The Pelican 7060 LED tactical flashlight is now on the market and it is attempting to make inroads into the highly competitive field of flashlights. Pelican worked with the Los Angeles Police Department to develop this light. While I have been told that the LAPD specs may have been politically motivated, the fact of the matter is Pelican developed what appears to be a darn good tactical light for police work.

The 7060 advertises a brightness of 130 lumens, which is highly impressive. The ubiquitous SureFire 6P is rated at only 65 lumens (you can upgrade the lamp module and up the output to 120 lumens at a significantly reduced run time). The majority of tactical flashlights run between 60-100 lumens, so the Pelican 7060 offers a significant advantage in light output. If you have read my previous post on identifying threats in low light or research on the mis-identification of threats in low light, you know how important it is to have a powerful light available to you.

Since the Pelican 7060 uses LED technology instead of a less efficient incandescent bulb, run time is 1.5 hours. Not bad, especially considering my department issued Streamlight Stinger is advertised as having a run time of “up to one hour.”

Another advantage of the Pelican 7060 flashlight is that it is rechargeable. Pelican states that the flashlight will recharge to full power in less than five hours. So, even officers that work 12-hour shifts need not worry about having enough time to fully charge their flashlight before returning to work.

The 7060 also boasts a feature that I’ve not seen on many other flashlights: two switches. The 7060 has a tailcap switch and a side mounted switch. Both switches offer momentary on/off as well as a ‘normal’ on/off. I see this as a huge benefit. Different officers prefer different styles of using lighting while clearing buildings. Some styles of holding a flashlight lend themselves to the tailcap switch or the side switch, but not both. If a department was to issue these to the officers, each officer would have a tool that is flexible enough to use with their preferred method of deployment.

Frankly, I don’t think the flashlight is pretty. In fact, I think the Pelican 7060 LED flashlight is a bit ugly. That’s ok, though. My Glock 19 is pretty ugly too. But my Glock has never had a malfunction even though I have put more than 5000 rounds through it. Ugly is good.

With the Pelican “You break it, we replace it… forever” warranty, I think that this tactical flashlight has an excellent chance of becoming one of the predominant tools in law enforcement.

Stay safe!

Richard is a police officer with a medium sized, central Florida department, and previously worked for a Metro-Atlanta agency.  He has served as a field training officer, court officer, corporal, sergeant, lieutenant, watch commander, commander of a field training and evaluation program, and general pain in the butt to management-types looking to cut training hours.