[June 2005]
This time around the light came to us straight from the factory in Austria. Unlike the 1st gen. light that we sent back to Glock a while ago this one came in a proper Glock storage box including a spare bulb and an instruction manual. The light looked exactly the same as the first one we had but after closer inspection some differences and improvements were found.

The 2nd. gen light has a better on/off switch than the previous one. It's shaped a little differently which improves operating the light and it also has a better feel to it. It's now easier just to flick the light on for a second or two without it turning on fully. In fact the GTL10 switch feels better than the switch on the X200, but since the X200 has been used for a while (it has been tested underwater amongst other things) we can't say if the switch on the X200 is as sticky from the box as the switch on this particular light. The rubber seals on the battery compartment cover and light bezel on the GTL10 are now red as opposed to black on the previous model. We don't exactly know why this is or can it be used to identify the second generation lights from the first gen ones. Also the battery contact springs have been modified and are supposedly better than the original ones. Since we no longer have the 1st gen. model for comparison it's hard to tell how the springs are different. That's about it, we couldn't find any other differences between the 1st. and 2nd. gen. lights.

Testing
We will be testing the light by shooting at least 500 rounds through the gun with the light mounted and turning it on and off about 500 times. This in no way a proper durability test, but it should give some clue if the problems we experienced with the first light have been resolved. We will post the results of the test on this page also once we get the testing completed.

Test update July -05
So far so good. We have fired couple of hundred rounds through a G17 with the light mounted and turned on . The light switch has been tested by turning the light on and off about 1000 times now. So far we have experienced zero failures and after close inspection no cracks on the light frame were found. We will keep abusing the light some more and report the results again on this page.

[update Aug. 05]
The light has been attached to the G 17 for about 800-900 rounds now. No problems whatsoever. It appears that this one is a keeper.

Light pattern
With new batteries the beam of the Glock light is good but very different from the X200. (see pictures below)
The X200 produces a very bright narrow beam compared to the GTL 10. The GTL 10 has the advantage that the beam can be adjusted by rotating the bezel whereas the beam of the X200 can't be adjusted. The best setting for the bezel seemd to somewhere between the two extremes pictured below. For the pictures the lights were positioned about 1 meter from a wall that WAS NOT white but a shade of yellow so the light from the GTL10 seems more yellow than it actually is. It would really require a series of pictures to properly demonstrate the differences in the two lights, but let's just say that both lights will allow the operator sufficient illumination when the situation arises.

Battery consumption
The real surprise came at the end of our test when batteries began to fade away. We had new batteries on both of the lights and they had been used roughly the same time. When the Glock light started to fade away we changed the batteries from the still bright X200 to the Glock light thinking that they must have more power left since the X200 was burning brightly. Not so. After inserting the batteries from the X200 into the Glock light the Glock light showed no signs of improvement. We started switching different sets of batteries back and forth and found out that the X200 burns brightly with batteries that give no light on the GTL10. It seems that the LED technology on the X200 certainly does have it's advantages. One has to remember of course that X200 costs 1½ times as much as the Glock light.