Buy American, Even If It’s Crap?
BY Herschel Smith
2 years, 11 months ago
I watched this video today. Deal with the language, or just don’t watch it at all.
BLUF: The Trijicon MRO is awful. Trijicon has apparently tried to fix it, to no avail.
I’ve read comments before at various websites where readers were giving other readers a hard time about buying Holosun (even Primary Arms has Chinese products).
The problem is that the Chinese are whipping America at producing good quality products for cheaper. That’s America’s fault, not China’s.
What are we supposed to do – throw good, hard earned money after bad?
And do any other Trijicon optics suffer from the problem of lack of glass clarity, magnification in 1X optics, etc.?
Does the Trijicon RMR produce a screwed up sight picture due to fish bowling?
I’m just asking for a friend before the friend throws away good money.
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On May 26, 2021 at 11:45 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
Trijicon, as readers of this website already, is my poster child for a once-great firm grown fat, happy, and more than a bit complacent on the fed.gov gravy-train.
Herschel, if you ask your son if he liked his ACOG while in the ‘Corps, I’ll bet he’ll say it was a good piece of kit, and maybe it was, but civilians get treated differently by Trijicon than gov.mil or gov.us LE customers.
If you go into harm’s way and have a government-paid life insurance policy should you come home in a box, chances are that Trijicon and its products have done well for you. The firm’s management knows where its proverbial bread is buttered.
The ACOG has a well-earned reputation for getting its owners through some pretty rough experiences, and for performing well when the chips are down. That’s not really the issue here; the issue is how the company treats its institutional customers versus how it treats its individual customers out in the general commercial marketplace.
I have only my own experiences to draw upon; others may have different opinions than my own. I speak only for myself.
My outlook is simple. If I am prepared to drop $1500 or so bucks on an optic, then whoever made it and whoever sells it to me had better be prepared to stand behind it. Any product that expensive – whether it is a watch, camera or a lawn-mower, for matter – ought to perform as advertised and as promised. If it doesn’t, the manufacturer/retailer should make a strenuous effort to set things right. It’s what good and ethical companies and people do.
I dislike being critical of someone as well-regarded as Trijicon, but facts are facts, and they didn’t measure up. They sold me a defective product and then refused to set things right. They as much as told me to get lost, to take a hike and stop bothering them. When I asked about recouping the cost of the purchase, what about that? – they told me to sell my ACOG used, because it will “get a good price.”
Sorry, folks, not good enough.
Far as products being made in the People’s Republic of China, I do my best to buy American, but in certain market segments it is virtually impossible. Nor I am responsible for off-shoring America’s manufacturing industries to Red China. I regard normalized relations with that nation as a colossal mistake, and always have.
It is germane to note that some companies which can’t make their optics in the U.S. at a competitive cost, have them made in Japan instead. Japan is a better alternative than Red China, if it comes to that.
The pendulum of international trade swings back-and-forth between excessive protectionism and excessive free-trade. I am old-enough to remember the 1970s and how Japanese and German car-makers forced U.S. auto companies to elevate their respective games and deliver better and more-innovative products to market. American firms, after decades of ruling the roost, had gotten complacent and were turning out a mediocre product, and they needed an “attitude adjustment.” They got one, in an example of free trade being to our benefit.
The other side of the coin is that we get pilloried for not advocating free-trade all the time, but few if any of our trading partners, so-called, have leveled the playing field with us over the years. De facto restrictions on trade are only doing unto others what they have done to us, everyone from the Japanese to the Germans on down the line.
Buy American when and where you can, but if you have to get a foreign product, don’t lie awake nights over it. It isn’t your fault that globalism is the order of the day; you didn’t ask for it, but here it is anyway…..
On May 26, 2021 at 11:46 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
Ooops, forgot a word: “Trijicon, as readers of this website already” – should read “Trijicon, as readers of this website already know,…” Apologies for the error.
On May 26, 2021 at 11:54 pm, George 1 said:
IMHO if it is a question of red dot sights on rifles, Aimpoint is the answer. Specifically the Aimpoint T-2. It is expensive but I believe in buy once cry once. I previously tried the Trijicon MRO on a friends rifle. I don’t hate the sight. I did not notice the slight magnification mentioned in the review. The MROs parallax issues are well known. I did not find it a problem if your cheek weld is consistent. I don’t have any NV equipment and don’t use magnifiers so I feel the MRO would work fine for me. If you have NODs the Aimpoint is the way to go.
