We covered the super ultra awesome SciFi next gen ninja warrior optic and future soldier system that Magpul and Maztech are putting together. That is exciting.
But nothing, and I do mean nothing, made me more excited than this little guy.
The Magpul Dust Cover for AR-15’s. That’s it. This little oft forgotten part until that little kick leg spring finally gives up the ghost and then it is flopping around noisily.
For many years now companies have been slowly making our lives easier and better by getting rid off the obnoxious part of the AR that cling to life. The trigger guard, retaining the rear takedown pin spring/detent, threaded bolt catch pin, but nobody had brought us an easy mode dust cover worth the effort.
Magpul has… and I am ecstatic. Between this and non forward assist uppers, AR uppers have become solely barrel oriented and that is just fine by me.
Magpul isn’t the first to do polymer covers, but that has been coming. They have made install, and replacement, and absolute snap. This ease and quality of maintenance improvement is the type of change I geek out over more than I probably should, but I don’t care I love this stuff.
What did they do? Well if you aren’t in a position to watch the 39 second video, they took the spring coil, long rod with the tiny c-clip, and stamped metal dust cover and turned life easy. That nearly 4 handed operation that needed to be done via handguard removal and all kinds of deep level maintenance, is now a simple internally loadable spring.
That same device that helps load the spring in the cover for easy install is also the tab that pops the cover open… all on that same spring. No more trying to load the coil spring while it is trying to escape and then push the rod through. Fit the forward fixed leg into the receiver spot for it and then let the spring loaded leg which is also your cover opening spring close it. Done. The tab is the same length as the short leg on the coil spring so there is not interference with brass or any such durability nonsense. Magpul apparently open and closed these something on the order of 10,000 times (IIRC) to check to see if something would break. For reference, that makes it more durable than the barrel.
Also no more weird oxidation of the cover, polymer is just polymer, it’ll scratch maybe but it won’t react to moisture, oils, or solvents for firearms. For those using industrial solvent cleaning tanks on rifles and worried about the effects, these come off. Easily. They can then be reinstalled easier even than the old clamshell A1/A2 handguards. On/Off/On again in seconds.
Simple maintenance of systems is something I adore. I love it seeing it make an end user and maintainers job easier. Anything I can hand down to what the military knows as “10 Level” (User) and it can be done by them without almost no (I do emphasize almost because some Marine or Soldier will absolutely strain the limits of the theory, ‘Grunt Proof’ it is assuredly not) margin for error with simple directions makes a maintainers job easier and quicker.
Need to mount 88 Optics? Easy optic mounts mean I can have 88 people do that once under supervision or 11 people do it 8 times, etc. Now in that same vein, dust cover replacement because the spring broke or the cover is busted? Old one comes out, the new one goes in, a few seconds from unpackaging the part to it being properly installed. No need to remove a bunch of much more critical parts to get to a supporting part whose original design relied on those parts to retain it.
Upgraded replacement, retention, and materials. Magpul continues their legacy in that regard here.
