I was looking at a few different fighting rifles out of curiosity and once again notice the AR is the weird one in the group (for several reasons). One curiosity of mine was the dust cover. Supposedly to keep dust out. Yet other rifles (AK, AUG, FN FAL and SCAR, G3, Rem/Bushy ACR, etc.) don’t have such a protective device, several of which acknowledged as being reliable guns. Granted, these are op-rod driven guns, as opposed to gas piston guns, which may dictate different treatment.
My questions are “Do they work?” and “Would I be sacrificing capability in buying an upper without a dust cover?”
That would depend on your operating environment and intended purpose. I’ve been in environments where you had to keep the weapon bagged when not on post due to dust (and that was in the Gulf and not on land!).
I wouldn’t necessarily care if there was a dust cover on a game gun (my competition AR doesn’t have one). But on a serious use AR, I’d definitely want one. It’s not like they add much weight and they don’t hurt anything for sure.
Yep and so does the PKM GPMG . I think describing it as a dustcover is kinda wrong because I don’t see it keeping out all of the dust but mud or other heavy foreign debris yes it is use full. If you need it ,all depends on what you are planing to do with the rifle.
An AK’s ‘dust cover’ is the safety, right? So when the weapon is switched to ‘fire’, it no longer has a dust cover… right?
Part of my curiosity was seeing slick receivers like on the JP CTR02 rifles and wondering if they’d be useful in more ‘practical’, less competition oriented endeavors. I’m not one to start saying the dust cover sucks or anything, I just don’t know how useful it would actually be. I realize the LaRue Stealth and Vltor MUR are both trued up receivers that are actually (somewhat) available, but it’s still a curiosity nonetheless.
I don’t care much about dust but having a rifle banging around in the trunk of a patrol car with everything else imaginable tends to see Murphy show up. Better to use and never really need than get something in there that hoses your rifle up.
I saw an old handcuff key wind up between the receiver and BCG. Not my rifle and how it happened is still a mystery. The guy the rifle belonged to is a squared away operator too. Things that make you shrug your shoulders with a WTF look on your face.
Not to digress, but that is more proof that Murphy is alive and well. I like the way the ‘ejection port cover’ (as Brownell’s catalogs the part) works. After I lock and load, I close the door. No sense tempting Murphy.
Get in a sandstorm like I was during the first days of O.I.F. 1. They are not even adequate. We ended up using tee-shirts to cover the ejection port when we were’nt fighting.
Even old bolt action military rifles, especially Enfields, had dust/action covers issued to thim, for the same reason geminiglocker was wrapping t-shirts over his weapon’s receiver.
The M16’s dust cover came directly from the German StG-44, which saw extensive use in some extreme conditions in WWII. The AK, which is not a clone of the StG-44, does indeed use the safety lever as a dustcover.
I think it’s a good idea. It certainly can’t hurt.
Here’s our mod Mark5pt56 and staff Katar with Vickers’ StG-44. You can see the dust cover flipped open and up against the rear sight tower.
I cleaned my M249 until it was inspection ready before leaving Iraq. My 1st Sgt “corrected” me for wrapping a T-shirt around my receiver while we were waiting by the helo pad. It did not promote “uniformity.” Common sense doesn’t always exist in the military…
The safety on an AK is not the dust cover. The dust cover on an AK snaps on top of and covers the whole receiver. Different than an AR style dust cover (or ejection port cover), but it has the same name. AK’s will fire without dust covers, but I’ve never done it. I’m not sure how safe that would be. Here’s a pic: http://www.ultimak.com/AKStockR&R/AKNomenclature.jpg
