The Question: In the Year of Our Lord 2024, if you’re running a secondary optic, do you prefer to use offset or piggyback mounts?
I’ve never played much with extra dots before, mostly just using a primary optic and BUIS. But with my Spear, I wanted to test out the waters a bit and decided to give offsets a try. Overall, I like it, but now I’m wondering about the advantages of piggyback mounting a dot over my ACOG or LPVO.
It seems like the industry/community has cycled through no other dot, to piggyback being popular during the mid stages of the GWOT (especially on ACOGs), and then offset dots taking over for several years. Over the past year or so, however, piggyback mounts seem to be popping up more in more in the cool guy podcats, videos, and even at my last carbine class. Generally they seem to be used for passive aiming with night vision, but also for general unmagnified use.
So, folks that have tried either or both, what say you? Which way modern man?
There are already a couple of threads on the subject, but they seem to be limited to use with specific types of optics. I’d rather have a general discussion on current thinking across the board.
I’m not a big fan of either, but the piggyback is more user friendly for me since I don’t have to practice canting the gun. In other words, there’s less training involved.
Pros and cons to offset. One thing to consider is that an offset RDS will retain zero if your main optic is damaged or you’re switching optics around. One negative is that it sticks out from the rifle, which gets annoying when moving it in or out of racks, etc.
For non-nvg use, I’m only using the offset when the target is close enough I value speed over precision afforded from a magnified optic.
I’ve been wanting to try the piggyback style mount for a while, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Piggyback:
-makes it easier for institutional users to add a “heads up” optic without elevating their magnified optic, which may be discouraged or forbidden
-keeps magnified optic at a position optimal for prone shooting while placing the 1x dot at a position more suited for reflexive firing/CQM
-puts the dot at NVG height by default
-doesn’t increase weapon thickness that can be annoying or prohibitive for gun cases, but does increase height
-less added weight in some cases
Offset:
-some claim that it’s a faster transition for action match guns
-usually uses the same plane of head height when rolling the gun, lending credibility to the above claim
-may allow you to use a single QD mounted dot on more than one gun
-depending on mount, can be a pain in the ass to zero
-may interfere with some gun cases
-if you play musical optics, it may be more convenient, since an offset dot can stay with the rifle if it’s rail-mounted
-for institutional users, it allows one to detach their personally-owned close range optic when turning in the gun to the armorer
I’ve dabbled with both offset and piggyback mounts, and for me, it comes down to personal preference and the mission at hand. Piggyback is great for NVG use and quick transitions, but offset gives me more flexibility and a wider FOV.
This is what I’ve found, moved from offset to piggyback, but the HOB can be an absolute PITA with anything other than a super low mount. My eyes aren’t great, real use case for me is in being able to put the rifle on target (or close enough) with RDS and then switch to mag for the shot when it’s 100+ yards out. Twisting the rifle puts me off enough that I have to hunt again, or dial back the mag optic more than I want. Dropping my cheek seems faster & has been less likely to push me off the target.
Piggyback for me, but I probably should play around a little more with offset. I can definitely see a place for a set of fast acquiring BUIS like the XS offset bigdot in heavy humidity areas coming out an AC structure or vehicle into the soup that fogs up lenses.