With a TA11, TA33, or TA31 ACOG sight, do you feel it is an absolute must to have back up iron sights?
Have you ever, even once, seen or heard of an ACOG become non-functional in the field?
Anything can and will happen…thus BUIS.
Sure. But, has anyone actually seen an ACOG go down in the real world?
If you count some guy attempting to re-attach while on a boat and it going over the side, then yes.
I’ve seen them fall off.
Did they fall off with Larue mounts?
He was a reserve deputy this summer on river patrol and was using shitty OEM mount.
He would have gotten smacked if it was a Larue qd and fumbled it.
Point is…sh*t happens. Why not be prepared?
Funniest part is he was taking off the carry handle to put on the acog, guess he would have been better off with dedicated buis versus takeoff.
I guess we need BackUp threads, as this was covered extensively not to long ago.
I’ve decided to hose clamp another M4 to my primary M4, because, you know, S**t happens, its better to have it and not need it.
Bob
yeah bob we know, sarcasm isn’t needed.
The ACOG won’t likely fail due to the optic going TU, but the likelihood of the mount failing is still there. Have a backup plan, whatever it is.
It does not have to be a buis. A back up optic like a T1 aimpoint in an off set mount would also be fine. But yes you should have redundant sighting systems in my opinion. generally that means an optic and back up irons.
Pat
Redundancy is always good, especially with mission critical systems like weapons.
That said, there are instances where the loss of the primary optic would not cripple performance of the rifle, and where weight saved for BUIS that wouldn’t be used might makes sense. For a HD weapon where an Aimpoint is used as a force multiplier of sorts (faster acquisition in all lighting), if shots aren’t forseen past rock-throwing distances and one doesn’t want to run fixed irons, the odds of implementing backup sights in a case where the Aimpoint goes down are really low anyway.
I run irons across the board, but if I didn’t prefer fixed DD front BUIS with absolute cowitness aimpoints for my lighter rifles, I would be evaluating omitting them.
For non-mission critical rifles, if you wouldn’t need to fire it without the primary optic, then leave them out. Another thought is for zoom optics, you’d have to remove the optic to start using the irons, so in that regard QD mounts make more sense to me if I’m going to run iron sights underneath.
You can CLICK for the story.
If we’re talking “real world”, we need to distinguish “real world” .mil vs “real world” LEO vs “real world” civilian. The pressing need for BUIS varies widely between those three categories IMHO.
Any world. You name it - military, civilian, ect…
I am willing to bet that the instance of an ACOG failing (not counting getting shot) would be almost zero.
I just want to confirm it.
No, I agree ACOGs are quite robust. I was referring to the need for BUIS between military vs LEO vs civilian.
Confirm what? That BUIS are not needed?
Finding no instances of an ACOG failing does NOT mean that BUIS are not needed. It just means that it’s highly unlikely that you’ll need them due to your ACOG failing. There’s still the chance that you’ll need them because you or someone else will MAKE the ACOG fail- either with a round through it or you banging it into a barrier and cracking something.
Didn’t find the answer you were looking for on TOS or what? 
Ref the photo above, whats to say the round could not have gone thru the rear iron sight, the receiver extension, or any other part of the rifle?
BUIS for the most part, are fairly transparent, so its no big deal, but with today’s, modern quality combat type optics, to say a buis is mandatory, is a bit of a reach.
Some of these broad based. blanket cliches need to be put to rest.
Bob