I am new to the AR platform.. hell new to shooting rifles period to be honest. I was looking at a few sites but was curuios how you can use the orginal sites and the Red dot together? I guess you acn see each on thier own depending on how you look down the rifle? I was htinking of getting some magpul flip up sites so I can lay them flat when not in use but then will a red dot site be out of the wya enough to see the flip up sites if I want to use them? Thx for any help!

you mean how to co-witness?

If you zero your iron sights and your red dot at the same distance then they would be at the same point at that distance (AKA - co-witness). Just be aware that the dot or iron sight picture will be different at different distances. The bullet doesn't travel in a straight line so compensations have to be made. All that being said, I would recommend that if you are new to shooting, pick one of the options for sighting and stick to that one only until you are comfortable with your ability, going back and forth between sight platforms can be confusing even for experienced shooters.

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Minimize the variables

id suggest you get yourself VERY very accustomed to irons first. then you can upgrade to a red dot. because if your red dot fails at the wrong time, or breaks from a fall - you dont want to be falling back on your "reserve" and not be very well versed at it. it cost you your life (or game)

That is kinda what I was thinknig.. I plan on using the iron sights first and getting used to those before moving to a Red Dot. My question was more or less that if I was using a red dot and it fails.. will I be able to see my iron sights ok without removing the red dot sight?

you can setup multiple ways

You can iither have it set so the red dot is RIGHT in line with the irons, or setup for a lower 1/3 cowitness as seen pictured


You'd be able to shoot irons with no obstructions as well as red dot when it's on

Ahh, so if hte red dot sight was to go dead you can still see teh irons through the red dot sight? Is the back sight still used when doing this? I apologize for being ignorant.. this is all fairly new to me.

Yes.

Yes, probably.
On a full-sized AR, you can use a dead optic as a HUGE rear peep sight in an emergency to get center-mass shots at short distances. Keep in mind the 15-22 is a range toy/small game rifle, so you'd probably want to switch to the rear peep sight if your optic fails.
I removed my MBUS and just use the red dot since it's strictly a range toy. Your rifle, use it how you like.

This^^^

It takes a decent riser for your red dot to get it up where the irons are in the lower 1/3 of the field of view.

I have a Vortex Sparc on my 15-22. It comes with the risers necessary to get full co-witness or lower 1/3.

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686, 629, 15-22 MOE FDE

Thanks for the info.. this helped a lot!