Flobalob - a CZ owner, and pretty knowledgeable guy, found a czech website with a mount for a VZ58 - and it was exactly the same mount as an AK mount he'd seen on an American website. I've also been doing some web browsing on various diff't AK, SVD, and even SKS mounts, and the plate they use. There should be no reason why attaching that plate to the left side of the receiver, and then using Russian side mounts (or optics) shouldn't work. Anyways, I'm willing to invest a couple hundred bucks to see how smart I think I am

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I'm thinking I'll order the Universal side rail from Kalinka Optics, and the AA battery version of the Kobra red dot for it.
PS - Thanks for showing me the Kalinka website Kasam.
I'll try and see if CanadaAmmo can get the Russian side mount AA battery version of the Kobra red dot - other wise I'll order from Kalinka (I'd love to use the local guy - but I'd rather have optics that run off of AAs rather than lithiums if I can).