I recently decided to swap from red dot tube style sights to a holographic sight on one of my Ruger Mark III's, but as I installed it, my fiancee raised a good question that I didn't have an answer to...

Where should the sight be positioned along the barrel? I mounted it as far aft as I could, planning that I'd prefer to have a "larger" field of vision (FOV) through the sight window. Of course, the recticle also appears slightly larger, i.e. covers more of the target. Having the sight to the rear also minimizes the sight jump upon recoil and minimizes how much the recticle will move around within the sight window with changing grip.

But, am I wrong? Should the sight be mounted farther forward? The advantage I would see is that the recticle would appear smaller, covering slightly less of the target, lending itself to more precise aiming. The sight would also track better with the muzzle, so potentially, the recticle would chase the POI better than if the window were mounted further rearward. The disadvantages would be that the FOV is smaller, the recticle will move more dramatically within the window with changing grip, and the sight hop on recoil is higher.

I did a google image search, and it seems like there's a lot of variancies, some are mounted with the window mid barrel, some are mounted with the window far aft.

So what's your opinion? Anyone heard of other reasons to mount the sights either perferentially forward or rearward?