Chiappa is an interesting firearms manufacturer. They are located in Brescia, Italy, which is typically associated with manufacturing of over/under and side-by-side shotguns with manufacturing dating back 500 years. They have a wide portfolio of products catering to a wide array of clientele. From reproduction muzzle loaders to classic as well as modern lever action rifles to the famous Rhino revolver. They even produce 1911s as well as M4/ AR-15s chambered in .22LR rimfire cartridge. 

The company was originally founded in 1958 by Ezechiele (Oscar) Chiappa under the name Armi Sport. With limited budget, he first started working from the basement of his house producing firearms. The company continued to grow, and the Chiappa Group was created. They moved to the current facility in 2002, but they are constantly expanding. 

Oscar’s son, Rino, is now the CEO and president of the company. Rino’s wife, Suzanna, is the head of the export department and handles all of the export paperwork. Their daughter, Giada, is the CFO of Chiappa Firearms and the vice president of Chiappa USA. 

Giada grew up with the company, and she knows the complete production process inside and out. She took time out to act as my tour guide. Being the third generation of a family business, every employee including her must have passion to work. In fact, she started working for the family business when she was 12 years old (those were the days before labor laws were in place). She remembered riding her bicycle through the basement between the workshop machines and recalled the struggles of a small family business. 

With only 85 employees in the company, they have no union. As Giada explained, they treat every employee of the company with great respect. Every person has to do his part in order to succeed long term for the company. They are willing to hire new employees with little to no firearms background as long as they have a strong work ethic and are willing to learn. 

Compared to traditional gun makers located in the valley of Gardone Val Trompia in the North, Chiappa is located south of the city of Brescia in an industrial area along with manufacturers producing various automotive parts. 

Production 

We started the tour in the barrel production section. All the barrels are made in-house at the factory, and currently they are in the process of preparing to receive a new barrel drill and dimple machine from the U.S. in a few weeks. This is surprising as most small manufacturers simply outsource their barrels, but it is usually more difficult to control quality when it is not done in-house. 

They also have a metal injection molding (MIM) machine, making parts designed for rimfire pistols and rifles where the durability and strength from forged steel or aluminum is not required or too costly. Similar to plastic molding, the raw metal, such as stainless steel, is heated to 1400° Celsius (2552° F) then it is channeled into the mold cavities. Once cooled, the formed parts will be pushed out. Although the molds can be costly, it is offset by high-production volume. MIM is also a much quicker production method than CNC machining. 

On another section of the production area, it housed a very wide and tall machine designed to cut the beech wood furniture. Pieces of rectangular wood blocks are fed into it, and it does the majority of the cutting, including its almost final shape and cutting the areas for trigger housing and cavity for securing the stock to the receiver. This machine is not used by wood stock manufacturers, because it originally was designed for the furniture making industry. In fact, it is used by the famous Swedish furniture maker IKEA. 

The final sanding down of the stocks is still done manually with a drum sander. The stocks are transferred to a small room and have oil applied to them to reveal their true colors. They are polished at the end to get a great shine. 

One rather interesting point: They sell a lot of DIY assembly kits with unfinished wood stock to the U.S. market for the people who want to build their own gun, much like a hobbyist kit. 

For semiautomatic pistol slides, they have an automated robotic arm where the bar stocks are fed to the CNC machines and then get picked up by the arm to get polished. The whole process from raw material to finished slide is done with no human intervention. 

While the assembly of firearms is done mostly by men, each firearm is packed neatly into its packaging, then into cardboard boxes by mostly female workers. It’s apparent that every firearm is handled with love and care, even if the packing process is repetitive in nature. 

Throughout the production area, the workers employ a barcode system on each firearm that relates to its specification as well as production progress. Each employee also scans his or her employee card when beginning work at his or her station; management can track time spent per manufacturing step per firearm. This is beneficial as the company can identify if there are inefficient production processes and/ or employees, and once they are identified, they can then find a solution to the problem. 

Right next to the door that took me back to the office, there was a tall, large steel green door with a label “Shooting Range” in English which took us to the basement of the factory. Chiappa has a small 25m shooting range for test firing. Each firearm gets test-fired five rounds, and when the process is complete the computer automatically prints out the results. The shooting range computer also links up to the company server along with the barcode system so the company can pinpoint where the firearm is during assembly as well as during testing. 

All Chiappa shotguns, such as the three-barrel Triple Crown and Triple Threat 12-gauge break-action shotguns, are produced by Akkar in Turkey. 

Rhino 

The Rhino is one of the most recent and unique revolver designs of this past decade. The designer, Antonio Cudazzo, is an architect by profession, but he is passionate about firearms. He wanted a carry gun that has the reliability of a revolver yet be light, compact and have low recoil. He was close friends with Emilio Ghisoni, the designer of the infamous semiautomatic Mateba Autorevolver. 

Chambered in .357 Magnum as well as the more common 9mm cartridge, the Rhino features a short grip compared to traditional revolvers. It looks strange at first, but in reality, it provides good purchase to the shooter’s hand. 

Due to the purpose being concealed carry, the original Rhino features a 2-inch barrel. The Rhino’s unique design featuring the barrel at the bottom of the cylinder provides extremely low bore axis, reducing flip and recoil as the pistol goes straight back close to the middle of the hand instead of top of the hand. This was realized to be an advantage in competition shooting, and subsequent models feature 5-inch long barrels. The latest version, the Charging Rhino, features a 6-inch barrel with a black anodized finish in contrast to the nickel-plated trigger and cylinder along with a grey laminated grip. Due to its longer length, there are Picatinny rails at 12 o’clock and 6 o’clock that can accommodate red dots, lights and lasers. 

