TRIJICON - Sale of products
Trijicon
One company that caters to the full firearm spectrum is Trijicon. The Wixom, Mich., electro-optics manufacturer is among a select group of firms boasting honest-to-goodness battle-proven sights, the company’s ACOG is perhaps the best known, and most-produced, with more than 1 million having been delivered. Aside from its military exploits, Trijicon is also a trusted name among law enforcement, shooting sports competitors and armed citizens thanks to its reputation for reliability, and a catalog that includes all manner of firearm sighting solutions, from tritium-power iron sights to sophisticated magnified optics, and even sights and scopes designed for archery use.
By now, most will be acquainted with some of the benefits of using a red-dot optic atop a pistol, and I think we can agree that those benefits extend to audiences beyond those “with aging eyes,” the most targeted demographic in recent years. The chief advantage, after all, is that a reflex sight eliminates the hardest and most complex aspect of pistol shooting—front sight focus—and provides instead an easy and intuitive aiming arrangement. Traditionally, a shooter must be aware of three focal planes—rear sight, front sight and target—perfectly align all three, and simultaneously focus strongly on just one (the front sight) while subordinating the others. With a red dot, shooters focus on the target—which is the natural inclination—and simply superimpose the reticle upon it. With a good reflex sight, it doesn’t matter where within the glass the reticle is positioned, as long as the dot is on the target, the pistol is aligned for a good shot.
Given such an advantage, it’d be fair to wonder why red dots are not standard issue. Certainly, they are becoming much more common, and increasingly firearm manufacturers are shipping guns from the factory either in optics-ready configurations, or with red dots already installed and ready to go. But there are certainly limiting factors when it comes to using optical sights on handguns. Tradition is one, pistol optics are still very new compared to iron sights. Also, illuminated optics are reliant upon their power source—in the case of the RMR, a CR2032 battery—which, depending on how you see it, adds another maintenance item to be monitored, or introduces a new possible failure point to the whole platform (though an arrangement of co-witnessing iron sights should assuage the more dire perspective).
