OP, if you or anyone else is interested, I altered my included micro prism mount, a picatinny piggy back mount, and an LPVO mount to shave .54” off the HOB for a low-ish profile micro prism piggy back option. As mentioned in my earlier post, the included 1.1” micro prism mount on the lowest piggy back picatinny mount I could find with the 30 mm 1.5” LPVO mount put me at about 5” HOB. This was too much for me personally.
Before I get into how I did it, I know there’s gonna be a few keyboard warriors that know best and will ask what’s the point in taking all that time when there’s better optics with better mounting options out there. So, to answer that:
I prefer not to make decisions based solely on what Reddit and Instagram tells us. I do what works best for me, not the internet. I have a stigmatism. Have the tism? Get the prism. And I really like the ACSS reticle as my simple brain is naturally drawn to it. I also have 3 vertebrae in my neck that’s been fused so, again doing what works best for me. The last and most important point is that I’m a budget minded hands on “need a tool, make a tool” kind of guy. With that, you should know that I don’t have a lathe or mill. I have common tools, a drill press, and some “gunsmithing / armorers” tools. I’m just a dumb redneck with a small workshop that likes to do things. So, this is possible for most to achieve I think. That said, there’s a few minor aesthetic things I’d change if I do it again but, with all that out of the way, here’s how I made it.
I first ground down the micro prism’s 1.1” provided mount and got rid of the picatinny attachment portion. I mainly wanted the mount for the wider footprint since it’s wider than the tapered ACOG mini / micro prism footprint on the optic itself. I wasn’t concerned about “destroying” the mount because if I go back to using the micro prism as a standalone again, I’ll use my ADM 1.93” mount.
Then I put a new 30 mm 1.41” scope mount and a separate scope ring on a lapping bar to file and polish down the tops of both components to the same flat plane.
Afterwards, I centered, marked, and drilled the mounting holes through the aforementioned parts. After countersinking the underside of the rings for the mounting screws, I used an extra screw and lapping compound to get a perfect fir.
Next, to get the matte black finish back I used aluminum black. I wasn’t too concerned with this process as this is more of a test run for now and will eventually rattle can it all anyway.
After re-blacking, I installed it all back onto the lapping bar to insure everything was inline. You’ll see in the pictures that the lapping shows I was just off center on one of my mounting holes but not by much. Once lapped, everything was cleaned and installed.
And here is the final result. That .5" made a decent difference. The new HOB is 4.419". I originally wanted the micro prism mounted to the rear but found that it got in the way of the LPVO's throw lever and it seemed to close with NODs as it obstructed a lot of my view.
The reason for the 1.41” LPVO mount obviously helped by .1” over a 1.5” but that wasn’t the reason I used it. I found that, because of my neck fusions a 1.25” worked well in prone and on bench while the 1.5” worked kinda ok on the flat range providing it wasn’t for longer periods and I wasn’t wearing a PC. So, I tried to go somewhat in the middle to get the best of both worlds (for me) since I was adding a “heads up” close range piggy back anyway.
As for the mounts, I definitely wasn’t going to use some high speed mounts to do this on my first go. The LPVO mount is a 1.41” 30 mm by Triton and the piggy back scope ring is a 30mm picatinny piggy back mount by Monstrum. I got both off Amazon for about $50 total. My thought was if it didn’t work or I messed it up I was only out $50 at most. I’ll put it to the test in the next few days to see if I love it enough to upgrade the hardware or keep it as is if it lasts through some abuse and holds my zeros.
