VIRIDIAN X5L-RS Laser Sight - Tac Light Review

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9 years 10 months ago - 8 years 11 months ago #44067 by jtallen83
VIRIDIAN X5L-RS Laser Sight - Tac Light Review was created by jtallen83
I received the Viridian X5L-RS laser sight - tactical light I won in the raffle this week :twothumbs:
I won't get a chance to mount it on a rifle till I'm back home mid February but I've given it a good once over and started doing some battery life testing.
Please don't interpret any of my comments to mean I'm not grateful to have won such a neat piece of kit but I wouldn't feel right if I didn't provide the members here with an honest straight up assessment.
It comes with a tail dual switch, adjustment tool, velcro, battery, and a couple zip strips that all fit in a neat little tool box that has a 1913 rail section the light mounts to for storage.
The battery installs easy enough, just a push and 1/8th turn of the light lens and it comes off, slide the battery in and another push with an 1/8th turn on the lens and your ready to go.
I spent the first half hour learning all the settings, 8 different modes that are combinations of solid and strobe for the light and laser. Most are activated with a click on one or both of the two switches on the tail,either locking it on or only keeping it on while the switch is depressed. There is one position that is constant on activated by the selector knob on the back of the light but changed from laser to light by the tail switch. As if this wasn't enough options you can program the light and laser to either strobe or hold steady in all of the modes by holding the switch down for three seconds when in this knob activated position, whew! Hope I didn't confuse you as much as I did myself trying to explain that!
The tail switch has an 8 inch cord and the switches on it have a firm defined click to them, not loud but easily felt. The mode setting knob on the back is another story. The clicks are mushy and loose, the knob wiggles back and forth. It is very difficult to count out the positions when adjusting it so you have to eyeball the knob or just try it to see where it is at. This could cause you to light things up on accident.
The light housing feels solid and hefty. It is a combination of aluminium and a heavy plastic. Best I can tell the lens is some type of glass. Overall it would seem to be as durable as my TLR-1 or M6X.
It is about the same size as the TLR-1 and a good bit smaller than the M6X. The tail switch connection feels pretty firm but lacks the o-ring of the Surefire lights that use tail switches. The lack of O-rings is repeated on the lens- battery compartment connection. I have some trepidations about using this light in a wet environment but we shall see.......
I'll post some general pictures here and then start covering battery life and light/laser strength in further replies.There are more pictures on my profile page in the viridian folder.

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Last edit: 8 years 11 months ago by mlotziii. Reason: added link
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9 years 10 months ago #44068 by jtallen83
Replied by jtallen83 on topic VIRIDIAN X5L-RS Laser Sight - Tac Light Review
I started the battery life testing with the laser only in solid mode. I have a box of Surefire 123A batteries so I'll use them to keep all things equal between modes and because I know they are a quality battery.
The green laser is nice and bright. I could easily pick it up at 150 yards in the dark but it gets a little big at that distance, I'd say at 100 yards the dot would still make for a real accurate shot. Daytime distances varied with the surface color and sunlight or shadow but most everything would work fine at 50 yards as stated in the manual. I actually had an easier time picking up the dot in strobe mode during daylight, didn't seem to make much difference in the dark. Both day and night the green laser is a huge improvement over the red laser in my M6X.
The battery ran the laser for 8 1/2 hours. At the end it shut itself off, I clicked it back on and it ran another 20 minutes before shutting itself off again and refusing to work in solid mode. I changed it to the strobe mode and it has been running for an additional 2 hours now and still going, hard to say how long it will work like this but it's nice to know that you can still get some use out of it even after the solid mode cuts out. I'm not sure how I'll manage to test for the strobing laser mode if it lasts like this.
Here are a couple pictures of the dot at about 30 feet, one with the hall light off and one with it on. They don't really due justice to the clear sharp dot you see in person, the dot actually looks a bit smaller and crisper than the photos show;

