There is no getting around the fact that quality optics like red-dots can be expensive. While some red-dots can be had for well under $100, most shooters would not expect to take one that had been zeroed off the gun, throw it across the range, remount it and expect it to work — or even hold zero.

A red-dot that will stand that kind of abuse just costs more, but how much more do you have to spend to get a sight that can stand up to the abuse to which most shooters subject their equipment? Jason Wilson of Lucid Gear says that you don’t have to spend $500, $600 or more.

Wilson is an experienced optics engineer who founded Lucid Gear in 2009 to make a reasonably priced red-dot sight with the features military and police need. Located in Riverton, Wyoming, Wilson designs and tests his red-dots and backs them up with a lifetime warranty against manufacturer defects. He tells me his equipment is built to withstand the recoil of a .458 SOCOM, and that in tests he has dropped an AR from over his head onto the ground so it lands on the optic — and it doesn’t lose zero.

Most AR users won’t intentionally do that, but it would be good to know that if accidentally dropped on the red-dot sight, the optic will keep working.

And he’s been able to keep the price at a much more affordable $229 to $259.