Chiappa had been playing with various types of PVD colors and finishes. Their latest idea is to create a Rhino in a chameleon, multi-color PVD finish called the Rhino Nebula. 

Due to its complex manufacturing, the factory currently produces 600 to 800 units a month, and there are 1,000 to 1,500 units on back order. 

“Hooray for Hollywood” 

This revolver is also getting popular on the silver screen. It is used in the latest “Fast & Furious” film, being carried and used by The Rock. It will also be in the upcoming “Terminator: Dark Fate” movie with Linda Hamilton reprising her role of Sarah Connor and Arnold coming back as the Terminator. Previously, it was in “Suicide Squad,” “Total Recall” (the 2012 remake) as well as in video games such as “Battlefield 4” and “Rainbow Six.” 

Chiappa has received numerous requests to produce an identical version of the Rhino as seen in comic book movie “Suicide Squad,” used by the iconic Harley Quinn character. Chiappa reached out to Warner Brothers for its permission and possible licensing agreement; however, the movie studio refused to have any collaboration with any firearms manufacturer. The movie armorer company that did the modification to the revolver had also signed an agreement with the studio not to reproduce these revolvers as they were strictly made for the film. 

CBR-9 Black Rhino 

I was fortunate enough to be one of the few lucky people to handle the prototype CBR-9 Black Rhino, which was recently unveiled at the 2019 IWA Outdoor Classics trade show in Nuremberg, Germany. The Black Rhino is a PDW (personal defense weapon) similar to the likes of the Heckler & Koch MP7 and FN P90. The Black Rhino is chambered in 9mm and feeds from a patent-pending, proprietary double-stack magazine that funnels the rounds to become a single stack for enhanced reliability instead of alternating the rounds left and right. It is extremely compact and is designed to be fired one-handed if the situation requires it. 

Like the Rhino revolver, it is a continuation of the same concept that offers extremely low bore axis in order to reduce felt recoil. This means the barrel is as close to the index finger as possible, and the action is situated above the barrel with the hammer flipped upside down. Giada tells me the prototype has been fired one-handed in full-auto with great accuracy, producing minimal recoil with little to no training. 

It’s designed by Antonio Cudazzo in collaboration with Tanfoglio, and the final design is completed by Chiappa engineers. As a joint project, the commercial semiautomatic version will be sold by Chiappa, and the military select-fire version will be marketed and sold by Tanfoglio. Both versions will be made by Chiappa due to its expertise in rifle production. 

It has a wide aluminum upper receiver with a polymer lower. It has a retractable stock that can be removed. For the American commercial market, it may come with a pistol brace instead, which is still being developed at the time of writing. It has a Picatinny rail on top, ready for optics, but it also comes with bright fiber optic iron sights that are flush-fit and integrated inside the top rail. Right at the shooter’s index finger is the ambidextrous bolt hold-open and release. The magazine release is positioned at the shooter’s thumb just like a semiautomatic pistol. The ambidextrous safety is high up near the top of the upper receiver and requires the shooter to push forward to disengage. The charging handle is at the foregrip and can be switched from the left to right hand with minimal tools. It also has a small, integrated vertical grip up front that can be folded down with a push of the button to unlock it, similar to the HK MP7. 

The gun is held together by push pins that come apart quite easily. It features a compensator as a muzzle device which can be unscrewed by pushing back a locking tab. 

Many would question the effectiveness of the 9mm round. In spite of that, the U.S. Army recently selected Brugger & Thomet’s APC9K 9mm submachine gun for their Personal Security Details. The CZ Scorpion Evo 3 is another SMG that was recently adopted by the Hungarian Defense Forces and Hungarian police, the Finland police and Czech Republic Armed Forces and police, amongst other military and police services in many countries. With budget constraints in many militaries as well as in police departments, the 9mm round may not be such a poor choice as it simplifies logistics instead of procuring a special round like the MP7’s 4.6mm or FN’s 5.7mm cartridges. 

Conclusion 

I have visited a good share of factories across the world, but Chiappa is certainly the most dynamic and adaptable company that sets itself apart and caters to several different clientele with rimfire pistols, revolvers, reenactment rifles to tactical rifles and shotguns. Chiappa continues to innovate with unique firearm designs and finds demand on the products that it produces. As a gun enthusiast, this author appreciates companies that think outside the box to create unique looking firearms that also have performance benefits. 

There will certainly be more Chiappa product placements on the silver screen near you. 

When it comes to discussing World War II history, particularly in the European theater, people often discuss the major European countries involved such as Germany, Britain, France and Italy. Neutral countries such as Switzerland and Sweden were often left out of history books, but they were very much involved in preparing for war in case they were to be attacked or invaded by Germany or Russia.

During my stay in Sweden I was advised by Håkan Spuhr, the founder of Spuhr optic mounts (see my factory visit on SADJ, Vol. 10, No. 2), that I should make a short trip to Djuramåsa, an area north of the coastal town of Hälsingborg, to visit Beredskapsmuseet—The Swedish Military Readiness Museum. During my initial research, Google Maps showed a small building in the middle of large, secluded farm lands. I thought to myself, what could possibly be that interesting in such a small facility? I was in for a big surprise.

The museum operating hours were cut short due to the early winter season in Sweden, but Johan Andrée, the museum chief, was kind enough to accommodate my travel schedule and have the museum opened just for me. While the museum was technically closed, there is a lot of work to be done, and there were a few volunteers present.

