Can you elaborate on his involvement? From my understanding, the extent of it has been (paraphrasing in my own words) "here is a list of scopes that have proven to be reliable, here are the features that would be beneficial on a reliable scope. If you build it, I will beat the shit out of it and report back with my results, good or bad". S2H coordinated the collaboration, and the scopes were actually put through more rigorous testing than the baseline standard eval that is well known, which was risky in itself if they failed.
I don't understand how that exceeds the "involvement" or "unbiased" thresholds of qualifying as 3rd party testing?
I can tell you what happens in industries that I have been directly involved with, for context on 3rd party work. Then I'll answer the question about bias and involvement.
First, the only thing that I am criticizing is ZT's used of "3rd party" on their website. If they posted something like, "a consultant verified design function" or "the scope has been validated by the team at S2H", then I wouldn't have mentioned anything.
It's totally fine that someone involved with the project did the eval. Just say that. Don't make it sound like some unaffiliated entity did it. Some may take what I wrote as an attack. I see it as a helpful suggestion, so peers and consumers take ZT and S2H more seriously.
Peers and astute consumers look at claims carefully, and it makes ZT and S2H look unprofessional or sloppy, if they didn't actually use a 3rd party. When you say "3rd party" it actually means something and you need to be careful using it with certain audiences. Especially by those who may have government contracts, or do work in a regulated field. It makes people suspicious of motives.
In product development, you have to determine and control your resources. Those are either internal or external resources. A 3rd party performing inspections, is never an internal resource. They don't get involved with any of the product development inputs like spec requirements, characteristics, or performance. They only test/inspect to the criteria provided by the client or statutory/regulatory bodies. Otherwise there could be a conflict of interest.
That stated, an internal group can be involved with design inputs and perform internal inspections/testing. A customer may or may not accept those internal activities. They may perform their own, such as a Functional Acceptance Test (FAT) or Pre-Acceptance Test. That would be 2nd Party. Or may specify certain 3rd Party inspection/testing.
When product is mission critical or life/limb are in danger, there will often be certified inspectors involved. For aerospace/defense, they are called Source Inspectors and are tracked in a database. They have no affiliation with the company that they are doing the inspections for. Would you want national defense products or dangerous goods to be inspected by a competent and independent person, or just leave it up to the manufacturer and their buddy? I had to prepare material for Source Inspectors and babysit them while they went over everything with a fine tooth comb. All of the testing had to be outsourced, but I could have done it myself, which included impact testing. We were allowed to make the product, not test it. The end customer (USGOV) required independent 3rd party testing, not internal testing.
Another example, there are regulations for pressure vessels and those are typically checked by an inspector working for an insurance company. They are not internal employees. Wouldn't you want the company making a pressure vessel to perform all their internal checks, then have someone completely outside the development path to check to make sure all their ducks are in a row so that product doesn't escape, rupture, and kill someone? You can probably see the value in having a "fresh set of eyes" look at something, right? Sometimes people get too close to a product or project, and overlook something that an outside person picks up.
Also recall that Boeing was suspended from performing "self certification". Internal teams were issuing certificates, but there was a serious cultural and systemic breakdown in the organization which led to fatal crashes. They were not independent or free of bias, and had a vested interest in certain outcomes like meeting project deadlines.
I'm not saying a consumer rifle scope is the same as weapons or pressure vessels, but I think you get my point. A 3rd party is not someone involved with the product dev.
As presented in this thread, Formi and Ryan wanted a 3-12x scope and Formi said that this particular OTS (Off The Shelf) model that LOW dusted off, exceeded their expectations. He said a ground up design would be something like 2 years. That doesn't sound like an independent 3rd party, it sounds like someone part of the project even if no money is exchanged. He has an interest in the scope that he helped spec, right?
Also, would this scope have a THLR reticle, if it weren't for Formi? I doubt it, but could be wrong.
Again, not saying that Formi would skew the results. And it seems like he's the best and only option that they have for the evals. But he's obviously part of the internal team. He's fielded product questions and provided info from LOW. He was involved with the scope configuration and reticle. The scope is being sold by Shoot2Hunt. He is a shooting coach for Shoot2Hunt, right?
It sounds like others besides Formi have evaluated the scope design. In some fields, we'd call it a Jury Evaluation. Trusted people are given samples to try, and a coordinator compiles and reports the results. It's not 3rd party, but still OK and can be an important part of product dev. That's better marketing material in my view, than making 3rd party claims.
Hope that helps, Harvey. And sorry to ramble. If you have more questions, shoot me a PM. That way we don't clutter this thread.
