I have a video here of a similar occurence, using the red dot sight.
I was using default bind of left alt - or the num* to freelook.
Will check if trackIR can recreate same issue.

http://youtu.be/6zBARTuIfmU

Sorry for background chatter - don't think I took audio out.

okay so I went back and played arma 2 for a bit (for funsies) and I noticed that this happens in that game too, which leads me to believe it may just be an included feature to either allow a preplanned distribution of two shots (to assault two guard posts or something I guess), or to allow you to aim without moving your model (for example while avoiding detection in high prone so you don't make the ridiculous hovering in a circle animation). I'll leave the ticket up just in case it is in fact a glitch, but im starting to think it may just be an intentional feature.

I think this is by design. Freelook always snaps you back to default when you are done. If you don't want it to snap back, you can toggle it by double-tapping alt.

I have always assumed that this was a feature, by design. As you stated, to allow you to adjust your aim without moving your entire body and potentially giving away your position. I have not tested this but if you enable an aiming deadzone it will likely only snap back to the extreme of that setting.

If I recall correctly, this was actually a feature of ARMA1 and by default it even had an aiming deadzone set by default out of the box, this allowed you to adjust your aim without your body moving.

Try turning up your aiming deadzone in arma3 and you will see what I mean.

It works as intended.
This feature let you adjust your aim while moving.

This is a feature, not a bug. You also haven't included a description of what "should" happen.

Nothing wrong here.

Agreed - as designed.

initially there were three reasons I thought it was a bug (two of which are still present, one is not). These are:

1. I thought the rounds were landing at the initial point and not the area you free-looked to. Turns out this one was wrong so disregard it
2. while in free-look the sight has a tendency to jump aggressively. that is to say instead of moving smoothly as with simply aiming down the sights, aiming with freelook normally snaps in intervals (the first comments video displays this pretty well. point being aiming while freelooking doesn't always move smoothly)

3)it seemed odd that they would allow it to snap back into zero (more or less) perfectly to take up two rapid shots rather than leave that to user mouse input. Though that's just how freelook has always worked I guess...
either way I do believe this is a feature by design now, though the fact that freelooking while sighted in moves as roughly as it does should still be addressed.

Not sure what's the use of that feature, it feels odd.

It's a feature since Arma 2, and there is absolutely nothing odd about it. It is used to look around with your gun pointing in the direction you are looking without changing the direction you are walking.

This is an absolute must in tactical situations and must not be changed

my only issue is that it seems to be locked to a 45 degree angle left and right rather than a true freelook with the sights up.

Alright, I see the idea behind it now, it's just a bit clumsy implemented, because I have two problems:

1. The mouse sensitivity with freelook changes (floaty, too fast), so it looks and feels out of place (hence like a bug), the sensitivity should at least match your normal sensitivity in freelook.

2. You can move the sight a bit to the left and right and keep the moving direction, but your view is locked within this. I think you should be able to keep turning your view further to the side, like it is usually done with the freelook, so your sights will not follow your view beyond their limit. It's like combining the two features.

Agreed on 1, Psychomorph.

Regarding 2, the idea behind the limit is that you are no longer turning your head around, but your torso (holding the gun and all). Therefore, the arc you cover is limited by the mobility of your torso, which is less than your head (although I agree you could probably span a 120 or so degree angle in front of you with your torso, too)

I see it a feature and really have a purpose:
1- The only way to move only the weapon without moving the rest of your body its doing this or enabling the game option for it that its above "head bob"(don't remember the name exactly), so if it was removed there would be no way to do it

2- This movement its really usefull on some situations, people that aren't used at arma may not even notice, but looking with freelook not has the advantage that you only move your head, so you are less noticeable if you are hidden. If you aim around normally you will rotate your full body and will stand out more.

So if you can use this feature to only move the weapon, so you are also less noticeable to your enemies( applies both to AI, totally confirmed, and players, depends on where you are obviously).

May appear dumb, but could be usefull. And i dont really see a downside of having it ... i mean if you don't like just dont use freelook while on sights lol, not that hard.

By design, please make a different ticket for other things discovered.