I read the article you linked to because I am interested in buying a PA sight. I have a couple of problems with the article. Aside from the obvious issues with badly installed sights (no lock-tite) and not checking his equipment before a competition (who doesn't check their stuff when they want to win?) I did see a couple of real issues namely the complete failure of one sight and the failure of another to turn on when jostled as it is designed to do. My other problems are that the sample size is very small and the second is that he seems to want to compare these sights to equipment costing far more. How could anyone expect the same level of quality when one sight costs 5 times as much as the other or more? I also noticed some anti-Chinese bias in the article. Obviously you can buy a lot of junk from China. I've seen lots of American junk too (think Ford Maverick). It's not set in stone that Chinese stuff will be worse. I have some quality firearms that were made in China and one of them is an SKS which he singled out for abuse for what reason I don't know. I've put many thousands of rounds through my SKS with less than 2 dozen failures which were all either ammo related or caused by modifications I made to the rifle (once I removed the modified parts the rifle went back to working perfectly). That's a record hard to achieve by any company. I have some firearms with fantastic reputations that have not done as well (a Sig P220 for example - although it has been great 99% of the time it did have a spring wear out around 15,000 rounds and it had issues - my SKS has more rounds through it and has not had similar issues).

I'm not about to say the SKS is the be all and end all of firearms but most of them are very dependable. Accuracy isn't the best but they aren't really bad either. I upgraded to an AR for obvious reasons but I have to say that I modified my SKS to take detachable mags the first day I bought it i 1992 and they have never once caused a problem. But they are slow to change out.

My point (I knew there was one in this rambling mess somewhere) is that "inexpensive" doesn't always mean bad and neither does "Chinese". I just wish the article dealt more with actual issues than generalizations.

While I think it would be foolish to depend solely on a PA sight for SD I am not so down on using a PA with iron sights for backups. Those rarely fail.

I think of a Mercedes vs. a VW. The Mercedes has a much better reputation for durability but the VW was actually almost legendary for lasting many thousands of miles and at a small fraction of the cost of a Benz. Mainly I'm just not impressed with the idea that you must spend more money to get quality (that isn't always true) or the idea that Chinese equals bad quality. My SKS isn't my only Chinese firearm that works very well.

I'd love to see a study with significant numbers of samples from both the PA sights and the major brands that cost far more. I know from what I've read that the PA's won't be equal to an aimpoint or whatever but exactly how bad they are would be good to know. Some of us just plain can't afford a $500 sight for every rifle or shotgun. I have been lucky enough to own a few high dollar scopes but I have health issues that drain my finances.

I do appreciate the effort people here put into helping people out with good advice. I have learned enough to know trusting your life to a PA is a bad idea. But the question I have is the PA a bad idea for the price that it brings. I have quality sights I can depend on for most of my HD type weapons. I just can't afford a high dollar sight right now and I have a gun that has no sight. I'm wondering do I sell the gun or buy an inferior sight to make do until the time comes I can buy a better sight as long as I'm not counting on that sight for SD purposes.