The main attraction is the 29-ton, 15.2cm (6-inch) heavy gun called “Maja.” There are a total of four heavy guns in Battery Hälsingborg—Maja, Asta, Sonja and Brita, each named after the most beautiful girls in Djuramåsa. They’re also the girls who lived closest to the guns. Maja has a range of 24km. With a crew of 9, it can be ready to fire in less than 5 minutes and has a rate of fire of 3 rounds a minute. The guns are operated manually, which means they have to be aimed, loaded and fired without any electronic motors. The four guns are manned by 56 men with 18 officers and NCOs.

My jaw must have dropped when I first saw Maja. It’s beautifully preserved behind a giant glass enclosure like a model car at a toy store except much larger. I had never seen a 29-ton coastal gun let alone anything like this before during my many museum visits in various countries.

Each projectile weights 46kg (101 pounds) with recoil force of 60 tons. During its first test fire, people were advised to move all their livestock away from the area and open all doors and windows to prevent damage. One resident forgot to move his 2 cows from a nearby farm; the pressure wave gave the cows heart attacks, and they died. In addition, all the windows broke at a nearby greenhouse.

Amongst the many interesting facts, the four heavy guns along with five machine gun bunkers, a control center or “Battle Command Center” and a bomb shelter took only 47 days to build with help from 2,000 people working non-stop around the clock. This is a feat that sounds rather difficult to achieve today let alone from 70 years ago.

The guns were originally built to both defend and attack coastal ships as well as the nearby country Denmark.

With a short walk, we arrived at an underground bunker called The Gun Hall. There it housed the largest known small arms collection in Sweden. The guns, ranging from rockets, water-cooled machine guns, Browning BAR, to P38 pistols are well-organized and hung behind large glass display walls. It was great to know that none of them is deactivated and all are in working condition. Do note, however, that this facility is well secured with multiple cameras and motion sensors as well as a bunker entrance the size of a bank vault door.

What is not displayed, however, are the stories of each gun when they were donated to the museum either by the original owner or deceased family member. Each of the stories are documented in the museum in thick binders. I was told by Johan that they have plans to expand The Gun Hall with small plaques next to each gun with a short description of how the guns were used and acquired.

It has been 20 years since the museum opened, but Johan is still enthusiastic when it comes to discussing every detail of every artifact in the museum. It was a childhood dream of his to open a World War II museum. He strongly believes showcasing these weapons in his museum, as each gun tells a unique story of the people that used them during war times. Unlike other European war museums, such as The Royal Danish Arsenal Museum in Copenhagen, where I was told they had the largest arms collection in Europe but were all hidden in their archives due to political correctness, the weapons represent part of history, and without them we will never be able to prevent the same tragedy of war from happening again.

If you ever find yourself in Sweden or Denmark, I would highly recommend you to visit this museum. The volunteer staff spoke perfect English, and guided tours can be arranged. This is one of the most unique museums I have personally seen. Needless to say it’s a true hidden gem, and I look forward to revisiting it again.

I want to thank Johan and his volunteer staff for their sincere dedication to the museum and for their time for providing me the guided tour.

The first things that typically come to mind when someone mentions the country of Sweden are IKEA and Volvo. What most people do not know is Sweden, a neutral country for both World Wars, has a long history of arms manufacturing dating back all the way to the mid-1300s. Bofors was a world renowned manufacturer of artillery and cannons dating back more than 350 years and was so famous there was even a British movie made in 1968 called “The Bofors Gun.” Saab is most known for its cars, but Saab Group—its aerospace and defence division—has a proven track record of producing military jets such as the famous Draken and Viggen and the current Gripen at their plant in Linköping. The Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle was first in use in 1948 and is still used by many countries today including United States and Canada. Saab’s Gotland-class, diesel-electric submarines were able to penetrate the US Navy Carrier Battle Group during wargame exercises and are recognized as one of the quietest submarines in use today. There’s no question that Sweden produces high quality, well-engineered goods for their own military as well as for militaries around the world.

This article, however, focuses on another Swedish invention—the modern red dot sight. I had the honor to be invited to visit Aimpoint in Malmö, Sweden for a factory tour. Upon my arrival to the facility, I noticed they hung not one, but two Canadian flags outside the building flying next to the Swedish flag as a warm welcome. That was certainly a nice surprise! At the building lobby, I was greeted by their President, Lennart Ljungfelt. Mr. Ljungfelt joined Aimpoint in 2003, and he previously spent 6 years working at Bofors, now part of Saab AB. He first came in contact with Aimpoint products when he was in the Swedish Army in the 80s.

The idea of a red dot sight was first conceived in 1974 by Helsingborg engineer John Arne Ingemund Ekstrand, who was an IPSC shooter who wanted to increase his shooting speed and accuracy. The story goes, while he was shaving one morning, he gazed into the concave shaving mirror and noticed that the reflection of a light on the wall behind him remained stationary when he moved his head. That is when the “light bulb” moment occurred. Ekstrand built a prototype sight using an empty cardboard paper roll, and he approached a few companies with the idea. One of these companies was run by a visionary entrepreneur named Gunnar Sandberg, and the Aimpoint company grew from this beginning.

At the time, except for some low production sights using the “Occluded eye concept,” red dot sights powered by an LED (light-emitting diode) did not exist. This was a new and innovative concept. In fact, red dot sights were actually not seen through so shooters were forced to shoot with both eyes open. The disadvantage of this design was having to fool your brain into superimposing images of both eyes into one, which caused headaches after prolonged use for certain people.

