100% US made rifle scope?

The most impressive case of "wow" when I looked through it was a Nikon tactical 4-16
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I ordered a Nikon 4-16 30 mm tube and I was quite disappointed, sent it back. Not nearly the clarity of my 2.5 - 10. It was a hunting version but I think more than likely they are the same scope, just a little different packaging.

One of the biggest reasons the US is less competitive in manufacturing is our high rate of corporate taxation and very complex tax code. To make matters worse, the "activist" Federal Government makes businesses nervous when the take over banks, take over car companies, set corporate salaries, tell companies "now is not the time for profits" and the like. The US is moving down, down, down the list of economically free companies. An oil exec recently said he had a lot less trouble doing business in Ghana than the US.:eek:
 
We're in a global economy now and it's going to become harder and harder to find a product that is 100% US made. If I own a riflescope company, am I going to make my own lenses if I can purchase exactly what I specify for less money than I can build a facility and staff it to make the same product? Of course not. I'm going to focus on what my company does best and leave the rest to others.
 
S&B doesn't even make they're own lenses they find the makers around the world that offer the quality of glass they want used in their optics and that is what they buy.

I am all for buying american but the last few Made in America products I have purchased have let me down.

My car has had 3 times the amount of problems as my wifes car. Mine Chevy hers Toyota. What will I buy next time Toyota. They make a better product at a better price huh and no one has had to bail them out because they make **** poor business choices.

I had a Leupold and it was one of the worst scopes I had looked threw. The eye relief would change so much so that I had to press my nose to the bolt on one end and hang off the cheek piece on the other. I put a Nikon on it and OMG from 6.5-20x eye relief changes very little. It is clearer and brighter than my leupold ever way. Hell my Bushnell Elite 4200 6-24x40 was much more bright than my leupold.

So now I buy nikon not leupold. I have snobby shooting buddies that think I am wasting my money on nikons. But this guy makes $100k plus a year. I don't. I buy the best I can afford and right now that is a nikon.

Just like when you get into the $1500+ scopes Leupold and Nightforce are your bottom rung for that price range. S&B, March, US Optics, Ziess, IOR are all much better scopes US OPtics are 100% made in the USA and you pay lots of money for that. But, March are Made in Japan and hand assembled they are winning bench rest matches all the time offer much higher quality glass at the same price as other.

It is not so much price as VALUE. If you can buy a scope that does exactly what you want for $500 or $1500 why are you going to spend $1000 more for something to do exactly the same thing.

I do believe Burris makes all of Pentax's scopes.
 
I find it very hard to believe that a US based company couldn't make a quality scope 100% in-house and still make a good profit. If you just look at the raw material it takes to make a scope it doesn't seem like that much, some aluminum, glass, rubber, nitrogen gas....I know there is more, but it seems like once the first one is out the way the rest would be pretty profitable.......,but what the hell do I know I am just speculating. Anyone with some manufacturing experience please chime in.
 
In WWII, the Japanese manufactured superior optics, specifically those used for Naval Gunnery. The Japanese naval gunfire chewed our asses up, especially at night, until we finally understood Radar controlled targeting...
 
We can make anything here in the USA

Unfortunately plaintiff's attorneys, government regulations, and unions have made it prohibitively expensive to do so.
 
US OPTICS

I had dinner last week with Jeff Fertal, Marketing Director with US. Optics.
These are the only rifle scopes designed, developed, and manufactured in the United States.

Chad
 
I would just like to see an American company offer a solid scope for an affortable price with every piece from the US. If I was to purchase a scope and I felt their optics were quality they would be getting business from me.
 
Well, lets come to reality for a second.

Anyone here willing to work for 30 bucks a day?
Give up insurance benefits?
No 401K
No Social Security
No medicare
No more vacation days
Work 60+ hours a week. (I'm over 90 a week)

That's the foreign labor force in a nut shell and they are kicking ass. China has more 4.0gpa honor students then we have students. India isn't far behind. America isn't about production now, we are CONSUMERS and consumers want it cheaper. Period.

Lets look at what it takes to produce something in our own back yard.

Machine/equipment payments that easily go over 10K a month
$60K for the software to run it efficiently
a $1500 power bill
Tooling costs that run between 9-12 percent of your monthly gross
material costs
hazmat
Payroll
Insurance
More Insurance
The blood sucking accountant
Marketing
Toilet paper
Bitchy/whiny employees who go out of their way to hour _uck you when on the clock by taking 1/2 hour bathroom breaks, getting your buddies to clock you in an hour early or can't even show up on time- yet they want at least $20/hr.
Paying off Uncle Sugar each quarter just for the privilege of being an American with a dream and the balls to bring it to fruition.

