Strike Industries AK Rail First Impressions

A couple weeks ago I did a post in reply to The Firearms Blog's announcement of the Strike Industries AK Rail.  After getting in contact with them, Strike Industries was gracious enough to send one to review.

Despite seeing it and other similar mounts pictured before, when it arrived I was a little surprised by how lightweight and compact it was.  My first thought that it was something that would in fit well on a minimalistic AK. The package includes the rail, 3 set screws, one cross screw with nut, and installation guide.  The rail seems to be of high quality aluminum and good black anodizing.  The guide is in a small booklet and well done for the part of the getting the rail on.  However, it is a little lacking on how to get the AK rear off and if you should remove the rear sight leaf spring. Other similar mounts differ on if to keep this spring in or not, and according to Strike Industries, this mount works best if you remove the leaf spring. 

To remove an AK rear you should use some object like a screwdriver to push down on the leaf spring in the gap between the sight and the muzzle end of the rear sight block.  Setting the elevation of the sight all the way forward can help with the removal.  As enough pressure is applied you can pull the sight out with your other hand or even pop it out with the right pressure/tool.  Then pull the leaf out towards the muzzle.  On this particular rifle my spring was a little tough to pull out, I needed to get it high enough to clear the bevels inside the rear sight block.

Once you get it out the install becomes very straight forward and as described by the booklet.  The cross screw goes horizontally through the mount and the holes in the rear sight block.  Use a 2mm hex wrench for this screw and 1.5mm for the set screws. One nice touch is that the cross screw's hole is threaded which will allow the sight to be adjusted for windage.  However, adjust this screw first, once the set screws are tightened the mount is solidly in place.  Sometimes mounts like these can have problems with tilting forward or back, but since the set screws are on both sides of the fulcrum (the cross screw), this seems to make it much more stable.

  

By adjusting the set screws you also have some ability to change elevation, but they should be adjusted on both sides so that the mount does not freely move up or down.  As always, don't overtighten and use threadlocker, there are many mounts that have been trashed by overtighting! 

 I plan on using a Primary Arms detachable base Micro Red Dot Aimpoint clone with this mount.  While it definitely is not as good as the Aimpoint, it does have a solid reputation that should allow me to give this mount an honest test out at the range. Also, Strike Industries has eluded to adding other similar optic specific mounts to their product line.  I'm hoping they will come out with an Aimpoint Micro speicifc one that should let me use this optic as well.

Some of the comments on this rail have been that results in a high mount.  Honestly, many AK mounts have this problem, especially most of the imported side rail mounts.  Through my dry practice and measurements, the rail actually has a quite usable cheek weld and still sits lower than many side rail/mount combos. Yes, it is still higher than an Ultimak railed gas tube or a TWS Dogleg, but the Strike Industries rail is less than half their prices and debatably requires less changes to the rifle than the other two.

For my measurements, I used the line between the receiver and the front trunnion.  I found that this gives a nice solid line that allows for easy and consistent measurements.  The standard AK rear sight at Battlefield Zero sits at about 1.7", while the Strike Industries mount only sits just .2" higher at 1.9".  Mounting the Primary Arms Micro put the bottom of the rear lens at about 2.2" high.  When compared to my Romanian M10-545 side rail with one of the lowest Eastern European mounts out there, the BP-02 side mount, the Strike Industries rail is actually a slightly lower height.  It has another advantage over the BP-02 as well in that the iron sights can still be used.

Strike Industries put a channel through the rail and added two dots that can be painted in to give a basic rear sight picture.  Although the channel is wider than standard rear sights and has a limited field of view with the optic mounted, it seems to be usable and I feel it will serve well in the backup sights role.  I'll definitely be doing some tests of the rear sight both with and without the optic at the range.

For the price, the Strike Industries AK Rail looks to be a simple yet effective method to mount a small red dot.  It is also an interesting entry into the AK market for the company.  I look forward to getting some range time in with the rail and Strike Industries new AK line of products as well!  Part 2 to follow as soon as I can get out to the range. (Here it is!)