This brings us to the “Aimpoint aiming philosophy.” As per their research, most shooting engagements tend to occur between 0-650 yards and under low-light conditions. It’s only natural to use both eyes to aim, since, as humans, we do a majority of regular daily tasks with both eyes open.

Aimpoint claims their optics offer close to full-light transmission due to superior lens material and coating processes. The Micro T2 has 45 layers of coating on the lens elements, partly in order to offer night vision compatibility versus the Micro H2 which only has 4 layers. The color spectrum of their red dot is in 650 nano meter wavelength, providing deep red color that can be seen in all lighting conditions in various environments.

Sandberg Development Group

While Aimpoint was ahead of its time with its introduction of the Aimpoint Electronic sight in 1975, shooters did not fully trust this innovative product with its yet-to-mature technology. We have to keep it under context that in the 1970s, electronics in general were not reliable, and battery technology was not dependable. From 1975 to 1996 the company was not in good financial shape. Thankfully, it now operates under an umbrella called Sandberg Development Group. The group owns Camurus, a pharmaceutical company that specializes in lipid-based drug delivery, and Granuldisk, manufacturer of industrial pot washing machines. These companies provide support for one another to maintain long-term profitability. It’s unusual to have this type of diversity in a company portfolio; however, it does make one feel better that when buying an Aimpoint sight, you could possibly support medical research.

In 1996, the US Army awarded Aimpoint with the world’s first military contract for 100,000 units of their CompM red dot sights. The sights were tested for 3 years prior to the decision, and it was based on the ruggedized version of the Comp model. From then on, they continued to supply their optics to the Swedish, Italian, Danish, and Finnish Army as well as the US Air Force and US SOCOM.

Under request of the Swedish Army, Aimpoint produced 55,000 units of the special-made CS red dot sight from a 2004 military contract. It is based on the Comp model but has a rubberized housing and a Picatinny rail on top. The battery is sealed within the unit and is not removable by the user. With a 10-year, constant-on battery life, this has never proven to be a problem.

Today, Aimpoint has approximately 260 employees and has produced well over 3 million sights to date. There are over 200,000 T1 and 100,000 T2 sights currently in use. The facility is ISO 9001 certified and soon to be certified with ISO 9001:2015. They also have a smaller production facility in Gällivare, Sweden located above the Arctic Circle in northern Sweden that is dedicated to producing sights for military contracts.

Production Floor

The building consists of main office and production area. The tour begins in the receiving area, where the external housing, inner tube, lenses, etc. arrive in boxes from various external suppliers that are each labeled with a unique batch number. The first step is to check for quality by randomly selecting components from each shipment. The technicians measure the dimensions with a laser probe to ensure it is within its required tolerance. Batches that meet the company strict standards will have a green label which is a pass. Components with questionable quality will have a yellow label which means the batch will go through further inspections. Boxes with a red label will be returned to the supplier. Even though Aimpoint chooses the best suppliers from the industry, it is not surprising to see the amount of boxes with yellow and red labels on them.

While on the topic of quality, Aimpoint maintains an astonishingly low return rate of 1% for all their sights produced to date, including sights that were made well over 40 years ago! The number of actual failure is even less, mainly due to customers returning their Micro red dots with loose battery caps which cause the red dot to flicker and/or turn off during use. It can easily be solved by tightening the cap and is not an actual manufacturing defect or failure. This is the most frequent warranty issue for them, even though they try to educate and inform their dealers as well as customers. All Aimpoint sights carry a 2-year warranty, but this author is certain it is a rare occurrence to return the sight due to a defect.

It was also interesting to hear their customer support receives a lot of complaint that the front lens of their sight is tilted. In reality this is not a manufacturing defect as the front lens has to be tilted at an angle in order for the LED mounted offset from the center to reflect back to the shooter’s eye. It’s simple physics that people often forget.

After inspection, the components then go into rapid, vertical automated storage called the Tornado. All the technician has to do is key in the part number and quantity into the computer, and the parts will automatically be retrieved from the shelf to the technician’s hands. This saves time from searching for the correct part; additionally it keeps the parts inventory to 99.99% accuracy.

Once the components are picked from the warehouse, they get put through an air lock in batches of 20 pieces at a time. The production area is air sealed with positive air pressure designed to push out any dust and small particles in the air. Anyone who enters must gown up and wear hair nets. In addition, technicians must wear anti-static wrist bands as even a minor static charge can damage the diode during assembly. Thankfully, the production area can be seen from the outside as it is visible behind glass.

Before the components get assembled, they all have to go through an ultrasonic cleaning process. Each lens then gets checked against a black background to ensure there is no dust on the element. Once the lens is glued to the inner tube, the tube is then put into the UV oven to cure. UV glue is used due to it being able to withstand a wide range of temperatures. Once the circuit boards are installed and cables soldered in place, the diode will get calibrated to the center of the lens, ensuring that it is parallax-free.

Production operates on two shifts, one in the early morning and one in the afternoon.

All sights get tested to meet their water-resistant rating. Similar to testing dive watches, they use a pressure chamber filled with air instead of water to do this test. Each sight has a “birth certificate” containing all steps of manufacturing, and each step is check-marked once completed to ensure perfect tracking.

The floors are painted pure white, and it’s basically spotless. I felt like entering a medical lab rather than a normal production facility. It’s also notable that every step of the assembly process is done manually. There is no automation, and technicians must go through 6 months of training before they are fully qualified to do their jobs.

I had lunch at their large cafeteria which was well lit with natural light coming from the high ceiling windows with a view of the front lawn. You can tell the company cares for its employees as they also have a large exercise room and an in-house chiropractor due to the increased likelihood of technicians getting sore backs from sitting in their chairs for prolonged periods. Every well-run company understands the better the employees feel coming to work the less errors they make on their jobs.

