rail mounted front and rear sights

[Hortons Heros]

http://www.airsoft-war4.com/w4_search.php

wondering what kind of options there are for rail mounted front and rear sights.
Anyone who uses a system like this please comment on it's usefullness or drawbacks.

[thephenom]

I use that on my SPR/A from time to time. (Mainly as a backup when I'm not using a scope or RDS or when RDS runs low/out of battery)

I can look down my sight fine, aim pretty fast and pretty accurate with it (when I'm looking down the sight), but generally, I find target acquisition a tad slower comparing to my RDS.

[thePiRaTE!!]

Folding BUIS (Back-Up Iron Sights) are designed as back-ups to a primary optic, like an RDS or scope. The ability for them to fold allows an unobstructed view of your optic. Sometimes the folding is necessary to fit multiple optics on the rail (like an NV and RDS combo for example). Not all BUIS fold however. Before folding sights, a hacked M-16 carry handle served to free up the rail while allowing the rear sight to remain. Today Lewis Machine & Tool Co (and others) manufacture these as 'fixed' (ie, not folding) BUIS. Its a personal taste thing.

Many companies manufacture BUIS -

Troy Industries (pictured above at top), A.R.M.S., Knights Armament, DPMS, Yankee Hill, LaRue Tactical and Lewis Machine & Tool Co. (LMT) to name a few. Nearly everything available to real steel has been cloned for airsoft in various degrees of quality, and if it hasn't, you can't go wrong with real steel quality.

Personally - I use the real LMT fixed sights co-witnessed with my Eotech 512. I liked having everything instantly ready to go (hence the fixed sights I didn't need to flip) but found the reticle in the rear BUIS sometimes obscured the crosshair in the Eotech. To alleviate this, I purchased a Yankee Hill Eotech riser that lifts the Eotech a fraction of an inch off the rail allowing me to continue to sight the BUIS through the optic but slightly below the crosshair. This permits instant, perma back-up without interfering with my Eotech. Clicking here will show you my set-up.

[thePiRaTE!!]

I might also add that the difference between the various companies BUIS boils down to design philosophy and market niches. LMT for example includes 300 and 600 m flipping reticle, windage and elevation adjustments as per the original M-16 in their fixed rear sight, while LaRue eschews these added elements in their fixed design, going more for a CQB 'set and forget' style. Frankly, most of these design differences won't have any effect at airsoft ranges; for us, its almost purely aesthetic.

Hey, I just killed like 40 minutes at work here. I'm like the paid BUIS info guy, sweet!