STANAG-4694 strikes again… Get any US made mount that grabs the rail by the top & bottom of the dovetails and not by the top flat of the rail + bottom of the dovetails like the AP ones do. NATO spec is technically backwards compatible with Picatinny, but in practice the tolerances stack up in a way that causes many STANAG-4694 compliant mounts to be hella shifted to one side or the other on many Mil-Std-1913 rails.
Notice in the photo the gap between the top bevel of the rail and the mount: what this does is shifts the centerline of the optic slightly to the right. In combination with the weird height (not absolute, but not lower 1/3rd either) aligned irons end up in the lower-left quadrant of the RDS.
Also note the gaps between the three pieces of the mount (the base, the 9mm spacer and the ring assembly) - the pieces interface on the shoulders and do not lock together in a consistent fashion when reassembling.
Finally this;
By the time you add the 9mm spacer to achieve any kind of co-witness, this becomes about the heaviest AP PRO mount available.
None of this may not matter to some, but I find it all a bit annoying. YMMV.
It provides true absolute co-witness through the PRO, fits the rail correctly and brings my rifle (sans magazine) back under seven pounds. It certainly appears robust and with the cross-bolt torqued to 45 inch-pounds, feels very solid. So for $23.74 including shipping, my main gripes about the AP mount have been resolved.
I look forward to seeing the Scalarworks mount and will make a determination then if it’s worth dropping $200 on.
