Co-witness regular scope with red dot?

[keitharsis]

Wondering if I could make a poorman's magnified red dot by putting a red dot, in front of or behind of, a magnified scope? Besides being ugly as sin, will it work? If it 'did' work, what's a better red dot to use, a tube style or tubeless?

 

[Darth Ruger]

Never heard of doing that, but it sounds like it would be a lot of headaches trying to figure out how to set it up. If you're willing to buy a certain type of red dot sight that you think might enable you to do this, why not just buy a magnified one in the first place?

If you're trying to figure out an optical situation, it would be easier to point you in the right direction if you provide these details first:
What's the rifle and caliber?
What's the intended application?

 

[50 Freak]

Yes it will work if you find a scope and a red dot to perfectly co-witness.

Keep in mind that your red dot will now be something like 12 MOA (dependent on the magnification). So what's the use?

Not a very precise set up.

 

[Too Many Choices!?]

I did it with a 3x9x40mm dear scope mounted off the carry handle,

With a forward mounted Hakko(Japanese tubeless red dot), on my Bushie AR 15 ... Damn if it wasn't faster than ANYTHING I HAVE TRIED with the magnification set between 3-5. It worked because the red-dot showed up in the carry handle mounted 3x9x40mm scope about three mm below the crosshair of the magnified scope. I had 100yards dialed in on the magnified optic's crosshair, and the red-dot was set to 50 yards. I never checked if the two would actually co-witness and have the same point of aim and impact if I zeroed the red dot to 100 yards also, but with it set up this way, I had a magnified red dot, but the dot blurred to bad to use at any magnification above five. Funny thing is, even when the objective was set to greater than 5, I could still use the blurry(now elongated red blob) as a red dot at 50 yards(through the scope) as long as I used the center line of the crosshair, and the center of the blob(it was just less precise but still fast). I also had the forward mounted red-dot,"co-witnessed", to the irons, which I could use if the dot conked out... But man was she ever a beast with 2 scopes and the carry handle...

I plan to try this set up again with my short tube 4x fixed objective scope(on the carry handle), and forward-mounted red dot, which should shave some weight and keep the magnification to a usefull amount for a carbine(it aint a sniper rifle , just a precision one)...

PS. 80 yd off-hand shots on soda cans as fast as I could line up the dot .

PSS. If you want, when I go get my digital camera I will take a pic of the set up for you. Only bad thing is mounting the magnified optic of the carry handle, you have to deal with parallax with cheap dear scope like mine, and the chin weld takes getting used to . I want an adjustable cheek piece that will raise or lower depending on if I want to use the irons or the high sitting scope ...

 

[keitharsis]

I have a 16 inch Bushmaster Ar-15 with a Burris Fullfield Compact
1.75 - 5 X 20 scope in a Rock River scope mount mounted on the flat-top. I was thinking of getting a rail on top of the forearm and trying the scope/red-dot cowitness thing with a reflex type red-dot ie: Hakko Panorama, OKO, etc. I didn't want to have to purchase a New Red-Dot AND New Magnifyer for it, hence me thinking of Jerry Rigging one.

I thought about the magnification of the dot being a problem with my idea too, but I wonder if I reversed the order and put the red-dot 'behind' the scope, if it would solve the problem. I will probably need to play with risers and/or ring heights as well to get a perfect co-witness.