ar-15, accuracy, opticsI have a Colt Match Target AR-15 rifle. It’s got the fixed carry handle. I have a somewhat inexpensive red dot style aperture sight. I think it looks kind of goofy way up high on the handle, but so far it seems to function fine. Does mounting the optics higher off the barrel make it less accurate? I’ve seen other AR-15 rifles that don’t have the fixed carry handle, that have their optics mounted lower on the weapon. I think this looks a lot better aesthetically, but are there other reasons it’s better or worse?
It does look a bit goofy, but there’s no effect on accuracy. Having a sight mounted “far off” the bore axis is OK, though there are a few quirks:
To expand on the last point a bit. If your sightline is three inches above your boreline and you are zeroed at 100 yards, when you shoot at 50 yards you’ll find the bullet to be about 1.5” below your aiming point; when you shoot at 20 yards you’ll find the bullet to be about two and a half inches below your aiming point. The most “interesting” situation of all is when you set up a chronograph 3 yards in front of you and carefully set things up so that you don’t shoot your chrono - if you forget that at extreme close range your bullet is actually 3” lower than your line of sight, you might end up putting a bullet through your chrono even though your sight picture showed that you were going to clear it.
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