Rothco 489: Army Style C-Cell Flashlights

Solidly built, quality flashlight. Unique design and bright light.

This Rothco C cell size version of the Military angle flashlight is built much stronger than the Rothco AA call Military angle flashlight. The synthetic material is more durable.

This is an inexpensive (cheap) angle head flashlight with a design similar to the NATO angle head flashlight. The body is made of plastic and it uses 2 C batteries and not the metal body and 2 D batteries of the genuine military flashlight. It uses a regular incandescent flashlight bulb so it’s not very bright compared to modern LED’s. It has all the same design features of the military flashlight. 3 position switch - on, flash button, and on. The flash button works as it should. Sits flat on its base and has a hanging hook that recesses in the base. It has the tail cap with extra lenses, red, green, blue, and yellow in addition to the clear that came installed. It has the steel clip on the back that allows you to clip it to your belt or other gear and still shine forward.The o rings for the lens are very cheaply made, the o ring for the base cap is okay. The clear lens had some sort of fogging or fine scratches on it, but the other lenses were okay.I purchased this for several reasons. I have a lot of C batteries lying around and nothing to use them in. This was half to a third the price of any other C battery flashlight I could find on Amazon. I’ve never owned an angle head flashlight and I wanted to try it out. I don’t have any red light flashlights so I immediately installed the red lens. It met my needs and I didn’t have an expectation that it would be the same brightness as a modern LED or that it would have the build quality of a military flashlight. I knew what to expect when I bought it, but I took 1 star away for the fogged/scratched clear lens.

Nice setup with various colors of lens and 90 degree light. I had the flashlight ON for 15 minutes and bulb housing/reflector melted from the heat of the incandescent bulb making the flashlight useless, which is totally unexpected in the design.

Product purchased used for under $6 and it arrived defective. After fixing the contact points it works flawlessly, not the same build as a Fulton but it’s a good clone.Four basic color filters R/B/G/Y (not the same color density or set as the Fulton original) functional spare bulb under battery negative contact spring, 3 switch positions, o-rings are cheap and the plastic threads are concerning. All this said, if I’m buying a cheap flashlight it’ll be this one.The lenses can be replaced with 32mm dia. 1mm thick watch glass, battery conversion for AA or AAA, threads can be covered with teflon tape, o-rings replaced, bulb upgrade to led. The reflector is different higher profile then the mx991 so the height of the bulb body isn’t problematic like it is on other lights (no shadow throw). Modify to your needs imho it’s the same thing just smaller lighter and cheaper manufacturing. I’ll buy again, repair and upgrade.

It is surprisingly smaller than I expected but it’s very practical in size and illumination is pretty good.

Not bad, but not great either. After inspection of all parts, Back up bulb was broken (glass separated from shaft) lenses are okay. Not a quality built item tho.

Lightweight due to C batteries. Good brightness. Comes s/ various color gels that you can use if you wish for signaling. Belt hook. Basic, useful light.