Photo by Commander, U.S. Naval Forces / CC BY

One of the most common complaints about the AK 47 is that it “can’t hit the broad side of a barn.” These complaints are usually uttered by keyboard commandos, people trained to see the AK as the weapon of choice for Third World peasant soldiers or who have only handled low quality or worn out units. Fortunately, you know all of this is (as my father would say in his day) horse pucky. Why else, after all, would you be searching for the best AK scope mount for the optic you’ve purchased (or will purchase)? There are a lot of products to wade through, so we did the dirty work for you and found the 4 best products:

RS Regulate Lower AK Modular Mount

The RS Regulate Lower Modular Mount is one of the more modern and high-quality AK scope mounts. It’s far from cheap, but a premium item commands a premium price. The RS Regulate AK 103 Scope mount will put your scope as low as possible and this allows you to get the best cheek weld you can. Working with a weapon that wasn’t designed to use an optic can be tough, but RS Regulate makes it work.

The Lower Modular Mount places the optic right behind the front sight so you need a long eye relief scope or a red dot to use the mount effectively. There isn’t a mount available for AKs that puts an optic as low as this one. Its modular nature makes it easy to use with a multitude of different optics and a wide variety of different AKs. It’s likely the highest quality AK optic’s mount you can buy.

East Meets West

Typically, the best AK 47 scope mount is a side mount that attaches to a standard rail on the side of the AK 47 receiver. Long a Russian standard design, there are a plethora of bases that can attach to the side rail. This offering from Tacksport combines Soviet simple engineering with modern American styling and more importantly a modern Picatinny rail. Now, you can mount almost any sort of scope on your AK 47 using commonly available rings. While a standard Russian design has built in rings which will restrict your mounting options, this base is limited only by your imagination and budget and is arguably the best AK scope mount.

Ultimak AK Scope Mount

Mounting optics to AKs is an interesting problem. Luckily, the industry has provided us with numerous ways to do so. You can side mount an optic, you can replace the front sight with a scope mount, or better yet you can replace the top of the gas tube with a rail section. This is what the Ultimak AK Scope mount can do. It replaces the gas tube cover with a long rail for mounting red dots of all kinds.

The Ultimak AK Scope mount allows you to retain and even co-witness with stock AK iron sights. This mount is designed for red dots and similar optics, they need to have an infinite level of eye relief to work with an optic posted this far ahead. On top of mounting a red dot it could also allow the mounting of small laser aiming systems as well. The Ultimak is a simple design, but it is an efficient and low profile one. This is one of the best AK scope mounts in my book.

UTG Pro

The main problem with side mounts, gas tube mounts, or rear sight mounts is the relatively short rail space you have to mount accessories. However, the UTG Pro model has changed that. This rail fits over the rear of your weapon at the end of the dust cover and runs all the way to the rear sight attachment point. The overall effect is 19 slots for attaching accessories, scopes and other optics. The rail also has an attached rear iron sight to replace the one you remove. This gives you a longer sight radius, which makes accurate shooting easier. The UTG Pro would allow you to run a magnified optic with a night vision optic and still have a usable rear sight. That’s one of the best AK scope mounts in my book.

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AK’s and Scope Mounts

General Kalashnikov’s original vision didn’t include a scope mount. After all, the AK 47 and related variants were built to be a stable, reliable, and simple infantry weapon. Over time, the design has evolved to include light machine guns and sniper or designated marksman rifles, and has even sprouted a standard scope mount. This reflects the changing role not only of military functions, but consumer demands. Not ever military can afford to or wants to put optics on every infantry rifle, but a private consumer has the luxury of being able to demand optics and accessories for their sporting rifle.

To that end, a great number of options for scoping the AK 47 have popped up. We looked at two of the most common and reliable ways of doing it, side scope bases and long eye relief bases that replace the rear sight. These are both proven and reliable systems, which is more than can be said for other AK scope mounts. There are all manner of gimmicks, ranging from unstable dust cover bases, to strange clamp on bases that incorporate or use the gas tube. Some bases are such complex Rube Goldberg style systems you have to wonder why a person just doesn’t install a side rail like the Russians did.

We didn’t touch on these gimmicky bases, wanting to instead simply offer the best AK 47 scope mounts that will function without looking like something that escaped from the vodka-fueled nightmares of a freshman Russian engineering student. You’ll note that all these bases had standard Picatinny rails, and for good reason. With a Picatinny rail you can mount almost any sort of scope you want. Rings are common and pretty much any scope you can find on the market will work on top of these. In addition, the side bases reviewed all allowed use of iron sights, making transition from irons to optics absurdly easy. Pretty much any side base will keep the zero on optics as well, making it easy to take a base off and store it, without worrying about losing zero, but you should always check this before relying on it.

AK 47‘s are simple rifles, designed to be rugged and accurate enough to engage an enemy soldier at combat distances. Modern versions built for the sporting market offer more attention to accuracy and detail, but still benefit from a scope. Getting the right base will make your rifle all that much more enjoyable and extend its usefulness. It’s hard to improve on the classics, but a good scope mount will do just that. Just be sure to get the right scope for it too (see our article on the best AK 47 scopes).