Making holograms is wild, having done so in college. My last physics class was the light and optics course and it just so happened my professor was all about holographic technology. His bias clearly showed in his deviation from the dept curriculum, but it did make for the best and most enjoyable physics course I've taken.
considering I forgot literally 95% of my physics course. Sounds like it was worth it. I think the best thing that really stuck with me were non-curriculum stuff that a prof was truely passionate about
I created that image at 2:00. I wrote most of the wikipedia article on these sights back in the day. I had to dive into the patent drawings because there was just no non-marketing-speak information out there. They were basically secret technology at the time, and people were making wild claims about them on the internet.
@@Hoplopfheil Interestingly, if you look at the comments here, a lot of people are still attached to various rumors or marketing wank about holographic sights. The internet is what it is.
Bushnell didn't ever invent them. They were licensed under EOTech. Basically EOTech manufactured the sight and Bushnell gave them some sort if name/brand trust to help introduce the new technology into the market. From Wikipedia: The first-generation holographic sight was introduced by EOTech-then an ERIM subsidiary-at the 1996 SHOT Show, under the trade name HoloSight by Bushnell.
@@frankopanklaric also more prone to breaking if, completely useless if lens gets cracked, holographic sights have there uses and that's why they are held in high regard
This is the kind of content I love and why I'm subscribed. When it comes to guns, there's ample historical resources on just about everything from the 19th century onward. But for optics like these, there's not many ways to learn about them. I was watching another video of a very interesting thermal sight from the mid 2000s, and the company that made it was defunct and the guy making the video had to search high and low to find one guy on the internet who had a connection to that company and was able to send him the manual, but he wasn't able to even track down the power supply. It was still a fascinating watch to me. There's just something that makes me truly appreciate ForgottenOptics.
Interesting to see that not much has really changed fundamentally in 30 years. Kind of makes you wonder where they've been hoarding the good "futuristic" tech from us and what we're actually capable of now
some additional cool info, reflector sight was invented all the way back in 1900. some german planes equipped them in 1918, but they really took off in the 1930s in aircraft and some naval guns. The original inventor knew it had potential as a replacement for iron sights back when it was invented, but at the time it was too large to mount to a rifle. Some spitfires even had a reflector sight that utilized a gyroscope to help pilots estimate lead.
That rising tracer is really fuckin cool, didn't even know it was possible. Makes you wonder why nobody in the competition sphere picked up the concept
I still have a couple of those original Bushnells and a handful of reticles, the one minute dot is great on a carbine, I was at that SHOT show and the no parallax compared to what was available back then was ground breaking. The main disadvantage was the weight compared to the CMore but the windage and elevation adjustments worked like the should and it was more reliable than any other red dot sight. I wish the interchangeable reticle feature would have continued as you mentioned you can switch and not lose zero.
I’ve seen a few of those old bushnell holo’s for sale. Can’t believe they lasted this long and still work. I was unaware that the lens could be swapped out like that. Very cool!
Tbh this was way cooler of a vid than I expected! Didn’t have my hopes up when I read Bushnell but I was happily surprised and the history was really interesting. Good stuff
It's coming. Liru Optics which is basically the Chinese CCP military optic research does have a true eotech clone. Only downside is they cost more than a real eotech.
No Holographic sight from Holosun yet but I know of a Chinese company called Laserspeed that makes two models (XL-EL3 and XL-EL4). QMQ-171 is another Chinese Holo sight and the Lindu one also exists like the other guy said. These are true Holo sights and not your knockoff LED reflector type of stuff.
Based on the fact vortex is the only ones that seem to have made anything close in 20 years and that seems to be a poor attempt odds arent looking good
I've got one of these on a gooseneck mount on a retro build and I love the thing. This and the gen 2 are pretty good for holographic sights that you can get for $3-400. Plus they're just neat and got that funky 90s look.
I’m definitely not a “back in the good old days” kinda guy, but you have to know where you came from to know where you are and where you’re going. And some of that old stuff is very cool, and was seriously cutting edge for its time. Good stuff as always, Hop.
The rising tracer reticle is so cool. In a way it could be brought back as a way of aiming with nods if you use a higher riser. It can be utilized as a pseudo active aiming device. Especially if without the half circle to distract from the tracer beam.
I absolutely love Hop’s videos. There’s always at least 3-4 times throughout every video where he says something smart ass that makes me smile or even chuckle slightly but what your for sure to get fro Hop is an honest opinion about what he’s speaking on. No schilling for manufacturers with Hop
I actually really, really like that rising reticle style. I feel like that bottom post - set to be the 7 yard zero - could be a real winner; especially under NV or with PCC's and Shotguns. It's also important to note that because of how HWS react under magnifiers, there could be potential for different zeroes under magnification; for this purpose. Someone smarter than me would have to come up with that.
