Rifle Scopes What happened to Premier?

[USMCsean]

I started into the long range game fairly recently. Surely, compared to many here. I am in the habit of building clones and I see a lot of Premiers were used on USMC M110s. I also know they are no longer in business? Can anyone shed some light as to why?

I would have guessed that a company with a pretty exclusive contract for military scopes would have been pretty solvent. But apparently not.

 

[Lowlight]

It's very detailed and a lot of quite personal in nature. So suffice to say, the contract was actually shared between S&B and Premier. S&B used the reticle and US company as part of the contract. Shortly into it, complaints about the scope started to roll in. S&B blamed Premier, they blamed back and S&B was removed. Rather than resubmit the USMC awarded them as replaces when necessary so it was not a complete contract.

Tangent Theta nows owns the brand and their scope is an upgraded Premier +, so there is still some DNA left.

 

[nn8734]

From what I gather, product and financial mismanagement. They dissolved earlier this decade and Armement Technologies Inc. bought all of Premier’s assets including intellectual property and production equipment. Owner of ATI, Steven Webber, then started Tangent Theta (TT) and began producing evolved Premier like scopes with numerous improvements. TT kept Premier’s chief technician Paul Lange on the payroll to continue to service Premier scopes in Winchester VA until 2015 or 2016 after which they let him go. He is now with schmidt bender.

TT still honors warranties on Premier scopes but no longer repairs any scopes. The scopes covered under warranty (must have been sold through ATI’s Distribution network) can be traded in for 80% of their retail value toward the purchase of a tangent theta scope. scopes not sold in the network can be traded in at $1000 toward a TT scope.

 

[USMCsean]

Are you aware of any other scopes used on the USMC M110 than the same two used on the M40s?

 

[nn8734]

Not sure if asking LL or me but I am building an M110 or Mk11 Mod 0/1 clone (still deciding between those) and researching issue scopes as well. So far, I haven’t come across info about any other scopes issued with M110s in general at any time. LL may have additional info...

 

[locobob]

I pay some attention to the topic as a early SR-25 owner, from the "in the wild" pics I've seen: Most Mod 0's and M110's are wearing Leupold LRT 3.5-10's, I believe some SEAL's used Nightforce 3-15 F1's, I see mostly Premier and S&B on the Marine MK11 Mod1's. I've also seen a few KAC's with what appears to be a Bushnell 3-21 of some sort, not sure what branch, I want to say Coast Guard maybe?

 

[nn8734]

I also thought I remember reading somewhere that some of the Mk11 Mod 0s issued to seals and T1 units had a FFP version of the black Mark 4 3.5-10 x 40 with a gen 2 mildot (those Lupy scopes were modified by Premier) but don’t quote me on that.