Trijicon, Inc. ( ) is an

America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

n manufacturing company based in

Wixom, Michigan Wixom is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 13,498 at the 2010 census. As a western suburb of Metro Detroit, Wixom is about northwest of the city of Detroit. The city was home to the now-demolished Wix ...

that designs and distributes sighting devices for

firearm A firearm is any type of gun designed to be readily carried and used by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see Legal definitions). The first firearms originated in 10th-century China, when bamboo tubes ...

s including

pistol A pistol is a handgun, more specifically one with the chamber integral to its gun barrel, though in common usage the two terms are often used interchangeably. The English word was introduced in , when early handguns were produced in Europe, a ...

rifle A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves ( rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with ...

s and

shotgun A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge known as a shotshell, which usually discharges numerous small pellet-like spherical sub- pr ...

s. Trijicon specializes in self-luminous

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultrav ...

and night sights, mainly using the low-energy tritium illumination, light-gathering

fiber optics An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass (silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair. Optical fibers are used most often as a means t ...

and

battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

-powered LED. Additionally, Trijicon is a contractor for the

United States military The United States Armed Forces are the military forces of the United States. The armed forces consists of six service branches: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force, and Coast Guard. The president of the United States is ...

and supplies the

Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight The Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight (ACOG) is a series of prismatic telescopic sights manufactured by Trijicon. The ACOG was originally designed to be used on the M16 rifle and M4 carbine, but Trijicon has also developed ACOG accessories for o ...

(ACOG) and RX01 reflex sights. The ACOG, Reflex, TriPower, AccuPoint and Night Sights are available to military,

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term ...

and civilian markets. The company's name "Trijicon" comes from combining " tritium", a

radioisotope A radionuclide (radioactive nuclide, radioisotope or radioactive isotope) is a nuclide that has excess nuclear energy, making it unstable. This excess energy can be used in one of three ways: emitted from the nucleus as gamma radiation; transferr ...

hydrogen Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-to ...

that is the key element utilised in the company's reticle illumination technology, and "

icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The mos ...

", meaning picture or image; the

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...

"j" was added to help syllabically blend the two words into one portmanteau word. Additionally, the "iji" in Trijicon mimics the "three-dot" design of the Bright & Tough™ Night Sights that was being manufactured when the company was renamed in 1985.

History

Trijicon was founded in 1981 by Glyn Bindon as Armson USA, the sole US importer and distributor of the Armson OEG. The Armson OEG was an occluded-type

gunsight A sight is an aiming device used to assist in visually aligning ranged weapons, surveying instruments or optical illumination equipments with the intended target. Sights can be a simple set or system of physical markers that have to be align ...

that used tritium and fiber optics in its construction and was manufactured in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring coun ...

. It was created in 1981 and reached shops in 1983. The gunsight became popular due to its variety of mounting systems for popular rifles and shotguns. In 1985 Bindon reorganized the company as Trijicon and began manufacture of night sights for pistols. Trijicon introduced a tritium-illuminated

telescopic sight A telescopic sight, commonly called a scope informally, is an optical sighting device based on a refracting telescope. It is equipped with some form of a referencing pattern – known as a '' reticle'' – mounted in a focally appropriate ...

for the US Military called the TA01 4x32

(ACOG) in 1987.

Controversy

On January 18, 2010,

ABC News ABC News is the news division of the American broadcast network ABC. Its flagship program is the daily evening newscast '' ABC World News Tonight with David Muir''; other programs include morning news-talk show '' Good Morning America'', '' ...

reported that Trijicon was placing references to

Biblical The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of ...

verses on the side of the ACOG sights sold to the

. Legal and religious organizations spoke out against the practice and Trijicon subsequently ceased the practice and provided customers with kits to remove the Bible verse numbers from existing scopes.

References

External links

*
Trijicon AccuPoint
''Shooting Times'' magazine Firearm manufacturers of the United States Firearm sights Optics manufacturing companies Privately held companies based in Michigan {{US-manufacturing-company-stub

History

Controversy

See also

References

External links