I'm probably overthinking this. But I'm still new to long guns. My AR has a red dot but no iron sights so I haven't cared about co-witnessing as long as my red dot is accurate.

Anyhow, I got a mini 14 for a good deal. It has a small rail already on it. The rear sight is blocked by the rail. I picked up a Romeo 5 and mounted it. The manual says it is set for absolute co-witness. My research says that this means my red dot should line up exactly with my front sight. This is not the case on my Mini 14. The front sight is much lower. When I shot a few times with the red dot it seems fairly accurate, though I was only about 10 yards out in my back yard range area.

Anyhow just wondering if I have something wrong or if it's just the addition of a rail which is higher than the sights on the mini to begin with.

Thanks

Best pic I can do with just my 2 hands...

That Romeo optic and mount combo is set up for Absolute cowitness on an AR15. It will not cowitness on your Mini-14.

ARs, due to their inline stock, allow for a taller optic mount than rifles with a traditional drop comb stock like your Mini-14. (Just look at the iron sight difference: a Mini-14's irons sit a fraction of an inch above the barrel, while an AR's irons sit 2-3 inches above the barrel.)



In addition, you won't be able to mount any cowitnessing optic using that receiver-mounted rail. As you already noticed, it blocks the rear sight. So even if you get a lower mount, the optic will still be taller than the iron sights, since the rail itself is taller than the irons.

If you want to cowitness a red dot on your Mini-14, you'll need a different setup, with a different rail that is positioned below the line of the iron sights, plus a mini red dot in a (very) low mount. I was able to achieve that using an Ultimak forward scout rail and a Primary Arms red dot in a low mount, but even this setup just barely cowitnesses with the factory iron sights. Others report that this same setup is too tall on their Mini-14s, and doesn't cowitness.

Cowitness can be quite tough on a Mini-14.

There should be a lower mount included with the Romeo5.

As Rogue says, it still won’t co-witness with your setup but if you get the rail that he has the low mount might work. I’ve never tried it, but it at least should be closer.

Thanks guys. Makes sense based on what I saw. I have no need to cowitness. Just wanted to make sure I didn’t screw something up. I’m cross eye dominant so I exclusively the red dot to shoot rifles.

You'll still want to use the low mount, if the Romeo comes with one like Pale Horse stated.

Using an AR-height optic mount on your Mini-14 won't allow you to get a decent cheek weld on the drop comb stock. With the optic mounted so far above the top of the buttstock, unless you're built like Hermann Munster with an abnormally long head you'll probably end up with something more like a chin weld, which isn't conducive to accuracy.

I did get the low Mount so I will change that out. Glad I ordered the version with it. There is a Romeo 5 model without the low Mount that I almost ordered.