I got my lava tube from a pre-order link somebody posted in the new member forums and when I went out to the site they had a picture of the full kit and it was shown with a aw imr button top 18650 battery I'm like cool I already have a pair of those so I didn't order any batteries and have been using them ever since I got it, it was the fake battery issue they changed the picture, now I think they maybe recommending them but they work fine.
nice to hear a provari user has good things to say about the lava tube as I have been debating for weeks whether or not I should press that add to cart button. I have one question though, can you really not use AW IMR 18650s in the lava tube because the nipple adds too much length? if that's the case, I may not purchase it as I have had bad luck with the flat top IMR batteries in the past.