We here at TFB have covered a variety of crowd-funded products over the years. Nathan S and other writers have shown that various technologies lend themselves well to crowdfunding and we are pleased to see a few of those projects have indeed succeeded, making it through development and out to the market.

However, there is one idea I have seen hit IndieGoGo that I cannot recommend one buy – the FlipSight. In short, the Flip Sight is a single piece of glass bedded into a large rear sight, Designed to be stowed, it can be folded up to get a red-dot-esque sight picture. However, in its current form, there are major problems.

1. The single lens will likely not work. While the IndieGoGo campaign does not state the technology used to create the sight picture, the glass will likely just be etched with the reticle. While a good idea on its surface, this will have massive parallax issues.
2. Location of the reticle is almost 3/4″ above the bore. Those who shoot with red-dots know the higher it is above the bore, the harder it is to find – especially without the reference point of the iron sights to help guide one (which are not in the same plane)
3. The iron sights themselves are massively high, either requiring suppressor height front sights or requiring complete replacement of the sights.
4. My hat is off to the inventory for admitting that he does not have the CNC machines or much of the equipment to make this a reality – its a rare moment of honesty on the always-positive crowd-funding scene, but this is in and of itself a huge risk. The inventory does not go into any detail on how to mitigate this, his knowledge of managing cash flows, or production management. The only thing shown are crude prototypes, which does not inspire confidence.

As such, I cannot in good confidence, recommend anyone fund this sight in its current form.

However, I will encourage the inventor to refine it. He may be onto something with the single lens and no emitter, especially if using a prism of similar optical tool to remove the parallax issue.