They can sell it at that price because some of the other scope company prices are set in the following manner:
Start of a scope line:
$500. Making a little money. Life is good.
$700. We can justify this cost increase of a scope somehow. Get on it marketing guys.
$900. Wow! They just paid that without asking where the extra $400 uptick came from. I'm going golfing.
$1100. We lost some customers that wanted a cheap scope. And now we gained some customers that think that somehow it must be better because its $1100 now. Go figure. I'll be on our private jet.
$1500. How damn stupid are people? Really? This looks like a problem for the next CEO cause I'm retiring to my private island.
$1900. We changed the knobs on the $500 scope we sold 2 years ago. They look meaner now.
$2200. Whup - actually starting to lose customers to other companies that already figured out that people that shoot guns are dumbasses.
For a better example of how this works, this is a Canon EF-L 70-200mm lens for a camera.
Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM Lens 2578A002 B&H Photo Video
1.5lbs of optics. Includes an aperture assembly, ultrasonic motor for zooming, digital computer interface with the camera. 16 finely crafted lens elements. Essentially, its a pain in the ass to make and requires a ton of RND, dev, testing, and and and and and and.
It was $709.
Are some scopes worth $2k or $3k? Maybe. Havent figured out why though. I wish I could say it was durability, but seems I've broken most of the high end scopes through the simple act of shooting guns with them attached to them.
Most scopes these days are rehashes of old scopes...reticle tweaks....the hunt for better illumination...and doing something to the knobs that wasn't all that big of a deal mostly.
I'm glad the Steiners are priced as they are because its gonna hurt the truly insane optics makers, and I've wanted to see that for quite a while.
Thats because the pricing places it 20% less than other similar scopes made in the USA. One has to wonder how these cost savings were achieved. I mean look at Nightforce 3-15 F1. It costs $2500 minus the rings and sunshade for a comparable total of $2100. This 3-15 Seiner is $400 cheaper. How? Why? Is Steiner taking a loss in order to lure customers away from Leupold or NF? Or is it cuz Steiner is able to source materials, equipment, facilities, labor more efficiently being they are a part of Beretta?