Back in the early 90's, I remember seeing ads for Lightforce scopes in Precision Shooting. Then it became Nightforce Scopes. I remember thinking what kid came up with those names? Back then the gossip was that the company was Australian, but was having scopes made under contract in Japan. (a business model that seems to be pretty popular these days with China manufacturing - Vortex, et al).
Despite my skepticism, Nightforce has flourished put out great offerings and at the very least are now "naturalized" American.
Yes, they were originally sold in Australia under the name Lightforce. The Aussies used them for night time kangaroo hunting. When they came to the U.S. market, they originally retained the Lightforce name, then it was Lightforce USA and finally Nightforce. A local shop was one of the original U.S. dealers so I got to see a lot of them. The Lightforce fixed power 15-56 with the NP2RR reticle was very popular in my area with fox and coyote hunters.
Hakko had a scope that was externally identical to the original Lightforce scopes but were no where near the optical or tracking quality. A lot of those were sold through Autagua Arms in Alabama.
Benchrest competitor Turk Takano was primarily responsible for bringing the March scopes to life and into the U.S. through his connections in Japan, where he was a leading writer for Japan's biggest gun publication. He had relocated to Texas and worked with the principles that founded Deon Optics.
Just a brief overview.... -Al
