In a theoretical world, I agree that you could get a mount and hand guard that, together, push things over the limit, but that’s theoretical, and it would be unreasonable to point the finger at Wilcox in such a situation, while failing to point the finger at the abortion on an off-brand hand guard that made such misalignment possible.
The amount of inconsistency in a Wilcox flip mount is nowhere near enough to warrant any of the concerns that are being talked about. If it were, robust hand guard scrutiny would be equally important in every such discussion, and that doesn’t happen.
Can you check those military manuals? I’m on vacation and unable to check, but my recollection is that they reference optical centerline (we’re all in agreement there), but don’t mention “straight” as you say. Can you check for us?
***edit*** the LWTS and Skeetir-X manuals are available online and mention no such thing.
https://www.x20.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/LWTS-user-guide.pdf
https://device.report/m/fe893f428cb9e70fbd1dc303f6260d84cb6c87f0a365dea2928d68e12378b8c1.pdf
Regardless, the frequent discussion about the Wilcox mounts makes people who haven’t owned/used them think that there’s something drastically wrong, and that they’re going to be plagued by troubles (that for some reason haven’t affected the SEALs, Delta operators, etc.). This is incorrect, silly, and should stop.
I’ve owned more real clip-ons than I can recall and over a dozen Wilcox flip mounts, shared across dozens of rifles. I’m also FAR more picky than most end users/customers regarding the precision of the system. If a problem existed, I’m the guy who would have encountered it, and I’m also the guy who would have noticed it. I have yet to encounter anything resembling a problem related to alignment consistency.
Someone considering buying one thermal with one Wilcox mount doesn’t need to be scared off by theoretical worst case boogeyman problems that none of us thermal veterans have experienced.