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At the IWA trade show earlier this year, a representative from the Polish KGM Consortium gave me a sample of a new AK optics rail to try out. This idea here was to create a universal optics mount for basically any AK/AKM/AK74 rifle that would be light, not require permanent modification, and not interfere with other military accessories like under barrel grenade launchers. The target market was Ukraine; to provide a way to quickly and easily improve the combat effectiveness of legacy Kalashnikovs by giving them modern optics.
The rail mounts to the gas tube of the rifle after removing the upper handguard. Three steel claps are used (the rest of the mount is 7075 aluminum, but the steel clamps give steel threads for the 12 screws used). For an additional point of control, the mount is designed to fit tight over the rear sight block of the rifle, thus stabilizing the often-slightly-wobbly gas tube. Since this does not use the barrel at all, the lower handguard is not involved and UBGLs like the GP-25 and GP-30 can still be used. The mount is high enough to allow easy field stripping of the rifle, and either rod dot or magnified optics can be used.
I was initially skeptical, but when mounted to my rifle (an older Century AK74 build with Was tGerman furniture) it actually seemed quite solid. Disassembly and reassembly did not cause a loss of zero. However, after I tried dropping the rifle from head height a couple times, I got a 6 MOA vertical shift in POI. KGM advised me that removing and replacing the rail/gas tube assembly would fix this, but it did not.
Despite my initial skepticism, I really wanted to like this once I started using it. And as long as it doesn’t suffer a significant blow, I think it is a pretty good solution for easily mounting optics on an AK. The use of the rear sight block as a support is clever, and isolating the rail from the dust cover prevents any zero-hold issues resulting from basic field stripping. Unfortunately, the drop that caused my zero shift is not really a “torture” sort of thing to my mind; it’s a totally reasonable accidental slip that could happen to anyone, and having this cause a major zero shift is a significant compromise.
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