When I first saw the rifle, I assumed it was designed to handle AR optics. It seems to be an ideal setup under the current Canadian circumstances. As something clearly based on Jeff Cooper's proposed ranch rifle what it lacks, IMO, are a flash hider/muzzle brake and iron backup sights. I see that at least the first thing can be added.
Jeff Cooper's pet project was the Scout Rifle; I've read a bunch of his writings and don't recall him ever mentioning a Ranch Rifle. The Scout as he proposed it did indeed require iron sights but there was no mention of any muzzle brakes or devices. Today's modern shooter can't seem to even pick up or touch a rifle unless it has a cheese grater on the end of the barrel, so the Ruger needs one to survive on the market.
I can certainly understand the appeal of the Ruger in terms of using AR mags. If you have a trunkload of them, and at least for now can't use them as intended, it's nice to have a bolt rifle that accepts them. Same with the brakes or flash hiders; you've got them, why not utilize them?
But AR-style sights just don't make sense here. The AR buffertube design forces the inline stock/receiver/barrel setup...which in turn necessitates the comb of the stock be way up there...which then forces the use of sights that are also high above the barrel just so that you can see through them. They aren't used on an AR because there is something better or "tactical" about them; they are there because normal, low-mounted sights simply can't be used on that design of rifle. In fact, having them up high like that carries with it some disadvantages at shorter ranges, when the parallax discrepancy between bore and sightline becomes very pronounced and exaggerated. AR's are so common and so well-known that those sights on stilts are accepted as normal, but for most rifles...they're not.
When you try to mount them on a bolt rifle, with a stock comb that is much lower than an AR, the AR sights are so high above the bore that they are pretty much useless. Sure, you can add on a raised cheekpiece of some sort...but what you are doing is taking sights that were designed for a rifle (the AR) that had certain limitations and restrictions imposed by its design and required extra-high sights to compensate for this. Then you are mounting them on a rifle whose ergonomics not only don't require that height of sight, but which actually suffers when they are used. It won't work correctly unless you then mount more stuff on there to compensate for the height...which, of course, someone will do, but that doesn't make it the ideal solution.
I get it; you own the sighs, so you want to use them somewhere. But it's like adding a trailer hitch, a rear-facing truckbed light and a bumper-mounted winch onto your Corvette just because you have those bits and pieces left over after selling your truck. Looks goofy, won't work as intended, detracts from utility rather than enhancing it.