I do have a Trijicon RMR on a Glock 19. I am learning to use the sight and certainly am no expert on RDS on handguns. I have improved a lot since installing the sight. I do not notice any problems with the sight, only me not being consistent and having to search for the dot.
The RMR is probably the toughest pistol red dot on the market right now. It will take a beating if need be. That was my biggest consideration in choosing the optic for a pistol.
You can watch the testing done by Aaron at Sage Dynamics. He really puts them through the ringer and he endorses the RMR as the best pistol sight he has tested.
On May 27, 2021 at 12:40 am, JST said:
I have a trijicon SRO. And my vision is as bad or worse than CAs. I got it for the larger sight picture. It has the 5 MOA dot. Yes its big. Yes it HAS to be set on high for me to pick it up quickly. Muscle memory on presentation is at least 50 or 60% of being able to see the dot quickly. Maybe higher. The rest is brightness. IF the housing is going to take any ass kicking, then the trijicon SRO 7075 forging is the bet I took. DVOR had it for 460ish as I recall. Depends alot on you for carry. Its so big it would be retarded on my MP shield , and there is no slide or mount that I know of that would even make that possible. Full size…I like the SRO.
On May 27, 2021 at 1:25 am, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ George 1
Larry Vickers used Aimpoint during his time in the U.S. Army’s elite Delta Force (SOF-D), and now endorses them. I don’t know what they’re calling themselves this week, but the point still stands. LAV doesn’t endorse gear that doesn’t meet his high standards. Larry’s affection for his Aimpoint M68 came about naturally, seeing as it was mounted on the Colt 723 carbine, a variant of the Colt Commando SBR he and many other men in ‘Delta were using at the time.
For those interested, at reader request, Larry has done a number of video segments discussing this aspect of his military service.
Finally, if you can and have the time, drop by his You Tube channel and wish LAV well. He’s fighting prostate cancer, and enduring chemo, so he’d probably appreciate the gesture.
On May 27, 2021 at 2:47 am, teslawasframed said:
My dad has an MRO on his (very rarely used) AR, from what little I’ve seen of it, it’s alright. I have an Aimpoint Pro on my duty rifle, and I’d recommend it without reservation in a heartbeat. My only other experience with Trijicon products are the surplus ACOG’s some of my fellow officers run, all of which perform admirably.
On May 27, 2021 at 5:53 am, Wes said:
Had an MRO (bought slightly used from someone else selling it for same reason) and tried it for about a minute before also parting with it. Form factor Ok; glass horrible. And one of those rigorously tested by some folks, among many optics, that ended up at the bottom in a parallax test. Horrid.
Replacement for the MRO mission was a Holosun HS-510C; quite pleased. It stays on btw, and has been so since 02 Jan 2020. That’s someone who’s using a power circuit for a 2032 the way it should be.
Conversely, I will not part with my ACOG.
On May 27, 2021 at 8:53 am, Jeremiah said:
I discussed this video with some engineer friends of mine, including a former Trij engineer (who is free with his criticism of his former employer). They did not agree with the method or conclusions. Neither did they argue that the MRO is perfect.
I have two that have served me well. I bought them with money EOtech refunded me as they sought to rectify their temperature related POI shift debacle. Holosun was not yet a thing at that point.
I am able to make consistent hits past 200 yd from a variety of awkward shooting positions. I do not have problems making fast hits up close. Also, someone (not me) dropped my fully loaded rifle with silencer (so, heavy) on concrete right on the MRO. It chipped the anodizing and took out a little chunk of aluminum. Zero maintained. If I was buying today, I would probably buy Holosuns. But I’m not going to replace the MROs I already have any time soon. Other training and gear priorities well above that.
FWIW, my current favorite rifle optic setup is my 3.5x ACOG with a Holosun 407 on an Arisaka offset mount. Holosun is primary; ACOG for longer shots and mid-range precision.
On May 27, 2021 at 9:03 am, Baddog said:
I have several MROs on pistol builds and find they work as expected. I leave them on, so always ready, as the on-off knob is a bit of fuss. The dot is easy to pickup, and for work under 50 yards is plenty easy to work with. And even out to 100 there are fine though no red dot will deliver MOA performance at distance.
