Opinions on AR carry handle mount optics

Carry handle mounts are not a good idea IMHO. Stay clear of NC star, barska, and all related scopes that fall in that category. You will be better off to shoot your irons until you can afford a better alternative.

I agree with Chaser about avoiding NCstar, barska etc. Buy it right the first time, so you wont buy something to replace it down the road later. As for Carry handle mounts, Meprolight is battle proven by the Israeli army and stay on zero and handle real life abuse. Trijicon also makes a nice carry handle mount. An cheap affordable sight that many people are happy with is a Vortex strikefire.

Chaser is right.
Also, wait till prices and availability come back to normal, buy a flat top upper (a blem spikes can be found for $65ish) swap it out and sell your A2 to recoup some costs.
As for scopes in your price range, you can't go wrong with a Nikon or Redfield.

I am assuming you have an A2, if not, than check out Nikon, I believe they are running a promotion that if you buy a .223 scope, they are giving you an AR mount for it. This is an awesome deal and will be soooo much better that a carry handle mount. Then if you really want a BUIS, buy a magpul.

you've got a flat top upper. why not remove the carry handle and mount your optic on the rail? that's the whole point of a flat top.

Exactly... you have a 6920, which is a flat-top. Mount a real optic on the flat top. Save the handle/rear sight for backup, or put something like a magpul BUIS on the rear that will work with your front sight. The BUIS will fit behind whatever optic you put on there.

I have the same rifle.... I put an aimpoint on there, with a back-up sight behind it. The removable carry handle can be put on anytime.

My two cents.

Skip the whole thing and spend that $100-200 on ammo and range fees.

You have one of the best AR15 in the industry and you want to put a Ncstar on top of it?

Stay clear of NC star, barska, and all related scopes that fall in that category. You will be better off to shoot your irons until you can afford a better alternative.

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B.S. They work very well. Mounting on the carry handle will present problems based on the height of the scope to bore, you might want to look at installing a 20 MOA ramp on the carry handle to give yourself enough MOA adjustment with the scope. And if the objective is larger than 40mm you may not be able to use the irons.

Jim

I don't see how you could get a good cheek weld with the scope mounted so high.

It sounds like you have a fundamental misunderstanding of optics and the front site. It will disapear with magnification or be behind a dot. Trust us it's been done before.
And the NcStar will suck.

Yeah, if you insist on optics, ditch the carry handle. At worst, you'll have a blur at 6 o'clock in your field of view.

Fixed front sights are NOT a problem with scopes on a flattop mount. As others have said, ditch the carry handle and get proper rings for your flat top. Look a Burris MTAC or Fullfield scopes. I have a Burris 1.5-6x40 MTAC on my LE6920 with fixed front sight and it works great.

except you lose any bullet drop settings because of the front sight,unless your using high rings.i use a small scope with the small rail adapter on my ar's because of the front sight.experiment and see what works for you.last ar was a 6940,flip up front sight.others are a1's.

a scope with rubber armor is an absolute joke. When you tighten the rings down your alignment goes squish.

How many of you hating on carry handle mounts have actually shot with them?

I personally like the heads-up position they afford, and they still allow the use of irons. The height of a carry handle mounted optic on an AR is only 1/2"-3/4" higher than what you'll find on a typical bolt rifle in terms of cheek rest to scope centerline.

My question wasn't directed at you specifically, Taliv. However, point remains that stating something "sucks" as a fact when it's only a matter of personal preference will always get my attention. There's nothing inherently bad about a carry handle mount; it's totally subjective whether the shooter prefers his/her optic lower.

I like them on top, and I like having my irons separate rather than co-witnessed. Better? For me, maybe not for you or someone else. Just my preference. I end up using tall rings and risers on flat tops, as I don't like having to smash my face into the stock sideways to get a sight picture. Incidentally, I see a lot of guys running an AR with the stock positioned very high on their shoulder to have a comfortable head position; Why not just run a stock with a raised cheek adapter and mount the optic higher?

Colts older HBAR Match with fixed carrying handle came with a cheek rest that allowed one to have proper cheek weld.

Those slipped over the stock and were held on by the rear sling swivel IIRC and might have interfeared with using the original irons as back up. Someone other than Colt was making the cheek rest that looked just the same and had a blank circle where the C0lt logo went.

I have often regreted not getting a set of Millet scope rings years ago that incorporated a millet fully adjustable rear pistol sight on the rear ring and a serrated ramp front pistol blade on the front ring. This seemed to offer more than trying to hunker down to use the tunnel on a traditional carrying handle type scope rail if one were using the cheek rest. Yep short sight radius, but seemed usable.

-kBob

^^^^^^^^

Magpul offers 1/4", 1/2" and 3/4" rests for the MOE/CTR stocks. Only drawback is that the stock has to be fully extended to operate the CH.

Mako also offers a model with an adjustable rest that is more accommodating to the CH: