I seriously doubt US costs/wages are higher than Japan, Germany or Austria. Indeed, I suspect regulatory costs/mandates are higher than in the US.
You going to pay $800 or more for a run of the mill Leupold like you do a Swarovski? You’re paying as much for little eagle as you are the features. Put the same scope with a gold ring and people would find reasons not to buy it.
And then are you going to buy a Leupold that was built in a Japanese factory with some design specs that were simply forwarded to Japan for them to build like ATK or whoever it was owned Weaver did? Weaver got to cut much of the costs of design, research and development, and the factory because that Japanese factory was building scopes and other optical items for companies all over the world. And, of course, Weaver pretty much went out of business as have lots of these companies having scopes built in Japan because they can’t compete with Chinese scopes.
