That’s a 25 yard group ???
Not good..... Noooot gooood ! For a supposed quality battle rifle..... Dang, ya shouldn’t have to tweek such a rig to get at the very least a 1 moa group from a bench.
I agree completely, which is why I just had a quickie offhand shootoff with the AUG, which also has a 1x optic. They were very equal in most respects, with the chief objective being to compare two weapons with user-friendly optics designed for quick dominance out to the critical distance of 100m.
I've tweaked box-stock AR15 clones to shoot 1 MOA just for the satisfaction of knowing how to do it. Due to old eyeballs, I need a 6x-or-better scope to find that little black dot. Then I go back to a wide-field "fast" 1x form of sight, knowing the rifle itself can easily outshoot the sight I chose for it. Except for the mountains of Afghanistan, most combat ranges still average a max of about 100m. Unless you carry an AK, where thoughts tend towards a battlefield about 25m deep. This gives me a 50-75m "cushion" to engage the enemy before he even thinks about getting his head screwed on straight.
I can go with a proven weapon for ranges beyond 100m, but just as hunting deer in Michigan, a good field of fire beyond 200m is really hard to find around here. So I want to study "all my tools in the toolbox", including my own skills, to shape the battlefield before a crisis occurs to my personal benefit. I've discovered that if I personally rebuild and tweak a weapon, I shoot it better, and with more confidence. As it says in the Marine "rifleman's creed", it becomes a part of me, and I understand our combined strengths and weaknesses better. That's a big load off my brain, which will be busy with other tasks in a crisis.
Second, I plan for a defensive fight on my own, known, turf. That means known distances to key features, deception, multiple firing points, and inviting-looking locations for the bad guy, which is really a kill sack.
Finally, continual practice so I can reach out reliably to the outermost range of my defensive position. I want a high probability of making consistent hits at ranges that seem to the bad guy that the fire is coming from another zip code.
So I want to engage with my built-to-spec rifle at a long enough range that I don't have to be too concerned about falling back to a shotgun or pistol-caliber carbine. It's like the old, "train like you fight, and fight like you train", with the added advantage of knowing my own 'hood.