The Texas Weapon Systems Dog Leg cover for the AK-47 family of rifles has been out a few years and has recently undergone an upgrade of sorts. As anyone who has owned an AK style rifle knows, mounting any sort of optics on it has been an issue. Over the last few years many styles of mounts have shown up on the scene for the AK family of rifles, most of them however use a forward mounting position of one that utilizes the side rail mount. These style provide some options but generally they make the optics sit ridiculously high on the rifle and render them almost useless. The best option on the market was the ZenitCo dust cover option. ZenitCo is a Russian product and are expensive and sometimes hard to find. The other problem with the ZenitCo dust cover set up was it required you to also purchase a ZenitCo front rail that bolts to the dust cover. In total both pieces were over $400.
That is where Texas Weapons Systems comes into the picture. The TWS set up uses a system that clips into the AK47 rear site assembly and gives the user a full length rail system built into the dust cover. While this system eliminates the rear sight, TWS does sell a sight that bolts onto the rail system to replace it, in case you want to shoot your rifle with iron sights as well. Texas Weapons Systems has priced this Generation III Dog Leg cover at a very reasonable $170, a fraction of the ZenitCo rail set up. The big question is how does it hold up compared to the ZenitCo system? and for that we turn to our friend RobSki from the AK Operators Union Local 47-74. RobSki has out more AK’s threw hell and back than I can ever could, so lets take a look at a torture test that Paul Minder and RobSki did to the TWS Dog Leg. I have found RobSki’s tests to be well beyond the bounds of normal weapons use, and that to me is refreshing, if it can survive RobSki & Paul, it can survive almost anything.
(Cover Photo:Hawaiireporter.com)
