co-witness

[dezmick]

ok this may be a dumb ? but does co-witness mean with both the front and back sites or just the front or back, i have the stock sites on my new M&P 15-22 A1. i am thinking about getting the mbus sites but want to wait until i decide on the red dot i am going to go with. Thanks

[Rustpot]

Cowitness means you can see the sights as well as the red dot. Magnified optics and certain mounts will not allow the use of iron sights.

This is a picture I've posted a few times. It's the "lower 1/3" cowitness from a tall mount. A medium mount will give an "absolute cowitness" with the sights in the center, and a low mount may not be able to cowitness.


This is with a set of MBUS sights, which are the same height as the normal 15-22 sights (both are standard AR sights). You can see how flipping both down will give a very clear, and much less interrupted field of view, but if you need the iron sights they're not blocked and can be easily used.

[dezmick]

thanks for all the help rustpot, i more than likely will end up getting the m4 and mbus sites as well, that seams to be the best way to go

[chuck s]

A co-witnessed dot will appear at the tip of the front sight when looking thru the iron sights. It's how these sights should be setup. Take your zeroed rifle and just position the dot at the tip of the sight and *** Poof *** the dot is zeroed too.

After that point look over the iron sights and just put the Red Dot of Death(tm) on target.

Takes a riser or a high mount to get co-witnessed.

Inexpensive Tasco red dot on riser:



Inexpensive aimpoint clone on high mount:



Expensive Aimpoint CompM (M68 COO) on mount and forward rail (original M4 Carbine)



And, no, you do not have to remove the front sight to use properly mounted optics. C79 (ELCAN) on standard CF-issue base.



-- Chuck

[SimpleWeaponSolutions]

Here is a thread and an article on co witness with some good info.

[mobilecommand]

This one helped me out a ton..