So I’ve been playing with a Texas Weapons Systems (TWS) version 2.0 dog leg dust cover. It actually holds zero, at least with a peep sight and a 1x red dot. Some things cowitness on it, some things don’t:
- Burris FastFire II: too high
- 30mm UltraDot in Warne low rings: too high
- Aimpoint Micro on low picatinny mount: lower 1/3 cowitness
- Primary Arms micro clone: lower 1/3 cowitness
- An Eotech a buddy loaned me at the range just for shits’n’giggles, wayyyy to high (no suprise there, but you could still shoot it).
The dust cover hinges off of where the original rear sight goes.
To compensate for variation in receiver length, there’s about half an inch of length adjustment. The two sections of dust cover have a sort of channel interface to prevent any rotation or side-to-side movement. To install it, you loosen up those 2 machine screws, slide the back end so it fits snugly, then torque the screws down with threadlocker. If these screws ever came loose, it could throw off your zero but otherwise shouldn’t affect weapon function.
At the rear, the cover locates against the left side of the receiver. There’s a tab built into the right side of the cover that acts like a spring to keep the back of the receiver’s left-right movement under control. Up-down movement of the dust cover is controlled by the recoil spring assembly. Unlike a regular AK recoil spring assembly, TWS’s piece has an angle on the underside. The recoil spring pushes that chunk of metal to the rear, and the angle on it keeps the dust cover shoved firmly downwards. End result: you can open up your AK, slam the dust cover shut again, and it still holds zero. I haven’t tested with a magnified optic, but this thing was punching prone 10 round 1.5" groups at 50 yards with no change in zero. I’d fire a group, open up the dust cover, do the hokey pokey, turn around, close it up again, and fire another 10 round group. There was no appreciable shift in zero for 3 magazines of that, even with the gun heating up.
The rear peep is also pretty sweet, but if your front sight has round ears you have decide whether you’re going to use it HK style (center the ears in the peep), or regular style (center the tip of the front post in the peep). Works either way, though this can cause issues with shooters not knowing which way it’s zeroed. Oh, and the extra long sight radius is WONDERFUL.
I stuck a Primary Arms gen 7 micro dot on it since aside from an actual Aimpoint or several Wal Mart grade optics, the PA is one of the few things that will cowitness. It’s not a bad little red dot for what it costs, but if money were no object I’d dump it for an Aimpoint.
So there are 2 reason why I got the TWS dust cover:
- Ain’t got no side plate on this AK.
- I always manage to burn my support hand thumb on Ultimaks. Plus you get to keep more wood on the gun, and wood is awesome.
