Mojo Aperture Rear Sight / KNS AK Front Sight Post

[toshbar 36]

As some of you may have seen, I shoot my 5.45 Saiga at a considerably farther range than most in the AK world. I regularly shoot out to 500 yards, and for the past year have been using a Tasco Pronghorn 3-9x40 scope mounted on the side rail to reach out that far. I can shoot 7" groups at 500 yards with that setup off sandbags but I really want to get away from the scope, and as we all know the AK irons are just about as well thought out as the rest of the gun.....crude and rugged. I looked around for aperture sights and settled on the Mojo Sights Microclick. The main deciding factors were adjustabiIity and price. There are two other aperture sights out for the AK, one is less adjustable and the other is twice the price. I asked for it for Christmas and this morning I opened it up with a smile on my face. Here are some thoughts about it:

 

Get one.

 

I'll get through the only drawback first. It was a PITA to install. It took me a while to figure out which way to push the sight as I pressed the spring with a flat screwdriver. You need to pull the rear of the sight up to about a 30 degree angle above normal while pushing down on the front of the spring. Once you get the lugs into the grooves, push as hard as you can on the aperture end of the sight at the same angle and it will pop into place in the rear sight block. I suspect it will never come out with any force less than a blow torch and 4 foot pry bar. Good thing, cause I really like it.

 

Once I got it in, I noticed one thing. The amount of material in front of the side lugs on the sight is less than the factory sight. I think this leads to the sight not always springing to the down position. Sometimes when adjusting the sight, the sight will not spring down to the rear sight block shelf. I may go out right now and see if I can polish the lugs to get them smooth enough to allow the spring to keep it flat. Other than that, this is one nicely machined sight. All the edges are smooth and it fits into the rear sight block tighter than the factory one. It does not wiggle side to side like my factory saiga one would.

 

EDIT: I just took the sight out and filed away the paint on the lugs that go into the sight block. I just took off the paint, then polished with a cloth, and put a drop of oil on the lugs. I put it back in and now it will spring down flat.

 

The aperture sits about an inch behind the rear of the rear sight block, over the dust cover. This increases sight radius slightly and gets the aperture closer to your eye.

 

 

 

Top View

 

Bottom View, Flipped forward

 

I went and shot it this afternoon and I am impressed. There is a fine adjustment on the sight for elevation. I used this to raise the rear sight enough so that I could get a complete circle out of the aperture in my sight picture. If the aperture is too low, when looking at the front sight, the bottom half of the aperture will be obstructed by the adjusting knob on top of the sight. I raised the fine adjustment just enough to remove the knob from view. I then adjusted my front sight to get a 25 yard zero, which will also have a second zero around 270 yards. One thing to note about the fine adjustment screw: It needs to be threadlocked once you find your zero. When I got home I put some blue loc-tite on it. Count the number of turns you turn the screw out, put some thread locker on it, and turn it back in the same number of turns to get it back to your zero.

 

After you get your zero, you can adjust the MicroClick for distance using the large knob on top. It raises the sight a set distance for each click, and every 5 clicks is marked with a visual detent on the knob. The small screw in the middle with the fine threads is the 'fine adjustment' and the outer gear-like threads are for the range adjustment. The instructions say that every click of elevation equals 0.75 MOA adjustment. That number can vary depending on barrel length and sight radius. I haven't done any long range testing to see what changes it will do for my rifle yet, but that could be happening tomorrow or this week.

 

Close range:

 

Knob adjusted all the way for long range:

 

 

The windage is just a simple allen screw that slides the aperture side to side. The instructions say that one complete turn will move POI 3.5" at 100 yards, so it would be safe to say that 1/2 turn is close to 1 MOA adjustment. I just turned it a little bit every group i shot to get it centered at 25 yards. This screw may need some thread locker in the future, but wasn't as loose as the elevation screw.

 

BTW, the allen wrench that comes with it adjusts both windage and elevation and THE COOLEST THING ABOUT IT is that it fits in my tool kit that goes in my buttstock! It'll always be there if I need to make any adjustments in the field.

 

Mojo offers smaller aperture inserts for the sight, but I believe that the one supplied is small enough(0.150"). The aperture is a good 7-9 inches away from my eyeball and I feel anything smaller would make focusing on the front sight difficult. If the aperture was right up on your eyeball like an AR, I'd recommend the smaller inserts.

 

I have nothing but good things to say about my Mojo Microclick right now.

 

 

On to the other half of my iron sight improvement, The KNS AK front sight post.

 

This thing is thin. The factory AK sight is 0.078", and an AR-15 National Match front post is 0.052". This new post is 0.034", half the width of the factory post, and about 2/3 the width of a National Match post.

I put it in this morning right after I put in my Mojo. I used the AK sight tool that came with my Saiga. It screws in and uses a plastic squeeze bushing to keep the sight from turning freely.

 

Here are some photos to give you an idea of how thin it is.

 

 

 

This is a dime. Go get one and look at its profile so you can get an idea.

 

 

 

The result when you put the two sights together is a fantastic sight picture.

 

 

The thin front sight is somewhat hard to focus on, but it can be done with my 19 year old eyes so I'll do it until I need the 0.052" post.

 

I took a bunch of photos because there aren't too many detailed photos of a MicroClick installed on the web.

 

Discuss!

Edited December 28, 2010 by toshbar

[jimdigriz 580]

+1 for a nice write-up with photos. I'll be interested in hearing how much accuracy you can squeeze out of your AK with that setup. But it will be difficult to know how much results from the aperture sight, and how much results from the thin post. I suspect the thin post will give you the biggest gains. Tech Sights or aperture sight on the Texas Dog Leg rail along with the thin post might help get one close to the accuracy limit of the rifle itself. I had the Tech Sights with a thin post for a while - not quite as thin as yours, mind you - and the sight picture was glorious, but I decided it was impractical for a fighting rifle in the kind of scenarios I might face.

Edited December 26, 2010 by Jim Digriz

[toshbar 36]

I just took the sight out and filed away the paint on the lugs that go into the sight block. I just took off the paint, then polished with a cloth, and put a drop of oil on the lugs. I put it back in and now it will spring down flat.

Edited December 28, 2010 by toshbar

[loki0629 55]

Thanks for the nice writeup and the pics.

[northernsaiga 4]

+1 for a great review. Look forward to hearing more after you have had a chance to really put it through its paces....

[hutchsaiga 93]

nice write up. I am also interested in seeing a range report...with pics of course.

[toshbar 36]

Range report will probably be monday afternoon. All my land is leased to hunters and deer season ends saturday.