Cheese Grater
One of the other gun parts I got this week was the ventilated upper handguard, aka “Cheese Grater” from Khyber Customs. While I do have 3 AK’s this was going to be for my recent purchase, making it my 4th.
Ordered it on Wednesday of last week but at the checkout page they do mention there is about a 5-7 day processing period before it ships out. I got the notification on Saturday that it shipped so it only took about 3 days to head out. Got the part 3 days later. Not too bad but if you’re expecting near instant delivery (1-2 days) you have to be a bit more patient.
Package arrived in a padded yellow envelope which contained the little cardboard box with the cheese grater. There is no installation paperwork because you can find that info on their website.
There are two welds inside of the cheese grater which Khyber Custom says acts as an interior brace to reduce vertical movement. The cheese grater is made of 18G cold-rolled steel and comes with a manganese phosphate finish. Although it looks like it would be reversible during install, the welds tell you the direction it should face. The vertical weld is the rear and the horizontal weld is the front.
If you’re unfamiliar with removing an AK upper handguard it is actually pretty simple, granted your AK variant is one of the simple types. With the gas tube removed you grab the upper handguard and turn/twist it in the opposite direction til it comes full circle and pops off. In a way it’s almost like revving up a motorcycle if I had to compare the basic motion. Some AK and RPK rifles are stubborn since each country had it’s own variation. I’ve even read some people resorting to cracking the wood off but you want to avoid this in case you change your mind about the cheese grater.
I bought the Yugo length cheese grater to install on my M76. If you’re wondering why it has those 3 black stripes, it’s because the handguard was cracked. I’ll cover more about the rifle in a different post.
Luckily my upper handguard popped off without issue. When I tried to install the cheese grater I did so with my bare hands thinking it would also pop right on. Not so. I had to squeeze and apply hand pressure on the end pointing towards the muzzle but I couldn’t get it to twist completely around. Went onto Khyber Customs website to read the install guide and they mentioned using gloves to assist in turning. I put on some leather gloves and tried again and surprisingly it worked. The gloves gave me enough grip to turn it all the way around and it locked in place. No movement whatsoever, which is good since it doesn’t rattle around and feel cheap or flimsy.
Is it worth it? It depends on your preferences. Truthfully I didn’t care much for it the first day but now I’ve come to really love it. It has that post-apocalyptic, Khyber Pass look to it which matches the ugly cracked wood of my rifle. My M76 was never meant to be pretty.
So if you got an AK or RPK style rifle or shotgun, they more than likely have something that will fit.
Khyber Customs