I think maybe adding some leds might help seeing it operate from any position the gun happens to be in!
I dig the head out of one of these flashlights thay giveaway at harbor freight, it has 9 white leds in it, could this somehow become part of this circuit without alot of altering?
Well, firstly when you say "any position" - surely you don't need full 360 degrees viewing?
A few suggestions. You can get FAR brighter LEDs than the one you have. Sanding the end will help make it visible from wider angle, but also a frosted-glass or translucent plastic besel will work wonders. Using a pulse-stretcher (a diode, cap and resistor are all thats really required, into your existing opamp) will make longer blinks, that the eye can see more readily.
To answer your specific question about the 9 LED torch - if the torch ran off a 4.5V or 6V supply (3 or 4 AAA cells) and your circuit is running from a 9V battery, you can probably get them to light with very little work. A lower value resistor from the opamp output should do it... just watch that you don't try to pull too much current out of the opamp, or you won't get enough voltage to drive the LEDs hard enough to see any better than the one LED you have now.
Just an observation. Last month I had to modify a large (30' x 15' table) CNC machine to add a "cutter safe" indicator for the operators to know when to change the tool. This is in a factory environment, under normal factory lighting, and the indicator had to be visible from anywhere the operator was likely to be. (That meant a 270 degree viewing angle). I used a single, super-bright green LED (8,000mcd) and operated it on a mere 3mA. I took to the 5mm LED with my grinder to make it quite small and roughed up the face so it would fit entirely inside the plastic cap from an old pilot light/indicator, and glued it in. This thing is about 1/4" diameter, has a chrome mounting thats about 3/8" dia, and total length perhaps 1/2" long. It's more than bright enough to see in any operating condition.
