TRUGLO has steadily grown and expanded its offerings since it was founded some 13 years ago. What began as a simple desire to improve the aiming pins on bow sights through the use of fiber optics has led to an array of additional products.

Tru-Brite 3-9X 44mm

Today TRUGLO still offers sights and accessories for bows, but it also makes sights for firearms. The company's bread-and-butter products are still fiber optic related, but TRUGLO also recently introduced economical red dot sights and magnified optics. Interested to see just how well these would perform I decided to take a closer look at this relatively new company.

I arranged to interview Paul LoRocco, the founder of TRUGLO. LoRocco has a very busy schedule but obliged me by providing a peek into how and why his company came into being.

LoRocco's background is in industrial/product design, and he has worked around the world. About 15 years ago he took up archery--and got the bug bad. Unfortunately fading eyesight held back his competitive nature. It's a grim fact of life that as we get older our eyesight begins to degrade. LoRocco wasn't about to go quietly.

Rather than adapting to hard-to-see sight pins on his bow he set out to improve them. But how? After some head scratching, he looked into fiber optics. For those of you unfamiliar with how fiber optics work, light is absorbed into the body of the fiber and channeled out the ends. Depending upon the ambient light, the ends of the fiber glow brightly. Best of all, no batteries or power source are required. The fiber simply absorbs any available ambient light and directs it to where it can be seen.

LoRocco eventually found the particular fiber optic technology that best suited his needs and then used it to build a bow sight. The result was an easy-to-see aiming point that was quick to pick up and very distinct. LoRocco realized he was onto something, and he and his daughter Lorraine formed TRUGLO in 1993. In the early days it was just the two of them doing everything from taking orders to assembling sights and shipping them out the door.

LoRocco confided he borrowed from his insurance policy to get the company up and running.

His gamble paid off. Fiber optic technology revolutionized bow sights, and TRUGLO fiber optic sights proved to be hugely popular with archers. As TRUGLO grew the company began to look at other uses for the technology. Next they began to develop sights for shotguns, which led to their turkey sights. Handgun and rifle sights soon followed. Now, I have a confession, when I first had a chance to paw over TRUGLO's firearm sights I dismissed them as being a gimmick.

This attitude lasted until I had a chance to actually use them during a Primedia Editorial Roundtable at PASA Park in Barry, Illinois. As I remember, the sights were mounted onto a Springfield match pistol built by Springfield's custom shop. My initial reaction was shock. I mean, that front sight was bright! It soon became obvious that concentrating on the front sight is dramatically easier when it's bright enough to really catch your attention. Although I wasn't instantly turned into a Robbie Leatham-class shooter, I was impressed by how the fiber optic sights performed in bright sunlight.