This really happened…
People have no idea how precise optics need to be or how difficult manufacturing pieces that precise is.
They just want something cheap and nobody can tell them otherwise.
They can have $100 pistol red dots. They will be shit and fail easily, but you get what you pay for.
It’s not just on the internet. It’s just that the internet gives idiots a nice effective platform to shout to the ends of the earth to anybody listening that they are, in fact, idiots. This is why I spend very little time on social media.
Our first OS was Win95. Outside of email and the occasional text, I have not and will not have anything to do with social media.
Mr Eagle is exactly right… a couple years ago I found a “sub $100” pistol red dot.. I got it at a local wholesale junk shop. don’t remember manufacturer. it broke taking it out of the BOX it came in…. I imagine it woulda stood .45 recoil just fine… the dumbing down of America is complete, just go for a drive anywhere…
I saw a YouTube video of someone “making” a red-dot sight. The body was waxed cardboard, the lens was plastic, and the “dot” was a cheap red LED run off a couple AA or AAA batteries.
.
It was flimsy as hell, might be kinda fun on a NERF gun … and nothing I’d ever trust, even at the range.
.
But sure, you could mass-produce some garbage like that, slap a logo and a “Made in China” sticker on it, offer it for $10 on Wish or Temu (with the “90% off $100” flag to “sweeten” the deal), and there’s always some fool who would buy it thinking he’s beating the big-name brands.
.
Because the concept of a good, durable, accurate red-dot optic is not difficult, but the execution requires significantly more precision and complexity.
Did you mean “aspheric” instead of “asymmetric”?
Yes. Fuck, how did I screw that up?
If all else fails, blame autocorrect! 🙂
It’s sometimes hard to tell when Rangermonk is serious and when he’s trolling. He’s been known to take completely ludicrous positions when he definitely knows better.
I have no idea how much he knows about manufacturing or business, so I can’t tell whether this is intentional trollery or an actual position he’s taking.
I don’t know if it was always like this or if it was an advent of the social media, but it just seems like a lot of people are emboldened to think that their crappy take should be heralded as something akin from Moses descending Mount Sinai.
.
I saw it quite a bit when I interacted with customers/enthusiasts/random earth walkers when I was in product development.
Sum Dood: “Hey man, you work for XYZ?”
Me: *looks down at my shirt and trade show badge, look up and the booth I’m standing in, resist the urge to snark* “That’s what they tell me.”
Sum Dood: “Y’know. You need to make [insert random, obscure thing that 2.5 people on earth would want]. Me and my buddies have wanted one for ages.”
Me: “Well that’s quite the proposition. I mean, that’s something right in line with what some of the custom makers have done for years.”
Sum Dood: “Yeah, but those guys are too expensive.”
Me: “I see. Well, I’ve never seen much of a business case for it on my end, but if you have some numbers that would make it worth the effort for a production run that we could mass market then I’ll be happy to get you with our sales guys and product managers. They’d certainly be interested.”
.
Somehow, they never had a business case or understanding of what it took to actually make a project. They just thought we could create a TDP, do qualification testing, create tooling, do an entire production run, and sit on inventory all for a product that 4 guys say they want . . . and only on of them would buy it in the end.
Of course you can. Ruger even sells one. Of course it is not adjustable but the reviews are not as bad as you would think. Supposedly they actually work.
https://shopruger.com/Ruger-ReadyDot-Optic/productinfo/90742/
Plenty of sub-$100 red dots put there.
Reliability, accuracy, usability are questionable.
.
And I can buy binoculars and spotting scopes for less than $100 as well. Does not mean Vortex, Leopold, and Sworaski are ripping you off.
The majority of people are totally clueless about most things. It’s because we don’t have an education system anymore. We have an indoctrination system.