As far as parallax, there is no parallax free sight if you’re moving your head around relative to the sight. That said I will say Aimpoint is as close as you will get to that goal.
The Aimpoints are on my carbines, and you can’t say a bad thing about them. They just work.
Both the MRO and Aimpoint have NV settings, and both are essentially waterproof.
I like the MROs on the pistols. And I love the Aimpoints on the carbines.
On May 27, 2021 at 10:29 am, JD said:
I run RMR on Glock Suarez slide and have no problem with it out to 35 yards using a ten yard zero. I train timed CSAT Tac Pistol accuracy standards at 7/25 yards. Very happy with the RMR. Using since 2017. No failures of cycling or with the RMR
http://www.combatshootingandtactics.com Paul Howe’s site.
On May 27, 2021 at 10:39 am, luke2236 said:
The answer is yes; NEVER EVER buy red chinese crap. Go without before sending money to those mass murdering baby raping dog eating bastards.
On May 27, 2021 at 1:01 pm, Herschel Smith said:
@luke,
A lot of people feel that way. The problem is that you’ve got it backwards. In many cases it isn’t red chinese “crap.” It’s red chinese good products versus American crap, with Americans sending America on guilt trips to “buy American” because it’s American.
On a related question, what’s the difference between sending our $$ to Michigan and sending them to China?
On May 27, 2021 at 1:05 pm, Fred said:
A cost benefit analysis of the features you demand can include country of manufacture for certain.
I also considered:
Circle on/off
Color(s) of Dot
Shake awake
Battery compatibility (spares)
Mounting options
Durability
Moisture resistance (it’s wet here)
and MOST importantly, purpose(s) for which I intended to use it
Cost was pretty high on my list and outweighed country of origin for all the same reasons that team ‘Murica still shops at walmart. Cost being a lower factor and all things equal American would be preferred.
(FYI, I’m for total trade barriers and throwing the federal register on a bonfire, and am the only person I’ve ever met willing to suffer the years of shortages, riots, potential war and other second and third order affects as American small and regional biz take back manufacturing.)
On May 27, 2021 at 1:44 pm, Matt said:
I compared a Trijicon RMR with a Holosun 509C and found that I much preferred the Holosun. I was fortunate that a friend had one each on Glock 17s. I must admit I was skeptical of Holosun. From what I am seeing first hand, it appears to me that they have really stepped their game up.
On May 27, 2021 at 3:55 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Fred
Re: “FYI, I’m for total trade barriers and throwing the federal register on a bonfire, and am the only person I’ve ever met willing to suffer the years of shortages, riots, potential war and other second and third order affects as American small and regional biz take back manufacturing”
Gee, funny, me too…. though obviously I hope it doesn’t come to that.
For what it is worth, I have been wrong about a lot of things in life, but not about the advisability of normalizing relations with Red China. Even as a kid year-back in 1972 when Nixon-Kissinger were doing their thing in Peking (as it was called in those days), I remember thinking that they had lost their minds wanting to trust those people. Time has proven me correct, alas.
The U.S. government was set up by the Founders to be funded primarily by import duties, fees, tariffs and taxes. There was not an income tax; the first century or so of our republic was not weighed down by that monstrosity. In other words, no “free trade”… we took care of our own first. Which right down to the present, is pretty much what every other nation on earth tries to do.
It is a subject for another day, but we – meaning the people of this nation – stand no hope of ever having a truly free and prosperous economy again until we’ve ended the Petro-Dollar regime and can again control our own foreign policy and banking system. The quid pro quo reached by Nixon-Kissinger and the Sunni Arabs was that in return for them agreeing to do business only in USD and to recycle all of those billions of dollar of profits (“petrodollars”) through U.S. & western banks, was that we agreed to defend them against all enemies, “foreign and domestic.” Which, in plain language, means that the Saudi King has the Oval Office on speed-dial, and if he calls, we haul. Which is one reason why we’ve been involved in so many wars and interventions in the greater ME over the last 40 years or so.
On May 27, 2021 at 4:54 pm, ColoradoCamper said:
I finally came to this conclusion over 30 years ago when I switched from Ford and Chevy to Honda and Toyota. Never looked back.
I would love to buy American, but I won’t subsidize greedy and corrupt labor unions that force me to work on the car more than half the weekends in a month.