Disclaimer:  This mount was provided free of charge from Strike Industries for this review.  I hope to keep working with them to give more information about their new products.

I will not be buying from Attero Arms.

I noticed this morning that a lot of the traffic lately has been from this thread at TheHighRoad.org where the Attero Arms interview and Twisterx44 statement is linked.

Let me give you some behind the scenes information. I was skeptical at first about the Twisterx44 reviews of course since they were plastered all over the gunboards. I contacted Attero through their contact page and Twisterx44 through private messaging on my local gunboards, INGO. I was also able to find through Google some background on Twisterx44. At one point on the night of the July 27th and morning of the 28th, Twisterx44 through PMs had me convinced that he was a young, uninitiated, local buyer of an Attero Arms SBR. He told me that he had made a mistake, was hurting Attero, and wanted me to edit my blog post. I also received an email from Attero Arms on the 28th stating:

"We have taken care of the issue on the majority of major forums. At this point, your blog post is sort of the only remaining controversy regarding the topic, so unfortunately I am going to have to ask you to at least remove the portion of your post regarding Twisterx44 or our involvement with it.

Thanks for your cooperation and your interest in the matter."

I was initially very angry about this email. However, I gave it some time and gave them benefit of the doubt. I also wanted to be as factual as possible and not inflammatory to a new company if they were actually on the up and up, so I did edit out a few lines that stated that some people would need more evidence to believe it. I now regret that edit as it makes me seem to unwittingly support a possible guerrilla marketing campaign. The whole time if I had just went back to that THR.org thread, I believe I would have seen the compelling evidence that I was looking for and has now been removed.

I now feel that there is enough coincidences and circumstantial evidence that I personally have made the decision not to buy from Attero Arms.

Please, make up your own minds if you are interested in their products. You may believe that Attero and Twisterx44 are one in the same or that they are as they have stated here separate entities. Even if you believe it was a guerrilla marketing, you may also have it in your heart to forgive what seems to be a new business ran by young people. If decide to buy from them let me know what you think, especially their mount. But I will be buying a Midwest Industries T1 mount instead and a Primary Arms micro red dot to go with it as soon as I can afford it.

I feel that I need to make a full disclosure to clear my name if possible. I understand that the similar I time restarted this blog may make it seem that if you believe Attero Arms was guerrilla marketing that I may have been part of their campaign. I mostly definitely was NOT a part of a campaign. I did at one point offer my blog as a place to get their statements out since it seemed Attero Arms specifically didn't have public statement out. I also offered for them to link any of my blog posts if they wanted. Other than the email exchanges for information on the situation and product offering, I have had no other contact with Attero. I was just trying to get out more information overall of what looked to be an interesting product. I feel that I may have been used to help their guerrilla marketing campaign in that process.

Unlike pages and forum registrations that have been disappearing after this incident, all of my forums registrations have been and will continue to be maintained as will my Photobucket account. I am MattCFII on most boards. If you've seen some of my pics that I've hosted through Photobucket you'll see that my account there is under Snake122 which may seem unusual. It was my flight sim username and the first google hit at glogster on that is not mine. However, just about anything else flight sim related that you'd find with that username is mine.

My real name is Matt. I live in Indianapolis, IN. I am married with daughters and in my 30s. I am not naive enough to think that someone could find out more about me but right now that is all the info I want to release. I have learned a lot with this incident and feel like I will be a better blogger because of it. I apologize for any offense I have caused my readers due to this controversy. Please feel free to air out an concerns you have in the comments.

UPDATE:

That thread has expanded and I think most people will now agree that Twisterx44 is Nate from Attero Arms. I have seen other evidence that completely convinces me of this as well. Again, it is a young soldier with a startup company that made a very bad decision. You may my be able to forgive him and try their products. Personally due to the ride he took me on, I cannot.