A very common theme we’re seeing from military and federal law enforcement as LPVOs start to become more prolific is a worry about clearing a laser device out of your field of view entirely. Often we’ll get a customer that says “We want the 1.93” so we don’t see an NGAL/PEQ at all.”. Often a customer will say that’s their only reason for wanting the 1.93” tall mount. Mount height consideration as a whole is a different discussion for another day, but as it relates to lasers and LPVOs the differences between 1.70” and 1.93” barely register.
The first attached photo is of two 14.5” carbines both with full length handguards, razor 1-6s, and NGALs. The carbine on the left/top is mounted with a 1.70” while the right/bottom carbine is mounted with a 1.93”. As you can see the perceived differences are negligible.
The second photo is oriented the same only this time with PEQ15s. Just as with the NGALs you’re getting diminishing returns as it relates to clearance of the laser.
Lastly the third photo is of a MAWL mounted at the end of a handguard as observed through a 1-6 Razor in a 1.70”. This no doubt offers you the least amount of obstruction through an LPVO. If you’re department or agency is purchasing lasers and LPVOs and this is a top concern for you. I suggest looking into the BE Meyers MAWL.
So what should you do or choose? To me that’s a much broader question that’s better suited as a video than me typing out. There’s so many nuances to that question, especially if you’re using these weapons and setups for work. You could move the laser back on the handguard and get more clearance, but that causes laser clearance issues with your support hand grip and negates your ability to ever attach a clip-on NVD on your carbine. You can run an even taller mount than 1.93” and completely clear the device, but parallax as it relates to shooting (the apparent movement of the reticle across the target when the position of the head is slightly moved) and HOB offsets start becoming a major concern for an optic that’s made to engage in near to mid range distances.
My personal thoughts at the moment put LPVO laser clearance at the bottom of my pro/cons list when determining a mount height. There’s much more important factors to me that will determine my choice. I came up on eotechs and acogs behind front sight posts so maybe I’m just used to slight obstructions and once you dial the optic to 3.5x it all goes away anyhow. You just can’t compare a 1x FOV on a red dot to 1x FOV on an LPVO. Hopefully this is informative in some way.
