It is hard to beat a well placed pressure pad for activating a weapon light when it comes to ergonomics and ease of use. However, some shooters just don’t want to deal with the wires that come with them. Cloud Defensive (CD) started with a product that made the wires easy to deal with… Now they are doing away with them completely.
The CD OWL is a proprietary weapon light with plenty of fresh ideas baked in. The OWL features an integral offset mount that also serves as a platform for the tape switch-esque pressure pad activation switch. This gives the shooter tape-switch style activation without the wires.
The light also features a quick attach/detach system for the heads and tailcaps. This allows the OWL to be completely ambidextrous, mission configurable, and able to upgraded as LED emitter technology advances. There will be heads available that are optimized for a wider spill beam and heads available with a tighter hotspot to optimize throw. Eventually, there may also be IR heads for use with night vision equipment.
The OWL is currently being tested for output but it is estimated to be putting around 1400-1600 lumens out the front. The switch provides both momentary and constant on functionality. The tail cap also serves as an installation tool and to remove the lens for replacement if necessary.
The OWL is user-programable with multiple modes of operation:
- Full power, all the time (momentary and constant-on)
- Full power for momentary, 60% for constant-on. Roughly 960 lumens at 60%
- 60% power all the time (momentary and constant-on)
You can read more about the OWL at Cloud Defensive’s pre-order page. The first 500 lights are being sold at a reduced price and are expected to be delivered in July.