Hey hop! Been watching your stuff for a while now and really appreciate you down to earth, pick apart review or talking style. We don’t get that much on RU-vid besides you and brass. Now, given your review of many other prism optics. And you love for acogs, have you tried or have any plans to try the SIG bravo 5? Huge field of view, a little more the the TA31 in fact, even being a 5x. And nice looking reticle with bdc, and honestly quite good glass quality for its price range. I’ve had one since they came out and haven’t seen many serious reviews on the thing besides people just reading the selling points on screen and calling it a review. I have two of them now, and would love to send you one to use and pick apart on your channel. I love your reviews and would love to help feed your channel some more content! Let me know if you’re interested!
I saw that exact ad with the custom reticle for Bruce Piatt on a copy of Guns and Ammo nagazine waaaaaaay back. Also the same mag where the back cover was an ad for that Bushnell Holo-sight with a caption that said "The damnest thing I had ever seen". Apparently uttered by a shooter who saw one for the first time.
I've never actually seen one of those before. Very neat. And yeah, they really did nail it first try. We were issued the M68 CCO but after a guy in our unit bought his own Eotech we were all instantly hooked. I think most of our guys just liked how cool and sci-fi they seemed but they really are just superior sights.
I would love this style of video on the RingSight that original P90s included. They're outdated tech but apparently ridiculously rugged. And you could get picatinny mounts for them.
This was a really cool piece of history. Something I would almost expect on Forgotten Weapons. Now we just EOtech to figure out how to make a smart holographic sight. That uses the thermal signature of an object to highlight targets in your field of view, with a holographic outline. And a self adjusting reticle for your range to the target. Just need to figure out some kind of smart lens for the optic and the possibilities are endless. Kind of scary to think about.
This video coming up right now is so bizarre to me because I just picked up a pair of gen 1 Eotech's (with the metal hood) Nice to see some decent content on this sight, as both mine are made in 1999. When I called Eotech they had very little information for me.
Probably had to do with L3 Harris acquisition. Historical info gets washed aside all the time in Mergers & Acquisitions because people only care about Legal Day 1 and forward post acquisition.
I run the Gen. 2 holographic site by Bushnell to this day on my AR platform. I initially started out with it on my Romanian WASR 7.62 by 39. It's got at least 10000 rounds through it on that rifle alone. Once that rifle's barrel was done I transferred the holographic Bushnell Gen. 2 onto my stag arms model one flat top and it still sits there to this day. I run a gun mostly with Marine buddies of mine so we are absolutely putting this site to work. We run bumping and Is bounding exercises, etc.... it is absolutely seen hell and back. All the jar heads I shoot with initially gave me flack about running the site but now they are absolutely on board with the quality, also one of my good buddies works for Eotech in the metro Detroit area. He's impressed, and it's still running side by side with current models. Awesome video really like this one, thanks for making it!
That swappable reticle is a feature i’d like to see more often. We definitely need more BDC options in this space. i actually have two Holosun HS503Gs that work pretty well, though I wouldn’t mind a holographic version of them.
As someone who really loves holosight tech (they work with my eyes better, and look great behind a magnifier), I hope they push something forward at some point. For right now I'm more than satisfied with the EXPS/500 series optics I own, but you'd be a fool to not want things to get better.
This is the best explanation of the holo sight I’ve seen so far. I tried to search for “how holographic sights work” and this video was no where near the top of the search results. It only popped up in my recommendations later. Those in my search results, including some from the big channels, dumbed down on the audience so much and didn’t even try to explain the difference between red dots and holo sights other than saying the latter is slightly more accurate.
This was the best video discussing holographic sights (EOTECHS) I've ever come across. I'm sorry I didn't click quicker. A lot of time and research went into this. Thanks
Was glad to see Vortex jump in to the ring with EoTech. Hopefully they will improve the Huey with clearer glass, a better dimming method (not through refresh rate), and better features like shake awake! Then EoTech will really be forced to innovate!!!
I still have one of those original Bushnell sights. It was my first electronic optic on an AR and stood HD duty for many years until I could afford better. It's put away somewhere, but last time I checked, it still worked. I also have three of the Gen 2s. I still use two of them. One doesn't work because the batteries leaked. These all went through batteries like crazy. Oddly, they even killed batteries when they were turned off. I learned to remove the batteries when the gun gets put away. Great reticle though and they always held zero.
All this talk about MAgic lasers and VCR's is really showing your age my friend. This is a level of production and knowledge that I can never hope to achieve. Mainly because im retarded.
Hell yeah, I have a super mint 450LE that I got a few years ago and I always wanted to know the history and development of it before it became the Eotechs we know today.
Very cool, I never knew that. I have a memory of being in a pawn shop around 2000-ish and there was a gun with an optic that was kind of like a red dot. It was tubular like a sawed off scope shape and required both eyes open. There wasnt a screen to look through. One eye would focus on the red dot in the tube while the other focused on the target and together it superimposed the dot onto the target and made an optical illusion where the view was as if the dot was simply floating in the air wherever you looked. I remember thinking it was super badass and some high tech black ops alien shit or something, lol. It was super cool but I have no idea what it's called
@@robertm8401 beat me to it! "Mac" over at Military Arms Channel done a video with one, going over the history, theory behind the technology and technique, and even using it on some guns to do some target shooting/plinking
Awesome! I have one of these. It’s never been mounted and is still in the box! I bought it to put on a Buckmark but have never gotten around to putting it on it. Kind of embarrassing that I have owned it for 30 years and have never used it.
