CTF Photonics CTF3 + Malkoff E1HTv2 and Z-Bolt Blazer IR Heads
A follow-up to the previous post, this unit officially belongs to @bureau-of-mines' AK build and figured I'd give my own more thorough early impressions on it so far - despite the presence of other devices hitting the market around the same time and price bracket as this, I still feel like the CTF3 has a niche of its own to fill.
The key selling point to this unit is its modularity - in lieu of an onboard IR illuminator, the CTF3 features effectively two 3V Scout Flashlight bodies machined into the laser body that sit saddleback on either side of the top rail. This allows you to interchange whatever IR or white light heads you need for your specific setup.
The fire buttons are surprisingly easy to reach despite the protruding battery caps; the center button being laser only and the smaller left and right buttons activating both the laser and the corresponding light body.
Sadly this means your IR laser will be activated when using the white light, and there's also no constant-on function for the light bodies, but such is life.
In my opinion, the greatest benefit of the CTF3 is its low profile - this really is the perfect laser for an AK or other rifle that force you to use lower-mounted optics. It fills the same niche as the 3EIR DIR Series, except it's more modular, made of higher quality materials, asks roughly half the cost (as far as a base unit without heads), and eliminates a separate white light setup, keeping the overall cost of accessories down.
Obviously, you also lose a remote cable port, vis laser, power output controls, the ability to co-align the illuminator with the laser dot, and divergence control is greatly limited as well (unless you get an IR Blazer Head), but you get the benefit of having less integral components to fail within the laser body itself.
Although I have a massive bias to ancient laser boxes, the CTF3 is a very cool unit and I love how it works on "westernized" AK setups (though how well it handles 7.62x39 is yet to be determined). Love to see more from CTF going forwards.
Also giving @avtomatkalashnikova a tag since he was interested in this setup as well.
