The TEKKO AK4 Integrated Rail System is a polymer hand guard for the AK family of weapons that offers several configuration options. It is a drop-in replacement for the standard hand guards that has a top rail, 2 removable side rails, and a bottom rail.
All of the rails are made of polymer. The top rail is integrated into the gas tube cover. The side rails are removable and there is a single spot to attach them on either side of the hand guard. The lower rail is integrated into the lower hand guard. It features a nicely textured cover that matches the shape and feel of a standard hand guard without a rail when it is in place. It is pretty clever.
The polymer feels sturdy – not cheap. I also noted that every screw that is used to secure the various pieces of the TEKKO Hand Guards screw into a metal nut instead of plastic. My sample required some slight fitting, but it took just seconds to do with a rotary tool and likely had more to do with the receiver of the AK that I installed it on than the dimensions of the TEKKO Hand Guards.
Observations from Use
The bottom rail is my favorite part of the TEKKO Hand Guards. If you don’t need it, you can cover it and the hand guard will feel as if there is nothing there at all. If you do need it, it can be a great place to mount a vertical grip. Just be sure that the vertical grip is mounted far enough forward or is trimmed short enough that it does not interfere with rocking the magazine in and out.
The side rails are most useful mounting a light or a sling mount. I use the sling mount on the hand guard retaining cap so I was free to use the rail for light mounting. This works well with some caveats. You will likely need to use an offset light mount if your AK has a sling loop on the hand guard cap. If your light mount is very thick, it may interfere with the sling loop on the left side of the AK. I fixed this easily by using the sling loop as a place to mount a Blue Force Gear UWL. Also, lights mounted on these side rails can take up a lot of space on the hand guard so you will either want to use a vertical grip or put the light on the opposite side with a tape switch to keep the hand guard clear enough to hold easily. Much of how you configure the side rails will depend on your shooting style. There is enough flexibility here to accommodate most people.
The top rail is tied into the hand guards with 4 long bolts that screw into metal nuts in the lower hand guard. This configuration seems sturdy and it did allow an RDS to hold zero in limited testing. However, I do have some reservations about keeping an optic on the polymer rail long term and it does sit higher than I prefer so I generally do not use the top rail piece. If you are going to use this top rail for optic mounting, I would limit it to a very lightweight optic. Again, it held up fine in my limited testing. The light weight optic advice may be paranoia based on previous experiences with polymer rails.
There is no metal heat shield in the lower hand guard. I did not have any issues with heat or melting but I also didn’t do any mag dumps. It would be nice if there was a heat shield but many hand guards are fine without them.
Wrap Up
I like and continue to use these hand guards almost entirely because of the bottom rail. The rest of the features are useful but I especially like having a lightweight way to attach a vertical grip. They offer quite a bit of flexibility at a lower weight and cost penalty than many metal rails. I should also note that they are made in the USA so they can help meet your 922R compliance requirements.
Check out the TEKKO AK47 Integrated Rail System on MissionFirstTactical.com.
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