had a blaser k95 for awhile with irons that turned into nice 5.5 lb carry without scope and would do so on pack out, it shot moa groups taking scope on and off for each shot and always bang on year to year for zero holding, always stored scope off etc. but not sure how many systems are as good as blaser that way, never needed the irons, I see the argument for it, most of time if wreck bad enough to wreck scope to where it needs to come off I suspect hunt over although I was on foot mostly and didn't worry about it on a horse or quad, just my own arse tumbling, would definitely want some redundancy for routinely flying in and remote hunting if I could have it, tools to remove scopes or qd levers and irons or something else like one of those solar powered holosun 407c or 507c on a rail with it's little Allen key to put it on the rail once scope comes off would easily do it for 2.5 oz of extra carry, that would negate direct to action type rings and have slotted rails instead on the rifle and use rings for those types of bases so the red dot could clamp on the front one quick once scope removed
gives food for thought, have one pre sighted in and couple Allen keys to be able to remove scope and slap the red dot on...much easier to shoot the dot at distance being able to see under the target, shot a rifle I dedicated to that the other day out to 400 very well, fist size group on the bull at 300 was pretty easy holding bottom of dot top of gong with 200 yard zero, 400 was a 24-30" hold center of dot to center of gong so less in terms of gap between dot and gong but still went 2 for 3 on the ~10" gong pretty quick at 400 holding said gap...likely the direction I would test out rather than find rifles with irons, if scope has to come off anyway, may as well go back on with another that's light and small to pack and very low odds of being required
something like this, this one dedicated so there's no rear rail on it, just filler screws in action, but maybe gives some guys some ideas with existing rifles that don't have irons yet travel, this thing works with or without a battery, weighs 2.5 oz with the rail base (holosun 407c or 507c plus the rail base) and it comes with its own little Allen key tool that allows you to mount it and adjust zero also, you make a little decal or chart showing a 200 yard zero or (+2.5" at 100 equiv. in brackets with) and then hold over inches for every 25 yards out to 400 and keep on stock under shell holder for referencing, keep Allen or torx key with it to remove scope rings and put this on, couple shots to confirm/tune zero in +2.5" at 100 and giver (assuming you already mounted and pre-zerod before hand to be close)...you'd land in kill zones to 350-400 pretty solid, better than with irons imo, think I'd rather carry this in case than have irons on full time for nothing, probably shoot 3x further with ease with this over irons also and truly have a back up to finish a hunt, I suppose one could just carry a whole other scope also but bulk/weight won't match this and this option would likely weigh just a touch more than most irons anyway, and hardly any added bulk
and while I'm thinking aloud, a guy could have the cross bolt swapped or modded to a qd knob or lever perhaps? when you know a decent machinest/smith like Henry then everything is possible, he did such a thing to a light laser with rail base for me so it was tool less to mount to various toys, now I will only buy a light/laser with a qd lever as you tend to not want them on full time, just night time but could work for this application also especially if a guy wants to go qd rings and then qd on his solar powered red dot, the knurled twist knob off an old school weaver ring would do the trick on that sight below, snug it up hard with the sight pushed forward into the slots and Robert is your fathers brother, that's exactly how I had Henry mod the one light laser for me was with that very knob and can confirm it works awesome, but really would be overkill, if you carry this in its own little padded case (like for a small Digital camera) you may as well just have the torx/allen to remove scope and the tool that comes with this thing and it's instructions anyway so you can play with modes and reticle choices etc.
for reference, that rifle is is shooting a .5 bc bullet about 2400 fps, near zero was said to be 26 yards, the rifle shoots about moa, so I did a quick zero at 26 on paper and never missed 15" steel at 206, walked right in to zero on the gong at 206 no problem (true horizontal was 201, goal being 200 yard zero), never missed steel, you could almost pre-zero and keep in pack, then if you had a mishap...you could check your near zero first with one (somewhere around 25-30 yards for many cartridges), maybe one more at 100 to ensure your + whatever inches at 100 and then carry on your hunt? I shot as tight or tighter groups with this dang dot on that same rifle as I did with fixed leupold 6x, holdovers with irons would be a b1tch though when you can't see under sight/barrel and reference properly, the green/red dot is a different level of usefulness and will readily take you to 400, with practice I'm sure it would become very instinctual and maybe even be driven further with faster higher bc stuff and that gun weighs under 5 lbs with a 3.0 lb trigger setting...little booger shoots great with that dot! lot of fun, super quick, we did surprisingly well at 200 offhand on a gong also, and that was first time horsing around with it, can only imagine how well a guy would drive it if he ran it all the time...I'm impressed, so is a buddy who isn't easily impressed