In the shipping area, there were dozens of skids with shipping labels on them destined to the United States. They are for the US Army contract of 30,000 M68 Close Combat Optics awarded in March 2017.

New CompM5

Aimpoint’s latest product, the CompM5 was officially announced earlier this year at the DSEI defense trade show in London, UK. It uses a single alkaline AAA battery that provides up to 50,000 hours or over 5 years of battery life. With a 2 MOA dot, it has the durability of the bigger CompM4 in a size and weight closer to the Micro T2 with an improved waterproof rating of 150 feet. It is also the first Aimpoint sight made of machined 7075-T6 aluminum. These sights were made under request for a US federal agency to use in countries it operates in, where AAA batteries are more commonly found. They have been in production for over a year, and photos of this sight were first leaked online from an official US Department of State photo, much to the company’s surprise. I was assured this is the best sight the company makes, superseding the Micro T2.

Future Products and Development

When it comes to the topic of future products and product development in general, Mr. Ljungfelt was reluctant to share information on any upcoming products. He assured me that the company continuously researches new technologies and seeks improvements on their current line of sights. This is understandable as the company is facing intense competition now more than ever from manufacturers in Western and Eastern countries. For instance, American company Trijicon released the MRO (Miniature Rifle Optic) back in 2015 to match, both in size and features, the Aimpoint Micro line of sights. Holosun from China has also made a name in the industry for producing quality sights at a fraction of the cost, which is catered to those who simply do not wish to spend on an optic that costs as much as the rifle itself and who only intend to use the rifle at the local shooting range. Aimpoint is also vigilant on counterfeits from overseas, with the most recent court case won in July 2017 against the owner of several airsoft stores in Spain. He was jailed for 6 months and paid thousands of dollars in fines.

With user request for a smaller red dot for mounting on pistols, Aimpoint currently produces the Nano red dot that is included with the B&T USW machine pistol. Unfortunately, Mr. Ljungfelt said the company has no plan to offer it as a separate product at this point in time.

Virtual Reality

I was taken to a room which has infrared sensors on two corners with a small table that had a laptop computer. First showcased at the NRA Annual Meeting in April 2017 with great positive feedback, Aimpoint has created a tailor-made virtual reality shooting simulator designed for training hunters, competition shooters, law enforcement and military personnel. The shooter wears a virtual reality headset and holds a rifle stock that has a sensor in the middle. He or she is able to immerse himself or herself in any environment such as wild boar hunting, duck hunting, an IPSC stage or military/law enforcement training scenarios. The program was originally conceived from an idea that they need to design a product demo for their website. I was a bit skeptical at first, but the program has proven to be very effective in demonstrating the use of red dot sights in point and shoot scenarios, where aiming speed and fast tracking on moving objects are critical. In addition to giving you a score, the program also analyzes your response time and other metrics that are arguably more effective than real-life training.

Conclusion

There is little doubt that Aimpoint is the only choice for those who want to buy the best of the best. They are simply the most rugged sights made for the police, military, hunters and sport shooters. With over 40 years of experience, one has to assume Aimpoint has tested every single new “bells and whistles” feature found in competitors’ sights, such as auto-brightness level and solar-powered solutions. These features simply do not withstand the rugged testing the company sets for law enforcement and military applications. When and if they are ready to be implemented, we will certainly see them on upcoming Aimpoint products.

By Dickson Ly

As a photographer, I’m naturally interested to follow the latest development of cameras and camera lenses. With glass, the saying “you get what you pay for” truly applies. Similarly, I also want quality optics for my rifles. Optics, like camera lenses, are an investment and should be treated as such. It’s arguable that one should spend the same amount if not more on an optic over the cost of the rifle itself. After all, you cannot hit what you cannot see.

Tangent Theta is a brand that is relatively unknown in the market for rifle optics. They are located in Halifax, Nova Scotia in the Canadian Maritimes. They produce military-grade precision rifle scopes for use in extreme environments. They currently produce three different models: the TT315M, 5-15x50mm scope with 30mm tube; TT315P, 3-15x50mm scope with 34mm tube; and the fan favorite TT525P, 5-25x56mm scope with 34mm tube.

During an industry event a few months ago, I ran into Trevor Publicover who is the Vice President of Sales at Armament Technology Inc. Armament is the master distributor for ELCAN (Ernst Leitz Canada) and Tangent Theta scopes worldwide. I’ve known Trevor over the years meeting him at the Armament booth at SHOT Show, and he was kind enough to invite me to visit Tangent Theta for a factory tour.

I have visited Aimpoint and Meprolight previously, and I was very interested to visit a telescope manufacturer, as almost all scope manufacturers refuse to disclose how their scopes are made because some of the brands do not even produce their own scopes. Due to the lack of industry standard of quality measurements and information, it is one of the most confusing and misinformed product categories in the industry. Not to mention, everyone’s eyes are different so when it comes to image clarity, contrast and resolution, etc., I wanted to see with my own eyes and make my own judgment if their scope is worth the money.

Armament Technology Inc.

Andrew Webber is an entrepreneur, the founder of Armament Technology Inc. and President of Tangent Theta. In order to talk about Tangent Theta we have to dive a bit into how he got started in the firearms industry.

