Innovation Above All

Trijicon constantly pushes forward with ground-breaking product.

Stephen Bindon has been with Trijicon since the beginning, helping his father, Glyn Bindon, build some of the earliest products the company brought to market. An engineer by trade, he has held the role of President and CEO of Trijicon since 2003 and continues to prioritize the pursuit of innovation that has defined the 40-year history of the company.

SHOT Business: What do you see as the biggest challenges facing the industry in the next five years?

Stephen Bindon: A key component of our business is producing high-quality scopes for hunting rifles. However, the hunting participation rates in the U.S. have been in decline as the younger generations are not taking up hunting at the pace their parents did. As an industry, we need to find ways to encourage outreach to young people with an interest in hunting to make sure they can find a mentor to help them get started. The NSSF is doing good work in this area with their +ONE program, but there is always more we can do. We have a lot of passionate hunters at Trijicon, and we want to see this country’s strong heritage of hunting passed on to the next generation.

SB: What opportunities do you see?

SB: Firearm manufacturing processes have improved in the last decade to a point where even entry-level price-point firearms are capable of shooting incredibly accurately. This presents an opportunity for high-quality optics manufacturers to enable users to extract all of the potential accuracy out of their firearm that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to with a lesser grade of optic. We sometimes liken it to buying a highly capable sports car, but putting the cheapest available import tires on it—you’re not going to get the performance out of the car that you could with quality tires. 

SB: When you get up in the morning, what gets you excited about working in the industry?

SB expertise that goes into a product like a miniature red-dot sight, you see how far capabilities have come.

SB: In a very competitive world, how does Trijicon stay ahead of the pack?

SB: Since day one, Trijicon has been committed to innovation in the aiming solutions market. Tritium-powered night sights; tritium and fiber illumination in the ACOG and AccuPoint; the first miniature red dot small enough and tough enough to survive riding on a pistol slide. The list goes on and on. Trijicon maintains our leadership position in the industry by committing the resources needed to constantly push toward what’s next.

SB: How will you meet the expectations of your customers?

SB: We design all our products for use in the harshest environments in the world. This commitment comes from our decades of military contracts across a range of our products, but it extends to everything we make. Whether our customer is going on the hunt of a lifetime or defending their life in a personal defense situation, we want them to know they can count on their Trijicon optic to perform regardless of the conditions.

SB: The ACOG made the company’s reputation. What qualities allowed it to do this?

SB: From the beginning, the ACOG went against what optical experts said was possible, but my father had an idea and he worked on it until he perfected it. The prism-based design built within a forged aluminum housing proved to be incredibly durable while providing a level of magnification well suited to the M16 with which it was initially paired. The addition of fiber and tritium illumination enabled the sight to offer battery-free any-light aiming, which is a significant advantage for a battle optic. That illumination also enabled what has come to be known as the Bindon Aiming Concept which involves shooting a magnified optic with both eyes open to increase accuracy and situational awareness. These features have resulted in the ACOG being deployed in more battlefields than any other optic in the world. 

SB: Thermal imaging is a hot product area. You have a pair of recently updated riflescopes here—the REAP-IR and the IR-HUNTER. What makes them special?

SB: Our REAP and HUNTER lines of thermal scopes offer hunters the highest resolution thermal night vision in a housing that’s built to handle the rough conditions of night hunting. We make our thermal scope housings from the same forged aluminum as our ACOGs so that every inadvertent drop or stray rain shower isn’t followed by a warranty claim. Having a high-resolution thermal scope doesn’t do you any good if it can’t survive the recoil and hard use of a season of hunting. 

SD: You recently launched two new red dot sights, the RMR HD and the RCR. What’s the difference and why would someone pick one over the other?

SB: The RMR HD is the next generation of the RMR. We took all the feedback we’ve gotten from users in the five years since the current generation RMR launched and put that into the RMR HD. It has a top-loading battery, larger visible window, and a segmented circle reticle as well as a simple dot. It also offers a forward-facing light sensor that detects the light level at the target and adjusts the reticle to the appropriate brightness when in auto mode; this is particularly helpful when using a pistol-mounted weapon light. The goal was to continue to evolve the RMR and maintain its position as the standard for duty use.

The RCR is essentially a sealed-emitter version of the RMR. It maintains the patented RMR shape for durability while enclosing the emitter window for use in particularly harsh conditions where there is concern that the emitter window could become obscured. The most interesting thing our engineers were able to do with the RCR is develop a method for the optic to mount with a standard RMR footprint. They utilized a capstan screw system that tightens from the side to avoid having the type of additional plate used in other sealed emitters that require the sight to sit higher on the firearm. This means that not only can the RCR fit on any slide or plate set up for the RMR, but it can also use the same height co-witness iron sights as the RMR. Both optics offer an incredibly durable aiming solution; which one is right for a particular user really depends on what features are most important for their application. (trijicon.com)