Home Forums Hunting & Shooting AR and Tactical Rifles Cantilever or rings?

Dropping a NX8 on a coyote rig, Seekins 16 inch upper in a 5.56. Will I like an extended cantilever mount better, or will AR height rings do just fine. Thinking Seekins or Nightforce..

A mount designed for the AR platform will work best. Rings may not put the scope for enough forward to give you optimal eye relief and you don't want one ring on the upper receiver and another on the handguard. Cantilever mounts solve this problem.

The Nightforce Uni-Mount is what I'd suggest. Badger Ordnance and Geissele also make good ones.

What wareagle said. I put the nightforce on mine also.

Thanks guys, Nightforce on the way

There's a lot to be said for Burris Extra High XTR Signature rings on an AR, like up to 40MOA in additional elevation if you're going long....

If you are gonna go with plain rings, you'll need an extended rail to mount them on.
Like this:
https://www.whiteoakarmament.com/sh...ses/extended-scope-rail-20-min-elev.html

nope.

Have them, and they work fine with a SWFA 10X MQ and a 3-9 MIL/MIL

I don't know how you are shooting that, but it must either have very short eye relief or you are only shooting from a bipod or bags. An AR should be shot nose-to-charging handle or very near it. Certainly not anywhere near 3 or 4" back. You get into prone like that and you will have a headache within a dozen slow shots. Sitting is pretty much impossible to do well anywhere near that far from the CH.

Don't assume a cantilever mount or extended rail is always needed. It depends on the scope and the shooter. The guys shooting nose to charge handle tend to need it more often, but a lot of people don't shoot that way and IMO it's becoming less common.

This

why do you have to have your nose on the charging handle ???


a beefy carbine stock like a couple of the magpuls can get me enough eye relief , and I have a longish neck

NTCH (or near it) helps in Standing by producing a more easily consistent head position. With adjustable stocks, it puts more of the weight between your hands which creates a steadier hold.
You'll notice that all position rifles have adjustable length stocks and that all great Standing shooters, if they can, shorten the stock for Standing as compared to other positions. I would say "all" but there are a lot of Service Rifles that have fixed stocks. This, however, is not ideal and people shoot Standing better with shorter stocks. The position should be small and tight not open and dangly.
The only people who don't shoot (N)NTCH are the speed shooters (3-Gun, etc). In that case, a head position somewhat farther back is advantageous for speed. They also don't like NTCH because they bump into things with the gun mounted. That can be painful. But that is room-clearing distances or near it (maybe 50 yards?). I *guarantee* that if a champion 3-Gun shooter tried to hit a 6" target at 200 yards 20 times in a row they would fail if they maintained the "speed"-type head position and stance. The small, close stance is simply more stable and more repeatable which means that each shot lands closer to the same POI.

Sitting? Same basic principle - get more of the weight between your hands. Get a position that is tight & bunched up, not laid out and wobbly. Kneeling, again, you want to have the mass of the body leaning forward into the gun, not spread out away from the gun.

In Prone, people naturally crawl the stock when using an unsupported or slung position. Again, it's getting more weight between your hands and that improves stability. Your body is pulled out along the length of the rifle. With a standard adjustable AR carbine stock, I'm not just NTCH, I'm on top of the CH.
However, when using a bipod or bags, that is not a concern - you aren't reaching forward to grasp the forend. Your shoulders are going to be more square with each other. That allows you to have some space between the CH and your face. If you are using a rear bag or a fist, it can be advantageous to position the weight of the head more over the rear support.

But I don't haul bipods or bags around. And if I do shoot with some sort of support, NTCH isn't much of a disadvantage if at all.

One reason I don't shoot a pure NTCH is that it rubs my nose raw.

I can use either, but mostly cantilever works better for me.

That said extra high rings on the beowulf didn't slow me at all on a gut shot deer we trailed with Tiger and Carolyn and Tiger jumped him and allowed me to dump 2 into him for a friend to end the issue.

I've got it all and then some...pass the 'Horn's and hold the Fluff.

Hint...………………...

If this is your preferred shooting style, cantilever mounts aren't going to be necessary.





I don't shoot NTCH nor do I think it's practical for a scoped rifle, but standard rings don't give me enough eye relief. For most scopes I have used, cantilever mounts have been best for optimal eye relief and ring spacing but some can certainly make standard rings work. Not always ideal, but they work.

I use RRA EOP uppers with nightforce rings. but then again I am crazy. I like my scope at 1.7" ish above the pic rail.

You aren't crazy, you're Giraffe Man!

J/K

Great pic, wareagle700! Someone get her a .458 Lott and take some video.

Re. the OP's question, for me (YMMV), rings have always put the scope too far back. I have Burris's PEPR mounts on my ARs.

Pass The 'Horn Rings and hold the fluff.

Hint.............

Maybe some visuals are in order. These are all mine and set up for me, but different guns and different optics so there are some differences. A couple of the pics are older and those rifles wear different scopes now so I should get some new pics.

Start with this one. It needs a cantilever mount, no question. And yes, I'm really proud of that chair.


These are more of the same optic, this time on a 5.56 and a 308. The 5.56 definitely needs the cantilever mount. The 308 could get away with rings, although it wouldn't be ideal.


Now look at this one; this scope has pretty short eye relief, and absolutely could use straight rings with no problems. (I don't like that scope, but it's an example.)


I'll have to dig up some pics with the SWFA tubes. They tend to land in between the examples above.