Month: November 2021

I now maintain a yearly “Best” list. but the more I got to thinking about it, the more that list can be overwhelming for some. I write it mostly for myself and a few close friends, and I try to pick a few items with a similar utility, but which differ widely in either price or use. So the pocket knives section takes you from the backwoods, to luxury EDC.

Jump to the list here.

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My first go with Wurrkos in the FC11 went well — it was a good enough light that I felt I couldn’t just toss it aside in an emergency bag as I had intended to do. Because of this, I’ve been keeping my eye on what Wurkkos is doing: they make budget lights, but they are well made and use nice LEDs in many of them. The TS21 might be the epitome of all of this: it is a fantastic, even before you consider the low price.

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This was my first Wurkkos light, which I never got around to reviewing as I had bought it specifically to stash in a get home bag in my wife’s car. It was recommend to me as a great option, easy to use, solid, cheap and with a great LED. It spent about 3 days in that get home bag before I decided to put a slightly more expensive light in the bag, so I could use this light myself.

It’s not the best light, I think the TS21 is a better buy, but it’s much lighter and easier to carry, so it’s worth considering if you want a great light for not a large budget as it can be had for $30 easily.

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Almost everyday I see a question pop up on some flashlight related forum which is seeking a very durable flashlight. The recommendations always end up citing the same brands: HDS, Elzetta, Malkoff, and a few brave souls recommend SureFire. The thing all of these have in common is that they are tactical focused brands which seek to make extremely durable lights.

I’ve never owned a Malkoff and I waited quite some time for this specific light to come back in stock to try out, and I am happy I waited — this light is an underrated champ.

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We are heading into that particular buying season, and as such I like to put together some thoughts on gifts and other things (affiliate links on some, but not all of these). But this year with all the craziness around and weird shipping times from places like Amazon, I thought I would put up a guide from some places I like that live outside that realm, and from there pick some of the cheaper options you can get from these places which provide excellent value considering the place you are buying from.

So, here we go.

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My first Reylight was the Pineapple AA light in brass. It’s a great light, I have two of them, but I always stayed away from the Mini because the larger version brass feels nice, but sucks to carry (too heavy) and the long standing Titanium version of the Pineapple Mini never spoke to me. I feared I was getting a net negative trade off, so I stayed clear.

Recently though, Reylight came out with the happy middle ground for me: the Pineapple Mini Aluminum, with a battery it is $32. It weighs nothing, and has that 219b goodness which makes it a near instant purchase.

This light is great.

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During a recent sale, I grabbed the Mystery Ranch Scree 32 bag to use as my emergency bag I keep in my house. I’ve been looking for something in the 30L range, that would be comfortable to wear, not very tactical looking, and was inexpensive to buy. This checked all those boxes, and while I have not used it a ton (emergency bag after all) I thought it was interesting enough to touch base on quickly.

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