I had set up my AR for long distance shooting while competing in 3 gun competitions. I swapped everything to predator hunting. I’m thinking this set up will do the trick, it’s sighted in and ready. I’ve had this AR for a long time and it is a sweet shooter.

Nicely done!

The AR's easy modularity is what makes it my favorite.

I’m curious as to how well it will hold zero with the optic mounted on the handguard.

So far so good, time will tell. I put it there to be able to co-witness with my iron sights. I hope it works out.

Thanks for posting your concern. You are correct, after some research, it’s not a good idea to mount the RDS on the hand guard. Back to the drawing board.

From my experience with magnifiers, which is limited, your going to be better off with a tube style red dot and mount the magnifier as close to the back of the red dot as possible to eliminate any chance of glare affecting your sight picture.

You’re going to have to play around with your BUIS to see which one will allow you to flip the magnifier to the side and then flip the BUIS up into position.

This photo represents what I’m referring to. I ran a magnifier on my duty weapon for about 1 month before I determined it to be a hinderance for me. I run an Aimpoint PRO and the way it is designed and the way I shoot, I never open the front cap. Run with both eyes open and you will have no problem with it like that, the magnifier didn’t allow me to do that as I like to. For you it shouldn’t be a problem.

With a vortex tube red dot and magnifier my BUIS had to come off.

I got a magnifier set with a red dot and the magnifier is about to come off. No matter how close I get to the red dot with the magnifier, it throws a flare on the dot. Distracting for me.