Introduction (00:00)
The SureFire M300 and M600 Vampire are a couple of the more unique weapon light offerings on the market. They don't have a lot of white light output, but what they do have is integrated IR illumination. So basically, what you could do with this light is set it to whether you're, you know, in IR mode or you're in white light mode. Older SureFire lights had an IR filter that you would flip over the front, but the newer lights, they decided to give you the ability to swap between both by simply rotating the bezel of the light itself.
So when you order the light… Also, this is a really cool thing that I just noticed what their packaging: If you need further information on their pressure pads, the accessories that come with each of these lights, they have this handy little infographic of all the supporting products, right here. So you don't have to email their customer service or ours. But if you need to, then go ahead, we love it. But this is really cool right there. I wanted to point that out.
What's Included (00:55)
But going into opening the light, it comes with some stuff. So you have the light right here. And the way this is shipped, the batteries are already inside the light. There's a standard Picatinny mount right here. If you want to remove this to add a Lightbar or another mount from another company that's M-LOK, KeyMod, offset, you know, however you want to do it, it's just going to be two Torx screws right here to remove. We'll get into that later.
Light Modes (01:33)
But as you can see right here on the bezel, you have white light mode. We'll screw the cap to get this activated. You have white light right here that is indicated with a "WH". You have "OFF" that is in the middle. And then you have "IR". To make the change, all you will do is twist the bezel into either position. Now, the older models, you used to have to pull out and then turn (which was a little tricky, once you're on a rifle or you have a suppressor in the way) but now they just made it so that you just twist it without having to apply pressure outwards to switch between your settings.
In white light mode on the big guy right here, it's only 350 lumens. It is fairly focused and that's nice, but you're not getting massive range or anything crazy like that. When you twist over into IR, you then have (you might see it there with the camera) you have the nice IR illumination. That can be very useful if you're running a laser-only type of unit—a DBAL-I2 or maybe one of the Holosuns or something like that—that doesn't have IR illumination and having a light like this on your weapon will give you that capability. The push cap is the standard SureFire. Push all the way in for constant or press slightly for momentary. I'm not a huge fan of this one in particular. I prefer to modify it to an Arisaka momentary-only, or actually going to the SureFire rear hosts and then adding a pressure pad.
Installing the Light on a Mount (03:03)
So let's go ahead and mount this particular light to this Colt 14.5" 6920. So first off, we're going to be using—this an M-LOK rail, so we're going to be using an M-LOK Lightbar. Using a Torx bit, you are going to then remove the Picatinny mount from the light itself. Once the light is removed, you have two mounting screws here on the bottom for a multitude of mounts out there. Now what's really convenient is a lot of companies out there—when you buy into the SureFire body series—there's a ton of companies out there that make mounts for these. So you can just move this around to all kinds of guns, get different mounts in the future. But the Lightbar right here, basically what this does is this extends the light further out on a gun to help clear some of the suppressor. Or if you have a shorter rail, like on this gun that is carbine length, but you want to get the light a little further out, so you don't have barrel shadow or suppressor shadow. Or just simply to give you more room for your hand if you're running a smaller gun. So two holes out here in the front will line up with the SureFire holes in the bottom of the mount. You then take the two included Torx screws (you can Loctite these with blue Loctite if you want). Tighten them down. And now we're ready to mount this to the rifle.
Installing a Pressure Pad (05:22)
But what I'm going to do, because I'm running a Lightbar, I'm going to remove the rear cap, like so. Batteries change out through the front, so rear cap comes right off. I'm going to be adding the rear host for a pressure pad. And then we're going to add the ST07, which is just a standard pressure pad, momentary only; there's no constant switch on there. We're going to go to the rifle. We're going to be adding this to the left side of the gun. Actually, in this case, we're going to remove that to make it easier.
Oh, are you spinning freely? Of course you are. There we go. Now that the Lightbar is on, you will see that it clears this Centurion Arms rail just fine, which is pretty swell. Pressure pad is going to be re-inserted into the host. And then I put adhesive Velcro on the rail. There's adhesive hook Velcro on the pad. Zip ties can be a little more effective, but for this, I now have the pressure switch on this side, the light's pushed out, which is leaving room for my hand, but putting the weight of the light over here, where my support arm is going to be.
So now you're running the ATPIAL-C, which doesn't have the best IR illumination out there, I can twist this into IR mode, run the IR from here, and then when I need to, can use the laser for my, you know, shooting with a laser. But I can use the IR illumination from the light to see a little bit more with night vision if I don't have a lot of ambient light or IR light to take advantage of. If I need to run white light, all I have to do is twist over to white light. And then I'm good to go with my white light.
Installing the M300V (08:06)
The smaller version that takes a single CR123 has lower output for both IR and white light. You've got 250 lumens instead of the 350 and it will only take one CR123. And what I'm going to do for this guy is I'm going to mount this to an MP5SD. So I'm going to be utilizing the Picatinny mount right here on the B&T tri-lug…It's not a tri-lug, but tri-Picatinny adapter that goes on the SD suppressor. You can use a flathead screwdriver if you want to go beyond finger tight to get into one of these grooves and then twist the entire thing. I think we'll be all right like this. I'm going to tighten the rear cap down to ensure that there's battery connection. And then I'm going to set this to white light. And there I have white light or IR if I'm under night vision. This is an older EOTECH, but it's night vision compatible. So if I am running with a passive aiming solution, I still have IR illumination for when I need that. And I can then just look through my optic or run the vis laser on the side when I'm using night vision to shoot.
If you have any other questions on the M600 or the M600 Vampire series of rifle lights, go ahead and shoot us an email at [email protected].