Ah, the classic EOTECH 512. It is perhaps especially fitting that we have one in for testing since it was such a star during America’s longest war. EOTech was an instant hit with the US Military and came to the attention of many of us when the GWOT started in 2001. The first true Holographic sight, EOTECH took the world by storm. If you are old enough, you may remember the ubiquitous display at gunshops of the 512 model, a bullet shot through the glass, and the reticle still alive and well. EOTECH was the choice of America’s ninjas, which pretty much made it the choice of everybody with the dollars to acquire one.
But if you ask anybody who served for a length of time during the last 20 years, they likely have a love-hate relationship with EOTECH. Like many fresh romances, EOTECH started off in a way that they could do no wrong. But that relationship soured over the years, finally had a legal separation in 2015, and you could say maybe went to counseling and reconciled around 2018.
It went something like this. The original EOTECH, whose parent company was EOTECH, was an upstart little shop out of Ann Arbor, Michigan. They solved the holographic issue and won Optic of the Year in both 1996 and 2001 (with their second-gen sight). That second date, you probably noticed, was just in time for Afghanistan to start. With the flood of funding to Special Operations Forces post-September 2001, guys started looking for any advantage they could find. And EOTECH provided just that.
The original EOTECH was like nothing else. It resembled a huge TV screen with a glowing red circle, which basically meant that you couldn’t miss at close range. The red circle had a very small center red dot, which proved to be remarkably agile at hitting small targets, even at longer ranges. You could hold an EOTECH upside down, wrong-handed, at any angle, and it still put the bullet on the target. It was basically magic, and the troops were in love.
Pretty soon, you saw EOTECHs everywhere on the battlefield. Guys with money to buy commercial off the shelf bought dozens of them. Individual soldiers bought personal ones, reasoning that $500 was a small price to pay for a better chance of surviving even if the Government didn’t seem to think so. And you saw EOTECHs on things I’m sure the designers never intended them for. I saw them on M2 50 Caliber machine guns, miniguns for both truck and aircraft, and no kidding Carl Gustav recoilless rifles. My team Bravo was actually the one to show me the EOTECH on a Carl G trick, and I was amazed at how well it worked. And I desperately wish I had a picture of it right about now.
Not only did you see an EOTECH on all those platforms, but they survived. As the GWOT years went by, the durability of the EOTECH became legendary. It was like a space-age sight baby from a tryst between Glock and Kalashnikov. They just kept going, they seemed unstoppable. EOTECH was the kid from Ann Arbor, not just in the ring with the world champions of electronic sights, but spanking them handily. These were the glory days. But then….
Tragedy struck. SOCOM had bought so many EOTECHs off the shelf they wanted a contract for every person in the command. And for reasons I don’t know, right before or after that contract was issued, EOTECH sold to L3. And then the fairy tale was over. As happens many times, the product changes when it gets sold to a mega-corporation. Corners get cut, and processes get cheapened. Which is exactly how it went with EOTECH and the 512.
Within a year of being fielded the new FDE EOTECHs, we knew we had a serious problem. They just would not stay together. Anyone that had an old black EOTECH fought tooth and nail not to turn it in, lest they be stuck with the new FDE atrocity. When I was teaching CQB for my instructor rotation, it wasn’t uncommon to break 20% of the EOTechs in a given 6-week class. Not even normal issues like it wouldn’t zero. It might never turn on again after a shooting string. Or the glass might literally fall out of the lens housing. And then, the doozy…
In 2015, the US Government sued EOTECH for civil fraud, because of thermal drift that not only happened but that EOTECH/L3 allegedly tried to cover up. Thermal drift meant that temperature variations could cause the aiming point to shift as much as a foot at 300 yards. Kind of a big deal when you might be fighting for your life with it in the Hindu Kush. EOTECH/L3 settled for $25.6 million and also had to buy back EVERY EOTECH on the market. It was absolutely bananas, but EOTECH would send you a check for MSRP if you sent them back an EOTECH of any model, no questions asked.
So why are we still talking about this? Nostalgia? Why would anybody be caught dead with an EOTech after all that? I will grant, that would be a lot of reputation damage to overcome for EOTECH/L3. But an amazing thing happened. EOTECH officially separated from L3 and is back in private hands. Not only that, but they also came back to the table with SOCOM for the latest Close Quarters sight contract and won again. You can bet EOTECH was receiving extra scrutiny, Uncle Sugar doesn’t like it much when he has to set his lawyers on you for defective products. That in itself is a very rare outcome, he usually just takes it and buys something else. So I think we can all safely gamble that the 512 is back to its old Herculean form.
And I, for one, am very happy about that. I do have fond memories of the 512, I used one for most of my career. It is a fantastic CQB sight, with a field of view few can match. It runs off AA batteries, not something exotic and hard to find in a pinch. Do I trust her fully? Not yet. But we are going to beat the absolute dog snot out of ours over the next 6 months, to find out for all of us.
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