Mr. Webber founded Armament Technology in 1988, building custom precision rifles based on the Remington Model 700 footprint. The idea started when he purchased his first precision rifle, the Steyr SSG 69 PII in .308Win for $1400 CAD, but to his surprise, he had to rework the trigger group on his first trip to the range. Instead of feeling angry and frustrated, he thought he could build a better rifle by building one himself using carefully selected, quality components such as custom barrels from Mike Rock, bedding the stock, polishing the receiver and trigger components and hand fitting them together. He did that for a few years and managed to sell them to local police departments in Halifax as well as to Boston and Winnipeg and other police units. Overtime the competition caught on, and custom rifles had quickly become a commodity. He got out of the custom rifle business and instead focused on optics as that would be an ever increasing importance in the world of shooting.

Mr. Webber is a six-time Canadian national champion for precision rifles but also an avid competitor at service rifles matches. At the time, the Canadian Armed Forces were issued with a C79 optical sight with 3.4x magnification featuring tritium illumination produced by ELCAN. At the small arms rifle championship competition that took place in Connaught Range in Ottawa, it was noticed that ATI-modified C79 sights did not exhibit the same problems inherent with the DND issued sights. This caught the attention of a colonel, who approached Mr. Webber and asked what made his sights better than the others. Mr. Webber told the colonel his company had corrected a number of deficiencies in the mounting and zeroing systems of the C79s that would enhance accuracy and lifecycle durability. Following that conversation was a meeting with an Army General, and the lists of improvements Mr. Webber had done was used as the basis of the specification of the C79A2; subsequently, he won himself the contract to refurbish or replace all 65,000 C79 sights for the Canadian military. The refurbishment program continued on for over a decade, and it recently ended in 2017.

All current ELCAN rifle optics for the Canadian and commercial markets are produced in Midland, Ontario, but they all get delivered to Armament for final integration and inspection before reaching both military and commercial customers. The technician aligns the threaded front objective with the KILLFLASH® unit that is included with each SpecterDR due to its unique prism design. He also applies sealant in all the exposed screws so the end-user can’t unscrew them and cause damage to the optic.

Premier Reticles—Tangent Theta is Born

Premier Reticles was a reputable optics manufacturer that won the contract to produce tactical long-range scopes for U.S. Maine Corps snipers. Armament Technology was the distributor for Premier, and due to various internal and external events, the company went under. Armament Technology was the North American distributor for Premier at the time, and Mr. Webber purchased all of Premier’s assets including its inventory and equipment. Armament had the expertise to service Premier scopes as they were also the warranty center. Upon Premier’s demise, Andrew Webber left ATI to assemble a team to run warranty services on Premier scopes and subsequently design a replacement for the line, thus Tangent Theta was born.

Keep in mind even though Tangent Theta scopes resemble Premier scopes from afar, internally they have been completely redesigned and reengineered so parts are not interchangeable between the two brands.

$4600 Price Tag

The TT525P with 5-25x magnification is the most popular model in Tangent Theta’s small lineup; it outsells the other3-15×50 models 8 to 1.

It is available for $4600 USD which will put off a lot of potential customers for being too expensive. Speaking to Mr. Webber, however, the main goal for Tangent Theta is to build the best military precision scope in the market. This is unusual since almost all scopes in the market are built to a price point to compete with comparable products form other manufacturers. This is certainly not the case here. They essentially built the most durable scope by using the best glass and strongest components and put the price tag on it after. This is akin to the old days with Mercedes Benz where the company first built the best car it possibly could and then put a sale price on it; the company was not run by bean counter accountants.

Breaking Records

Rumor has it that military snipers have succeeded in going beyond the current longest recorded sniper kills, which was at 3540m (3871 yards). When the end-user is pushing for extreme long distance, he needs to have the best scope on his rifle.

The turrets feature patent-pending, TOOL-LESS RE-ZERO® with a build-in zero stop feature. To reset the turret, the user simply has to unscrew the cap, lift the turret up and set it down to its zero, hand-tighten cap and viola. It offers 5-6 clicks up on the elevation turret before hitting the zero stop. It’s so simple one would think why hasn’t any other scope manufacturer come up with this design. The answer is simple–cost.

Each scope contains a total of 270 individual parts, and each one is hand-assembled. When Tangent began to take orders, the demand was so high that they had a year and a half of back orders to process. This was a tough period for the company as they had to build the scope on a timely manner without sacrificing quality. The first delivery of scopes took place in second quarter of 2014. Due to this, the company did very little marketing in the beginning, but they have always had a booth at SHOT Show. Tangent’s scope has sparked interests from various European scope manufacturers—some had gone to Tangent’s booth to check them out, and one manufacturer even gave honest compliments for the scope’s excellence.

Factory Tour

The tour started in the receiving area where the components such as the lenses, main housing, erector tube and turrets are received from suppliers. The components are carefully checked for tolerances and get rejected if they don’t meet their standard.

One of the questions that gets asked a lot is where do they source their glass? The answer is they source the highest quality glass from both Europe and Asia. In today’s globalized environment, it does not matter where the components are from as long as they are quality-made. The country of manufacture is not nearly as critical as it once was decades ago.

Right next to the receiving area, there’s a small machine shop where certain small components are made and where some critical components are match fit down to microns.

Located upstairs is a Class 100 clean room. Class 100 signifies that the room maintains less than 100 particles larger than 0.5 microns in each cubic foot of air space. Like any clean room, it has positive air pressure to keep dusts and contaminations out. Before entering I had to put my foot on the sticky mat located inside and outside the room to get rid of any contamination on my shoes. Here is where the technicians, mostly females dressed in gowns and wearing white gloves and hair nets, carefully assemble the erector assembly, turrets and lenses into the main housing. The room does not have a ceiling light but instead is lit by spotlights on each workstation in order to help the technicians inspect and remove any dust and particles on critical components such as the lens before assembly. Naturally this task requires a lot of patience and care, and each technician is well-trained before he/she can take on this important task.

