benzy2, again, I never disagreed with you, I am actively agreeing with you--your suggestion is a good one, and the OP should try it.
I may have gotten fixated on the fact that the OP asked for mounting recommendations, and approached the issue of mounting hardware a little more strongly that is necessary. You are absolutely correct--angle
is more important than offset, and I have never remotely challenged that, despite not explicitly bringing up angle myself--again, I may have fixated on mounting, and mounts in particular, and for that I will apologize. However, your suggestion that mounting location has no relationship to angle is not necessarily accurate, either--you're assumption is that the light and optic line of sight are running perfectly parallel to one another, but as we all know, they are not, sights are adjusted both vertically and horizontally to intersect with the projectile's flight path, every adjustment you make beyond a perfectly centered reticle is introducing some amount of angle, minutes of it, even. In which case, the closer a fixed LOS device is mounted to the smaller the amount of deviation will be, at least to start with.
To reiterate, I agree that angle is more important than offset, and your solution for trying to adjust the angle of the beam itself is a good one, but offset is not fixed in the way you're describing it either, which is why most shooters will try to mount their optic as close to the bore as possible as well, full well knowing the two [or at least the two lines of sight] are not totally parallel, but the closer the scope to the bore, the less adjustment they will need (and yes, I recognize the irony that I've suggested in another thread in this forum the use of higher-than-normal mounted optics, but that is for a different application
). Will it help more than trying to move the beam if it's not well centered? No, I never said it would or present it as a 100% solution, but I also don't see what's so wrong with trying to set the best conditions for success with a good setup either, the OP can decide what to spend their money on or not.
I hate spending money unnecessarily just as much, if not more than the next guy, so your recommendation for trying to find a way to fix the issue without spending more money is well received, I've run plenty of sub-optimal setups when costs were a consideration, and I simply couldn't or didn't want to spend the money, and you've offered a zero-cost option for the OP to try, which I'm all for. I may have focused a little too heavily on mounts, because the question was about mounts, and my mind immediately went to mounts, I'll wholly accept that critique. But to make it out as if I'm physically reaching into OP's wallet to extract money is a little extreme (I just want to point out at this time that one of the products which I recommended is one that we don't even carry). I'm also not sure where you got 25 feet at 500 yards when the OP has indicated neither the range, nor how far "far off" in fact is, but I understand the rhetorical use of hyperbole to illustrate your point.
Again, to make it perfectly clear: I agree that angle is more important than offset, and have never argued that point.
OP, hopefully this has still been helpful for you, sorry for the inadvertent derailment.
~Augee