. I know quality and buy quality if and when I can.
When one looks at what’s available, looks at prices, checks reviews and everything looks good, you get what you want. That’s what I did with Olight and I’m quite satisfied with my purchase.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gV1x2CB6EPHjgpGtLI_pgy8Ynai2eq5D/view?usp=sharing
It’s more than most people will need. Always run a backup light source anyway. Never trust a single device when poop is flying if you can afford otherwise….
Well dang , that’s cheap enough except my HiPoint doesn’t have rails and duct tape would make it look tacky.
Having tried both, batteries which are not rechargeable is a deal breaker for me, personal problem. If I have used it at all in the past, I cannot relax until it is replaced/recharged. After a long time I have grown accustomed to recharging my flashlights every year at New Years, but that was after one-time experiment during which I first ran one at medium power for 12 hours after using it for a year, and it was still going strong. That was a Thrunite TN12 (2016), still going strong, so far as I know all 9 of the ones I eventually bought, many given as gifts, are still going and well loved. But light/laser combos for mounting on my gun? Nah, what I ended up with was the Olight which recharges, plug it in overnight anytime I have turned it on, leaves me with the full 40-minute life at all times. Unfortunately no green laser, but hey.
I dislike when companies take a weapon light and tack a laser onto the bottom. It puts the laser as far from the bore axis as possible and makes the laser less useful at varying ranges. Olight’s Baldr S has a hole in the reflector above the LED for the laser, which might put it closer to the bore than a Viridian. I like changeable batteries, but I think they should have adapted to S.
That is interesting, my rechargeable Olight has the laser inside the flashlight itself, much closer to the bore axis, I wonder why they did not do the same with this unit.
I’m reading this article five days after it was posted, but I’m not finding prices anywhere near what is cited. Using the provided link, Amazon shows $149, not $105. And the link to the Olight site shows a price of $149.95, not $97.47. Is the writer perhaps getting some kind of sweet deal discount not available to the rest of us? Just wondering.
You aren’t see the article prices because they follow the pattern that is a thing in the gun community – that pattern is once it gets “advertised” in these types of articles and people click the article link the company knows about it and and the company raises the price.
Look at the links, for example, > https://www.olightstore.com/baldr-pro.html?streamerId=1428547391314644994&channel=default > see that “streamerId” number? and also look at the amazon link in the article to see that > https://amzn.to/3i5ewVX > see that “3i5ewVX”.
When you click on the article link the company/amazon knows where you clicked on that link and depending on the number of clicks it drives an algorithm that determines if the price should be increased or not. So by the time you start looking, if a lot of others have clicked that link before you, the price at those links could have gone up from the original article price.
and I might add, the site where the link appeared also gets a small amount (most times) when people click that article link.
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