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Understanding Co-Witness

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May 2018 Update:
I made a follow-up video about Co-witnessing your sights, right here chief:

I made this video to help people better understand the concept of co-witnessing and how it can be employed into your system. In this video I go over the three main ways to co-witness a holographic/red dot optic with a set of iron sights and leave it up to you to decide what would work best for you and your situation.

WHY CO-WITNESS?
It’s always good to have a back-up plan for when things don’t go how they’re supposed to. The optic should be treated as a luxury and if it fails in any way, you’ll have to use another method for putting accurate rounds on target. The preferred way to do this is by linking up your iron sights with your reticle by way of setting up a co-witness. If the optic fails, the iron sights take over to get you through the situation till you can regroup and change out or repair the optic.

The three types:

ABSOLUTE CO-WITNESS
The iron sights are exactly lined up with the reticle and in the center of your optic’s glass. If the optic fails, the shooter does nothing different because the irons are the only thing left and they’ve been there the whole time.
Pros:
-Shooter has access to both reticle and irons without having to touch or flip up anything by breaking cheek weld or taking firing hand off weapon.
-No training changes have to occur, because whether or not the optic is on or off, the cheek weld and usage are the same.
-It’s regarded as the most simplistic and easiest to work with because it “makes the most sense” and there’s no confusion over how it works.
Cons:
-The target is obstructed by a combination of iron sights and the reticle.
-The “darkening” effect of iron sights can take effect and hamper results in bad lighting.

LOWER THIRD CO-WITNESS
The optic has been raised higher on the weapon system, meaning the iron sights are at the bottom of the optic’s glass, yet the shooter is intended to aim above the irons where the reticle sits in the center of the glass. In the event of failure, the shooter sits lower on the gun to see the iron sights and uses them.
Pros:
-Shooter has access to both reticle and irons without having to touch or flip up anything by breaking cheek weld or taking firing hand off weapon.
-With the irons lower and out of the way, the shooter has the most unobstructed view of the reticle and target -the only way to get any better is to have a flip front and rear sight with both sights down.
Cons:
-When using irons, the shooter must sit lower on the gun, training for two different cheek welds.

REAR FLIP SIGHT CO-WITNESS
This is not different from an absolute co-witness except that the rear sight is flipped down and the reticle is utilized in a “hovering” position above the front sight base. If the optic fails, the shooter flips up the rear sight and sits lower on the gun than he’s used to for lining up the iron sights.
Pros:
-No special riser is needed.
-The target and the reticle are not obstructed.
Cons:
-Because the optic is not raised higher on the gun, the reticle is used on the upper portion of the visible glass of the optic.
-When the optic fails, the shooter has to break cheek weld and/or take firing hand off weapon to flip up the rear sight.

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47 COMMENTS

  5. what's the point of even having an optic if you're going to absolute co-witness? won't you pretty much end up using the iron sights anyway?
    what would be the benefit of having the optic? cuz I always though the whole point of zero zoom optics was to get rid of the vision blocking iron sights?! (like with the lower 3rd co-witness)

  6. Good video, but there should be a comment about cheek welds. Also worth noting that the Colt M4 has a lower cowitness with the M68 Aimpoint CCO. Also, the rear sight is flip down with range graduations. I looked online and found the identical rear sight available as a picatinny rail attachment that could be slapped onto your AR-15 instead of the A2 rear sight.

  10. I am currently running a Holosun 510c Flush mount Absolute Co- I do leave Rear sight down Works great. I agree where less is more.I Have a Vid or two on a few of the HOLOSUNs 510/515c Great Circle Dots Budget as well!

  14. Hello Sir and thank you so much for your videos. I just purchased my first AR and dont know too much about adjusting my red dot. Can you do a video adjusting ypur red dot to a LOWER 1/3 COWITNESS PLEASE. I will highly appreciated. Thanks again. By the way i have a Vortex StrikeFire 2 Dot.

  19. So what I am gathering is if you ate zeroed with iron and graphic, you can then raise the graphic and it will stay true with no alterations to height and windage to the iron in lower third format?

  22. Absolutely loved your video man. Congrats. Now, if I'm running front fixed and rear flip down iron sights, would you recommend absolute or 1/3? If i go with absolute, can I use the reflex sight with the rear flipped down or i have to have it up? Thanks and keep it up 👍

  23. Wow…..using red dot as it should be used! Imagine that!? Absolute co witness is moronic. Why bother having a dot at all? More to concentrate on and less fov……mental. Thanks for the accurate clarification. Gj!

  29. Good job. I have pop up back up sights so the absolute witness works for me. I don't use them unless my battery runs down or some other mishap. Thumbs up on clearing up usage of bpth witness opps.

  31. If you are running an EOTech, 1/3 co-witness is the way to go. The reticle is already busy and the front sight just adds to it. If you run an Aimpoint or similar optic (just a dot) absolute co-witness works better in my opinion.

  38. so if you bought a new DDM4V7, and you wanted it like you suggested, what sights would you buy? if you were a civilian with some money, but not I can live without a pay check for a year money?

  40. Who makes that rear sight and how do you like it? I've been looking for one for mine, coming from the M16 familiarity too, and can only seem to find some that are $25 or $112. Thanks.

  43. I thought the absolute co-witness is supposed to have the red dot right on top of the iron sight? Making it an 'i'? You sure you got it co-witnessed right? The iron sight is not supposed to obscure the red dot, and the red dot should always place at the point of impact.

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