Battery Management for Lights & Optics

“Two is one; one is none.” This safety protocol of redundancy is well known among those who do high-risk work and need to be able to depend on their kit. If you absolutely have to have a particular tool in an emergency situation, if that tool fails and you don’t have a replacement, you’re not in a good circumstance. For this very reason, maintenance is a scheduled activity.

It's a sad state of affairs that many people neglect regular maintenance. They’ll get the oil changed in their car on a schedule but won’t clean their weapons after range day. They rarely sharpen their knife. And change batteries in a flashlight or optic? Only when it fails is usually when that happens.

The good news is that if you know you’re one of those people and you’re in the market for an optic, you can select one that doesn’t actually require batteries. Several optics on the market use fiber-optics to provide illumination so there are no batteries that can die. That said, if the optic is somehow sufficiently damaged as to be unusable, mechanical sights are your back up. To have any value, though, you have to have selected your mechanical sights paired with your optic specifically so you know they work together, or that the optic can be quickly removed, as necessary, to use your mechanical sights.

If your optic requires batteries, and with virtually all flashlights, battery management is a necessary skill and task. It’s not a big deal to have your optic or flashlight die during training. You simply pause long enough to switch out the batteries and then resume your training regimen. If the tool is rechargeable though, your “on hold” time is going to be significantly longer.

That’s not a situation you can afford if you’re in a self-defense or other emergency situation though. The failure of an optic or light can mean the difference between victory or failure. Failure can mean very bad things. For that reason, battery management needs to be a part of your scheduled maintenance program. You must treat each flashlight and optic with the same care as you do your weapons. The batteries might be advertised to run X hours but you can’t count on that. You don’t want to bet your life on it. Rechargeable batteries usually have a similar rating—good for X hours. If you’re going to be functioning in high threat situations—and realistically you never know when that might be—you need to insure your batteries are fully charged on a regular basis or you simply put new batteries into your tools. Know the functional life of the batteries and schedule your maintenance or replacement of them accordingly.