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9 years 10 months ago #44073 by jtallen83
Replied by jtallen83 on topic VIRIDIAN X5L-RS Laser Sight - Tac Light Review
I found an interesting feature that works like a low battery indicator, it is not mentioned in the instruction book. At some point the laser locks in the strobe on position, no matter what you turn or click it keeps strobing. It is only about half as bright but was continuing to strobe when I woke up at 3AM. I tried the switches but had to pull the battery to make it stop. I can only assume this is a low battery indicator. It was still bright enough to use in the dark so if you do wear out the battery you still have several hours of back-up time on strobe.
Time to start the battery life test for the light now......
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9 years 10 months ago #44079 by jtallen83
Replied by jtallen83 on topic VIRIDIAN X5L-RS Laser Sight - Tac Light Review
Didn't take long to get the light duration test done. I went with 1/2 hour on and 1/2 hour off, made it a total of 1 hour 20 minutes before shutting itself off. It ran another 10 minutes after a break before going in to laser strobe mode just like the end of the last test. It did get pretty warm after 1/2 hour on but not enough to prevent handling it so no complaints there. It has a nice bright light so considering it uses only one battery I didn't think the life was to bad, I can't think of many situations that you would need to run it that steady unless you've lost your flashlight!
I'm sure looking forward to getting it home and checking out how it performs under .308 recoil ;)
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9 years 7 months ago #44468 by jtallen83
Replied by jtallen83 on topic VIRIDIAN X5L-RS Laser Sight - Tac Light Review
Finally got a chance to shoot with the Viridian laser today. I mounted it on my PM400 AR pistol and set up at 25 yards. It was very difficult to pick up the dot in the daylight but doable. Considering the trouble with seeing the dot it zeroed pretty quickly, I had it on in 5 rounds. I put 90 rounds out of the "pistol" and the laser stayed zeroed. I'm wishing they would have placed the laser directly under the bore, with it being off to the right some you only get a solid zero at one range. At 50 yards it hits several inches left. I may try to zero it at 50 yards on a darker day or near sunset, this should make it more useful for dispatching vermin at night when range is harder to estimate.
I'll leave it on the PM400 for a bit but plan on trying it out on the AR-10 before too long.
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9 years 4 months ago #45371 by jtallen83
Replied by jtallen83 on topic VIRIDIAN X5L-RS Laser Sight - Tac Light Review
Got the laser out today thinking I'd try to zero it on the AR-10 for the boys to use cougar hunting. The battery was flat dead. I know it wasn't left on because the switch was in the lock-out position. The battery was a Surefire brand and I've never had any issues with them in other lights or lasers, from the same lot as well. I'm not sure what is up but I'll be emailing Viridian to see what they say, 3 months sitting still should not burn up a battery.
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9 years 4 months ago #45413 by jtallen83
Replied by jtallen83 on topic VIRIDIAN X5L-RS Laser Sight - Tac Light Review
Just got an RMA# and a postage label from Viridian, so far so good......
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9 years 4 months ago #45414 by Freenative
Replied by Freenative on topic VIRIDIAN X5L-RS Laser Sight - Tac Light Review
Thanks for going to all the trouble to let the rest of know how that product performs. It is a great help. I've got lights on a few platforms and been thinking about a laser. I'm hunting hogs at night with hand held night vision but shoot with a 56mm scope so I need about a half moon to see enough in the scope. I've got the sub zero laser designator but it is a wide green beam that scatters the hogs after a couple seconds. I'm anxious to see if a green dot is a little more subtle and less prone to scare off the hogs.

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9 years 4 months ago #45439 by MrMarty51
Replied by MrMarty51 on topic VIRIDIAN X5L-RS Laser Sight - Tac Light Review
Thank You JT for the report.
This light looks to be like it could be a keeper.
Please do, let us know how the next light will be.

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9 years 4 months ago #45527 by jtallen83
Replied by jtallen83 on topic VIRIDIAN X5L-RS Laser Sight - Tac Light Review
UPS just dropped the Viridian laser off at my door, pretty fast service. Katelyn from customer service said they replaced the "board". All the functions check out. I think I'll zero it for the AR-10 and see how it does there, I'll be checking it regularly to make sure the battery drain issue has been fixed.
They did send three new batteries with it so I got something for my trouble :thumbs:

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