Scope on a bullpup?

[leonpoi]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Normally, bullpup rifles have a lesser effective range, due to the shorter sight radius. But is seems to me that with a scope or some other optic (such as a Trilux), the sight radius of the rifle itself shouldn't matter. Anyone know if that assumption is correct?

I would say yes, and this is exactly the ruling for weapon design in GDW's Traveller series (same system as tw2k). Here, bullpups had lower effective range exactly for the reason you mentioned but only when using iron-sights.

[Legbreaker]

It really depends on the weapon design. Most bullpups to my knowledge possess an optical sight unit of some type or other. The iron sights are no more than a backup, usually mounted externally on the optical unit. This restricts the distance between rear and foresight to often only about six inches.

If however the front sight was positioned towards the muzzle of the weapon and the rear sight in it's customary position relatively close to the firer's eye, then automatically you have a more accurate iron sight.

As Paul inferred in the original post, it's not the weapon barrel, layout or operating mechanism that's really the problem, it's the sights. It's quite possible to have a bullpup sniper rifle just as accurate as a conventional layout.