Chinese optics - Athlon Optics Midas TSR3 36mm Red Dot Sights

My first two impressions upon opening this up were that its anti-reflective coating was poorly made. Then I saw the “Made in China” label.

Under the kitchen lights, I got red streaks all over from internal reflections in the optics. A bad sign. Sure enough, when I turned it on the red dot was blurred from the led light bouncing around in the optics.

You can mitigate it by turning down the illumination, but it’s ultimately not as good as my other optics. The 36mm objective is nice enough, and it’s a functional optic for my AR9 with an Echo trigger, but I wish I’d known this was made in China beforehand. Their optics and QC are simply sub-par.