Hardware Talk: SureFire XC3

You need light, and the SureFire XC3 marks the spot.

It’s in the nature of how our eyes work that you need light. While some of us can see better in “the dark” than others, even then there is some light.

So, more light is better.

But some lights are better than others, and the SureFire XC3 is one such light.

Starting out, it offers 550 lumens for a runtime of 1.75 hours. It has a center beam of 7,500 candelas. Lumens is total output. Candelas is how much the center actually puts on target. You get a bright center, but with enough “spill” that you can see outside the center, which is useful.

The body is made of aluminum and given the expected SureFire Type III hard anodizing. SureFire makes lights and other products not to meet some idea of a warranty, but to keep working even after you haven’t. Not to be gloomy, but a SureFire light will still work after experiencing conditions you can’t survive, so it won’t let you down.

It can be mounted to almost any rail, be it a universal or Picatinny, with the included adapter lug. It’s compact, lightweight and easy to use. At 2.65 ounces, you won’t notice its weight. Oh, you’ll have to get a holster to accommodate it, but that’s the new normal.

It’s small enough to fit underneath the slide/frame of most pistols, not protruding past the muzzle. This protects it from impacts and from some of the muzzle blast and powder residue.

It has an ambidextrous toggle as well, so you can control it with either hand or thumb. So far, I’ve described a bunch of weapon-mounted lights, so what makes the SureFire XC3 such a big thing?

The power and battery swapping.

The XC3 runs on a single CR123 battery. Yep, 550 lumens, 1.75 hours runtime—on a single battery. And the best part? You can change batteries without taking the light off the frame.

The front cap, which is the LED light and reflector, comes off to remove the battery forward out of the housing. (Do this after you have unloaded and shown clear, please.)

No more fussing with screwdrivers and removing the light to swap out the tired or dead batteries. Now you can do it in a minute with no tools … and just the one battery.

Unfortunately, this coolness does not come cheap.

SureFire’s usual customer base goes to dangerous places and puts paid to the careers of dangerous people. They build the gear to stand up to the rigors of that work. If your job starts with a HALO jump, followed by room-clearing, lots of ammo and more than a few explosions, you do not want your pistol light to be DOA when you need it. (After all, if you need a pistol a lot of things have already gone wrong.)

The price? A listed $299, which means you can probably walk out the door, tax included for less than three Benjamins. At that, it’s likely to be half the price of the pistol you are mounting it on.

But until the battery dies, it won’t fail you. And when the battery dies, it’s a minutes or less to change that—no tools needed.

SureFire … gotta love it.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the November 2025 issue of Gun Digest the Magazine.

More On Tactical Lights: