Hey guys. Going to get a red dot for new ar. It is a flat top.
To see through it correctly and clearly does it have to be on some kind of riser. Or will any height red dot or reflex sight work. Thanks
A lot of that depends on your own body type. Will you be adding fold-down BUIS?
Use an empty toilet paper tube and some masking tape as a way to see if where your eye naturally goes when you shoulder the gun happens to line up with a tube low to the rail. I need some height, personally.
Just to add info regarding BUIS. If you use BUIS; you need to decide if you want them visible in the center of the red dot's field of view, or lower in that view. Since my front sight is fixed, I opted for a lower view; so I added a riser to mount my Holosun on.
I prefer a lower 1/3 mount, with or without fixed sights. It allows me for the best head position for a "run and gun" and still allows me for a decent cheek weld. YMMV. Some operators will put an even taller mount to get a more natural head position for CQB.
Typically you will see absolute co-witness mounts or lower 1/3. A flush mount might be a little too close to the rail for a comfortable stance.
All mine are fixed front sight. Since that height is about right, I co-witness my red dot.
Also, in that configuration, if the red dot is dead, I can simply keep the front sight centered and at least be shooting in the right general direction.
Which way you go in setting up your reflex and BUISs, will mostly be based on your personal preferences. You may want to try both methods to see which works best for you. We are all individuals and what may be great for some, may not work for all.
With that in mind, I also prefer to co-witness my reflex sight to my BUISs. Once the irons are zeroed, it is simply a matter of adjusting the reflex to match the irons and it should be adequately zeroed. On some reflex sighting systems, when you select a different reticle, you must re-zero it. Using a co-witness setup makes this transition much easier and insures a reflex sight of this type will still be on target. So far, this has proved to be good system for me using 2 different rifles @ 200 yards. Both were hitting the same POI after changing the reticle and making the necessary adjustments to co-witness it, again.
I have found that my eyes prefer a green dot/reticle. I have a little color vision loss, and green is much easier to see for those like me even on a bright day.
If the reflex fails, my natural shooting position will not require any adjustment when transitioning to BUISs.
I purchased the Trijicon MRO Green Dot for the same color-blindness reason, however, my Aimpoint PRO red reticle is much clearer for me. Not sure why as I am very red-green colorblind.
I prefer the back up sights in the lower 1/3 of the dot sight. The higher dot allows me to more reflexive mount the carbine for faster close in shooting.
I don't like the "busyness" of a red dot co-witnessed by a front sight at the same time.
I can see my front sight though it's in my lower field of view when using red dot. If the glass or dot becomes kaput, I just lower my cheek a tiny bit (flip up the rear sight of course) and continue.