Shocking Tests

Once the scope is assembled, it goes through a stringent set of tests that includes tracking test, shock test, leak test and extreme temperature test. Of them all, the shock test is, well, quite shocking. Enclosed in a small room there are 2 shock test machines that run on a loop to hit the mounted scope against a hard surface from a controlled free fall repeatedly. Each scope will experience 1000 G of gravitational force 1000 times. I was told during the scope’s early development, they found white powder on the bottom of the machine. They quickly realized the powder was in fact glass that was completely shattered. A redesign promptly followed.

For the leak test, the scope gets pressurized in a depth equivalent to 10 meters. It’s important to note that they change the pressure at a rapid rate, to make the test more difficult and to simulate real life scenarios.

The temperature test is equally impressive—each test scope gets tested down to -45 degrees Celcius (-49 degrees Fahrenheit). Who would use their rifle at -45C you ask? Actually, Special Forces will take their rifle to environments that will require their scope to function in those conditions.

The scope is checked to ensure the reticle is perfectly level. They use an industrial-size bubble leveler that’s extremely accurate down to the hundredths of a millimeter.

Additionally, the turret design has been tested to 30,000 revolutions, which equals to 4.5 million clicks in Mrad and 6 million clicks in MOA. And if the customer ever wore out his turret from frequent use, Tangent Theta will gladly replace it under warranty.

Regarding warranty, Tangent Theta does have a customer support phone number and email; however, they do not have a separate warranty and repair department. The technicians who assembled your scope will be the same people who service your scope if there ever is a problem. This speaks volumes on the extreme low rate of defects but also how often customers have to send back their scope for service. This is in extreme contrast to a particular scope manufacturer that offers a VIP warranty, and in order to guarantee their 3-day turnaround time, the company has to overstaff their warranty department.

Once the scope passes all the tests, it will go downstairs in the packing and shipping department, where a technician will do a final inspection on the scope before it leaves the factory.

Future Prospects

Tangent Theta is currently working on the new Gen3 XR reticle in both MOA and Mrad. It will be based on their current Gen2 XR reticle but features more information on the Christmas tree for quicker windage and elevation calculations without the user’s need to touch the turret. It will also feature a floating dot in the center for less obstruction towards the target. It is estimated to be available in the beginning of 2019.

Next in the pipeline is the Horus H59 reticle in Mrad for which they have recently signed a license agreement to use their popular reticle. This is expected to be available sometime mid-late 2019.

There’s also a plan to introduce a 3-15×50 scope that is designed mainly for hunting that features lower profile, capped turrets.

Future planning includes a discussion of introducing a new model specifically for F-Class competitions. This is speculated to be in the 50x magnification range, but the company will not comment further as this is something further along in its product roadmap.

Tangent Theta may not have a long history, but it is definitely here to stay. It’s a company that does not aim to gain short-term profits but to build their market share at a steady pace. They would rather sell you a scope that will last many lifetimes like any quality mechanical device like a bolt action rifle or a watch. For more information visit tangenttheta.com.

By Dickson Ly

When one purchases a new rifle scope, most of the time it comes packaged with a set of loose, cheap bikini-type covers that most owners would simply leave in the box. When one acquires a high-end rifle scope from reputable brands such as Schmidt & Bender and Nightforce, they include a set of quality flip covers that are made in Canada by a company called Tenebraex. I had the opportunity to visit Tenebraex during my time in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, thinking it would be a brief factory tour, but I was mistaken.

The Tenebraex building simply has the company signage above its entrance. From the outside one would not guess they produce the majority of scope flip covers for both OEM and aftermarket. Paul Boese who is the General Manager greeted me and walked me through the factory tour.

Tenebraex Corporation was founded in 1992 in Boston, Massachusetts, but its assets were purchased by entrepreneur Andrew Webber on August 9, 2013, and operation was moved to his home town of Halifax. Tenebraex became a division of Armament Technology which is also their exclusive distributor worldwide. Their product portfolio includes KillFLASH® Anti-Reflection Devices, Tactical Tough® Scope Covers, Weapon Sight Polarizers and Laser Filter products. They supply KillFLASH® to various U.S. and NATO military forces by the millions.

Tactical Tough Flip Covers

One may not realize, but producing a set of properly fitting flip-up scope covers is not easy. One might be familiar with cheap flip covers that are made in generic sizes, down to the millimeter. However, the dimension can be half a millimeter or quarter of a millimeter off resulting in the flip covers being too tight or too lose. Years ago I purchased a set for my Leupold IER scope according to the fitment guide on the manufacturer’s website; the covers ended up just slightly loose, and they came off after firing a few rounds from my .308 bolt gun. I removed them, and swore I’d never buy another set again regardless of price.

Paul Boese says often times scope manufacturers provide scope dimensions that are rounded off and are not exact. It creates quite a problem when the dimensions are off even by half a millimeter as that can cause the covers to either come loose during use or not fit at all.

Moreover, the scope specifications can change from production batch to production batch, and manufacturers do not inform Tenebraex so often times they find out the hard way—after customers purchased the covers, and they ended up not fitting their scope.

They have over 200 unique item numbers or SKUs in their system, but it boils down to seven different sizes of flip covers. For the objective cover, they would design an adapter of the right diameter and thread pitch that will fit the specific scope.