Suddenly that $2000 for a scope or $5000 for a rifle doesn't have much room left over to buy the new car, fund a vacation, pay for kids braces, a boob job for the wife, a new TV, or the new house. . .

If I'm out of touch, why is there a mass exodus of businesses from California? It's just not worth it to function there anymore due to taxes and overhead.

Welcome to America. We did it to ourselves gents.
 
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Actually, to most Europeans, working conditions in the US are pretty third world. No 6 weeks vacation, no guaranteed health insurance, limits on welfare payments, at-will work etc. On the other hand, they don't expect to get all that with a 20% tax rate either.
 
So you mean to tell me we can make a lawn mower engine over here (Briggs & Stratton in Alabama) for $200, but we can't make a scope for less than $500? I just don't buy it.
 
Sure, if you want your scope made from a cheap investment casting and stamped steel parts that get cranked out by the hundreds of thousands.

B/S sells more lawn mowers in a summer than USO or any other optics company probably does in five years.

Mass production lowers costs. I doubt the tolerances on a mower approach those of quality optics though. Then add material costs. I doubt seriously a lawn mower uses an aerospace listed material. Most of the better scope companies do. That's not cheap as the documentation that goes with that kind of material is extensive- to the point that it can be traced back to the guy with the shovel who dug the ore out of the ground! One little reason why plane tickets aren't cheap. . .
 
Just curious, engineering and other factors aside how much $$ raw material do you think goes into making a high dollar scope like Zeiss, Leupold, or S&B?

$100
$300
$500
more, less?
 
Not to worry guys when all manufacturing jobs are gone from America think of all the cheap products we can buy from around the world,but then we will only have government jobs to purchase those products, for sure a winning idea.:rolleyes:

Greed pure and simply brought us to this place corporations,government and unions all equally guilty.
 
I've spent seven years and several million dollars of other peoples money (our investors) making optical systems in the US.
Rifle scopes are trivial in comparison to what my former company was custom grinding here in the USA. For three years we struggled to get a consumer-grade lens system designed, tested and manufactured in the US. The top three US glass houses first said it couldn't be made. We/I made it. Then they said that there would be no way to ensure tolerances on the product and that it would cost a minimun of $1000 per unit for orders under 10K units. I proved them wrong. Then they said that they couldn't meet our volume demands.
So, I got on a plane and went to Japan. In three weeks I had a prototype. In six weeks I had production samples and in three months I had an inventory of "impossible" to make lenses that not only held tolerances but exceeded out expectations/predictions in performance. Get this ....each unit was sold to us at $50. You do the math.
There is no doubt in my mind that the US can make the most sophisticated optical systems in the world- Lawrence Livermore National Lab's NIST laser facility is one example. However, when it comes to high-end, consumer/prosumer grad optics, the Chinese and Japanese firms kick everyone's ass.
Do a search for aspheric lenses, then get on the web and call every US firm you can find that can make them, there aren't many. If you were to ask for bids on simple lenses you would likely find that the cost of making your lenses in the US would run at least 10X and more likely 50X what it would cost in China. And then there's the volume. US glass fabs usually cannot handle orders that exceed the thousands of units. You wont get glass into consumers hands in the US unless you can make tens-of thousands of units per year.
Just my experience....for what it's worth....and I prefer German glass (Zeiss,Leica, Leitz) to Japanese -they are more robust and usually not surrounded by comoplicated mechanisms....although my wife's 80-200 Nikor lens is a work of art.
 
Just curious, engineering and other factors aside how much $$ raw material do you think goes into making a high dollar scope like Zeiss, Leupold, or S&B?
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I imagine the cost of the raw materials in any scope would be pennies. The costs of the raw materials in a printing of the Heller decision would also be pennies. A bit of paper and ink and an inch of wire for the staple. Of course the value of that decision does correlate particularly to the raw material costs.


I don't entirely understand the desire to buy a product made entirely within the US. Do any of us wish we could spend our days manufacturing optics, or sewing undershirts together? And just how much would you like to be paid for your efforts?

If people elsewhere can create value with desirable goods at prices we are willing to pay, everyone wins.
 
The USA was a great nation until the saying I can't came around.

We used to be a country of I can. I guess it is just to much work anymore. Oh well them 6 year olds in China and India need jobs too.
 
Maybe we need to be careful what we wish for.
If manufacturing comes back, it may mean we have fallen to third-world status.
 
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