Out here.
On May 27, 2021 at 5:54 pm, Fred said:
GB, agree accross the board, although I only know it was nixon/kissinger from history text and word of mouth.
On May 27, 2021 at 11:15 pm, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Wes
Re: Holosun HS-510C
I only recently “discovered” Holosun myself, thanks to a local merchant carrying their products, and I have to say that they’re really impressed me as offering a high-quality, innovative product at a reasonable price. This particular model of reflex sight has a small and unobtrusive solar panel built into it, so if your batteries go down, your optic can still function. One of those embarrassingly simple yet elegant ideas that makes you go, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
The mounting system is rock-solid, zero-hold, and the optic performs as promised. I haven’t knocked it around any yet, so can’t speak to its durability in the field. However, the reviews I’ve seen on You Tube give it high marks there as well.
I’ve been using standard red/green-dot sights such as the Vortex Strikefire II system, which is in no way a “bad” optic, but I really like how the Holosun opens up your field of view, keeping you from “getting lost” in your optic, as the pros say.
Impressive performance from a product which comes in well below $400….
On May 28, 2021 at 6:32 am, Wes said:
@Georgiaboy61 In the FWIW department I’m not a fan of cluttered reticles so don’t use the circle/dot the way one is limited to with an Eotech. The option of just having a dot was another point in favor. For those considering, I’d heartily recommend getting the companion riser with it to achieve that lower-1/3 height that seems to work better with more of a heads-up style than classic cheek weld.
The solar alternative (selectable) is a nice touch. Being a FOG I just leave mine on manual brightness adjustment. I dislike a solar thing suddenly dimming or over-brightening in a situation such as shooting from light into deep shade or vice versa.
On May 28, 2021 at 2:10 pm, raz-0 said:
I’m incredibly happy with my accupower 1-8x LPVO. Their ACOGs are flat out excellent glass and built like tanks. Their RMR looks nice, I’ve only gotten to play with it, but the guys I know who shoot them have continued to shoot them for years. But that’s been on pistols where if you are going to have parallax issues you don’t notice because you have lost your dot and it’s not the worlds biggest single plane peep sight.
Nobody I know has an MRO. Everyone who hasn’t gone LPVO are using aimpoint, sig, holosun, or primary arms. Mostly aimpoint.
On May 28, 2021 at 11:20 pm, George 1 said:
Just looking at the Sage Dynamics testing videos as I had not been there in a while. I had time to look at initial testing that Aaron did for the Holosun 509T and 508T gen 2.
2000 rounds through them so far with the drop tests and other tortures that he puts all of the RDS optics through. He likes the sights so far. They are getting a pass. He will put a lot more rounds through them and a lot more torture tests. He may have already done so but I don’t have time to search all of the videos now. Looks like they are tough optics.
The RMR had 20,000 rounds and 40 drop tests before he was through. No issues for the RMR, it was still going strong.
On May 29, 2021 at 12:27 am, Georgiaboy61 said:
@ Wes
Re:” In the FWIW department I’m not a fan of cluttered reticles so don’t use the circle/dot the way one is limited to with an Eotech. The option of just having a dot was another point in favor.”
Ditto that, especially for something designed to be used up-close-and-personal. With you, too, on using a riser. I must be a blockhead or something (if I did something dumb, my late father used to say that!), because I can’t get comfortable behind the sight without it. Manual brightness works fine for me. Just toggle up or down on the brightness depending on your situation and you are good-to-go.
On May 29, 2021 at 6:19 am, Joe Blow said:
The “buy American” mantra is equal to the “buy local” mantra. I understand the economics of it and agree with the premise…. but I’m not a charity. Do a decent job and I will support you (and inflated prices over Chinesium), but try to sell me an expensive piece of crap properly branded (made in usa), and you’ve lost a customer forever.
Form follows function. Do the job right, then preach to me about your politics.
On May 29, 2021 at 7:19 am, George 1 said:
I found another video for the 509 T, from Sage Dynamics. He is up to 10,000, rounds for the optic. 20 drop tests, numerous slide racking with hard objects using the optic. The optic has some deformation of the lamination on the lense at the rear. However it has not lost zero and no other issues. In fact Aaron is calling it the best enclosed pistol optic available at present. Note that this means he believes the 509T is somewhat better than the Aimpoint ARCO.