I've got two of the second gen Bushnell sights... Paid 400 for the first one at the time it was relevant. The second one I got in trade a few years ago. They both still work, and surprisingly well.
I was on excursion in university nonlinear optics lab once where they produce and explained to us how the holograms like this one is made. I was so curious where it can be used and this is the great example
Chevron with BDC + the ability to switch to plain chevron, plain dot, or circle chevron or circle dot. This seems like it should have already been made long ago.
My grandfather gifted my one of his old Hoytt bows when I was younger and outgrew my childhood bow. On the bow was one of these Bushnell Holos by EoTech. It cool seeing a video on one of these relics years later.
You clearly did zero research. The very first hologram sights were metal protrusions on barrels that, when aligned, would indicate the general direction of the bullet. The second hologram sight was Tupac performing at Coachella in 2012. Disappointed.
I remember when this first came out thinking it was just some sort of gimick for boomers who bought SOF magazine, had $19.95 jungle boots and a collection of dumb Rambo knives. It took me at least 15 years to at least try to conceive why they should be used just like my reluctance to use smart phones cuz nobody actually calls you anymore. Now it turns out that LPVOs are better so we've come full circle back to just slapping a 3-9x40 on your rifle and admitting this is the best option for SHTF. In the meantime we all made these fuckers rich so their roided up kids can have $50k worth of dumb tattoos and their wives can go to the maul for 8 hours a day.
I had one of these I picked up at a gun show for next to nothing ages ago. but it wasn't exactly the same. it had L3 branding, and was actually meant to be used on a sight arm for a bow/crossbow where the adjustment was built in to the mounting arm itself. what was super cool about it was that it had a concentric ring reticle where the rings were on different optical planes. this resulted in a simulated front and rear sighting ring solution, letting you visibly tell if you weren't square behind the optic. This is something I would love to see in a modern optic, but understand the complexity wouldn't probably be worth the cost for most people.
This video has been up a few months but I just watched it for the first time last night. Later I had nothing going on so I started a rewatch of Ronin (the DeNiro one). The scene where Gregor has double-crossed the group and stolen the case then meets with the Russian for the exchange - he has one of these old holographics on his pistol when he shoots at the playground and eventually the dude in the car. Fun fact I’ve never noticed before this vid.
I feel enlightened finally knowing and being able to adequately explain why a holo sight is a holo sight and why a red dot is a red dot. That explanation also rejuvenates my idea for jamming an entire rifle reticle optimized for 6x zoom into a holosight and using a variable magnifier for longer ranges, just because I find the idea neat and nothing else. I really hope the technology evolves further. Holosights shouldn't be as premium as they are.
Seeing this video and hit the reticles are changed, it made me realize that this is simply just a hologram viewer, and that clear plate is the hologram. It's almost criminal that they don't use the 3D nature more than pinning Infinity.
Awesome history, I've been wondering why my gen 2 Bushnell eotech had that funky custom tombstone reticle, and after a while I thought it was a fake since i never found any evidence of this tombstone reticle in existence.
I don't care about building a fighting rifle but these videos about sights and optics are fascinating as hell. And thank you for not making it a 20 minute video with a bunch of pointless rambling
You brought up the biohazard eotech and it reminded me that my father has one on his benelli m4. He says that the biohazard symbol makes for a good all around shotgun sight but I have no way to prove that at the moment.
Speaking of old and weird, I have an old Aimpoint Electronic Mk3. Not super rare, can be had for around $200-250 on eBay, but pretty cool. The Aimpoint electronic series was the predecessor to the T1, so it’s like the grandfather of all modern RDSes (obviously the occluded dot sight would be its predecessor)
I had this concept for a sight and I kinda wondered how it would work. A simple rod of green tritium held with a plate of glass on either end of it, and little bright red dot painted on the rear plate of glass. My theory was that you'd know if you're aiming it straight based on whether or not you could see the tritium. If you're aiming correctly, the dot should block the tritium rod. If you aren't, the tritium rod will be visible from the side of the dot. Plus side; no batteries required. I love it when a sight is unique and doesn't need a power source. It also wouldn't even need much of a frame. Something like plexiglass is probably strong enough to protect the tritium from damage. If it's good enough for tactical goggles and glasses, it's probably fine on your gun too. So in that case you have full visibility through the sight.
I like those vintage red dots, I just got me an Aimpoint Electronic 3 and a Swiss Kern RV designed for STANAG-mounts. It was used by the German GSG-9 on MP5s years back.
This sight is really cool. I picked one up at a local shop recently. Made in Jan. 1998 serial numbers in the 34s. Didn't get any other reticles though with mine.
I had the privilege to make my own holograms in college. it is so cool to hear about how the integration of this left behind tech in photography was later utilized into weapons sighting systems.
cool video and cool optic. have you thought about looking at some older occluded eye gunsights? they are some of the weirdest and most impractical gun accessories I have ever seen.