Currently only Tangent Theta, Schmidt & Bender and Nightforce produce their rifle scopes with the Tenebraex profile that is multiple, machined, flat surfaces surrounding the edge of the scope housing that allow the flip cover to rotate and lock in almost an infinite amount of positions, which their flip covers will fit without the use of an adapter ring. One would think there needs to be a universal standard for flip covers; however, a lot of optic manufacturers simply believe their proprietary design is better or they manufacture their own flip covers for their own rifle scopes.

In an attempt to reduce production cost and offer customers more competitive price, they have introduced Multi-Dimensional Tactical (MDT) flip covers which instead of using a machined aluminum adapter, it uses flexible rubber that can be stretched and fit over a wide range of dimension instead of an exact fit.

The polymer components are made by suppliers in Ottawa, Canada, as well as Boston, Massachusetts. Each component is serialized by batch and properly tracked just in case an issue arises they can locate the problematic batch which indicates when they were produced and where they were delivered to.

The Final Assembly

Each flip cover is offered in color black, RAL8000, coyote brown and desert sage colors. The three latter colors are all considered different shades of tan; however, when it comes to supplying to government contracts, the color specification is rather specific, and they cater to this type of request from their clientele.

In addition, many models are offered in a see-through option, either in clear or amber lens, which allows the operator to aim and fire shots without flipping up the covers. Ironically, this creates more reflection due to the use of transparent polycarbonate, even with anti-reflective coating applied. The lens can also get scratched, in which case you’re better off flipping them up. Tenebraex produces them due to contract requirements.

Anti-Reflective Device (ARD)

The anti-reflective device is often marketed under the registered trademark of KillFLASH® and is an absolute necessity in the modern battlefield. The modern soldiers are equipped with rifles that have an optic mounted, and the light reflection from the optic’s objective lens can give away their position possibly from miles away. The ARD mounts in front of the objective are made up of a short tube with a honeycomb-like grid.

The ARDs are made in-house in Tenebraex’s Halifax facility. The honeycomb grid is made of a large sheet of aluminum or fiber. It then gets sprayed with the proprietary XLUME® coating which absorbs light and reduces reflection and then it is cut to shape. The tooling that is used to cue the sheet looks like a cookie press except it’s made of steel. The shape, thickness and density of the honeycomb sheet vary and are dictated by variables such as the objective size and magnification range to name a few.

Tenebraex also produces ARD for binoculars, laser rangefinders and other vehicles—basically anything that uses a lens in the battlefield that can reveal your position to the opponent.

Interestingly, ARD is only visible to the user in a non-magnified 1x optic. For scopes like the Trijicon ACOG or other long-range rifle scopes, ARD is not visible as the user’s eye sees right through it. There’s a very slight reduction of brightness when the ARD is mounted, but the tradeoff is well worth it in a tactical situation.

Tenebraex engineers work closely with optics manufacturers, and they are trying to streamline the design of optics with integrated ARD and flip covers as part of the original design, instead of an afterthought with the use of adapters which result in increased cost and a more bulky, less elegant design.

Weapon Sight Polarizers

Polarizers are an accessory that’s often overlooked by many law enforcement procurements. Polarizers are designed to allow the shooter to look through glass as they cut the glass reflection of a car’s windshields. Law enforcements purchase specialized ammunition such as ones with bonded bullets that are designed to retain their shape and maintain trajectory after going through glass. If one cannot clearly see his/her target behind glass due to reflection, the type of ammunition used is rather a secondary problem since he/she won’t be able to take a clean shot.

The Weapon Sight Polarizer mounts onto the eyepiece and is designed to be rotated for adjustment. When not in use, it can be removed by lifting it up and leaving it above the eyepiece; it will be retained by the lanyards.

Currently this product is restricted to military and law enforcement; however, one can easily make his own using polarizer filters made for camera lenses.

Weapon Laser Filters

In the modern battlefield, lasers are heavily used by infantry, land and air vehicles by NATO for ranging and labeling targets. It’s not unreasonable to assume there’s an increased risk of eye damage by friendly fire.

Tenebraex currently produces a laser filter designed for the Trijicon ACOG made under contract for the U.S. government. The idea is to protect the troop’s vision from both friendly and foe lasers but more so from sophisticated opponents in potential future conflicts.

There were published reports of Latvian troops getting eye damage, some even getting blinded, during a recent training exercise close to the Latvian-Russian border.

This is troubling as IR lasers are not visible to the naked eye during daytime. Potential laser weapons do not make any noise and can be fired discriminately from long distances without being spotted.

There are also reports of European troops getting eye damage by friendly fire from the laser rangefinders on tanks. Incidents like these are purely due to negligence, but they do occur.

Paul tells me that they are working on laser filters that will not fall under ITAR and will be made outside of the United States. Whether there will be any interest in the commercial market for this product is yet to be seen.

Part of a Family

How does Tenebraex maintain an inventory that can meet the demands of government contracts, OEM and the aftermarket? Andrew Webber tells me that he pays his employees well, over what the actual position entails. Moreover, he values each one of his employees and treats them equally regardless of their position in the company. This way when a worker foresees a potential issue, he or she can speak up, and the issue can be avoided altogether. When the company shows a profit by the end of the fiscal year, each employee is eligible for a healthy bonus. Due to these factors, turnovers are extremely low, and I can tell that the employees are happy to be working there instead of simply going through the motions of “doing the job” and getting a paycheck.

They’re also not driven by demands of double-digit growth year by year over the span of decades like many large corporations dictated by shareholders and accountants. Instead, they strive for slow, steady growth that is more realistic in todays’ globalized economy.