Weird idea for shotgun shells

[Yogimus]

My Photon light will easily light up a room, and I've used it to find my way in the forest on occasion. It says on their site that it puts out 4.5 lumens, and uses CR2016 batteries. I'm fairly confident that it would be enough to use as a flashlight even if put inside a barrel. Maybe I'll test that tonight, just to see...

Tested it, and no.
Holding it in my hand, it lights up a dark room enough to see everything. Putting it in a 12ga barrel produces a very faint circle of light, maybe 15inches wide at 4 yards, and not bright enough to really identify much. Certainly not enough to find your way in a dark house, and I'm not sure I would even be able to see a person, if that person didn't move around.

Getting to the same conclusion here as well.

[randy]

Erik, was that a blued or parkerized barrel? If so, I wonder if a stainless barrel would give any significantly different result?

[Erik]

Erik, was that a blued or parkerized barrel? If so, I wonder if a stainless barrel would give any significantly different result?

I used my old side by side Husqvarna, blued I think.

I seriously doubt it, I'd say I lost maybe 70% or so of the brightness, but even if you put in something a lot stronger and get a perfect beam, you'd still only get maybe 15" of view at 3-4 yards, with no periferal light. The barrel acts like a tunnel and only allows a straight narrow beam out of it. It's more like a laser than a flashlight, it would be enough to see the area you'd hit, but not enough to see much else. Imagine going around with a set of 12ga barrels as goggles and you get the idea.
Having tested it, I wouldn't want to use it as a flashlight in any scenario.

It's one of those things that sound like it could be a cool idea until you actually try it and then you immediately realize why noone else does it.

[Greg]

My Photon light will easily light up a room, and I've used it to find my way in the forest on occasion. It says on their site that it puts out 4.5 lumens, and uses CR2016 batteries. I'm fairly confident that it would be enough to use as a flashlight even if put inside a barrel. Maybe I'll test that tonight, just to see...

Tested it, and no.
Holding it in my hand, it lights up a dark room enough to see everything. Putting it in a 12ga barrel produces a very faint circle of light, maybe 15inches wide at 4 yards, and not bright enough to really identify much. Certainly not enough to find your way in a dark house, and I'm not sure I would even be able to see a person, if that person didn't move around.

You have discovered the difference between what flashlight geeks call 'throw' and 'flood'. Your Photon, like a candle, lights up a small space pretty well but it useless at a distance. It's very flood-y. Something that concentrates its light output in a narrow beam is able to light things up at a distance, and is said to have throw.

Beam shape and properties matter quite a bit in how useful a given light is for a given task in the real world. Flashlight geeks go so far as to fight over the smallest differences in beam properties, and there are 'flood' vs 'throw' holy wars.

[Windy Wilson]

So are you going to make one? I ask because I have a sort of socket extension for my socket wrench set that has a tiny light that supposedly shines through the center of the socket to illuminate your work.
That reminds me, I'd better check to see how corroded the batteries are.