Hand guard

[Gulfstar]

New here but I've been lurking for a while and think this is an excellent forum.

Lke a lot of people, I figured I'd better go ahead and get one of Them, whatever They are called before our president declares Them forbidden. I had an AK several years ago and thought it was an incredible rifle, probably the best combat rifle the world's ever seen but it wasn't accurate and it's true, "only accurate rifles are interesting."

Anyhow, AR's are darned accurate, mostly, and I'm not going to war so I ordered one and believe it'll be great for what I will do.

Now the question. The one I ordered has one of the new fangled floating hand guards made of aluminum with rails on it and a number of preforations. Is it going to be too hot to touch under normal to moderate rates of fire?

[markm]

No.....

[MistWolf]

Welcome to the forums.

I can see by your questions, you need guidance. If your AR isn't rugged enough to go to war, it's either sub-par or compromises have been made that reduce reliability and durability, or both. Usually the compromises are an attempt to soften recoil which results in the rifle being very ammo sensitive.

Aluminum handguards can get warm when the volume of fire is high. How warm depends on rate of fire, barrel profile and handguard design.

At this point, you'll need to do more research and more shooting for your answers. Hang in there though, they'll come to you

[TheGut]

Normal fire it will not get so hot you can't handle it. It may heat up a lot if you are just doing mag dumps. Easy solution is if you plan on shooting a ton in a short period of time just get yourself a cheap pair of mechanix gloves for that occasion.

[HardLuck682]

I'm just curious what rifle you ended up buying. But like the post above me, wear gloves when you're shooting a gun with a rail, your skin will appreciate it. Rails can be like cheese graters on your palms.


...sent from my mind, using telepathy!

[Doc. Holiday]

I'm pretty sure you will be all right...

[Airhasz]

OP, handguard covers are your friend...:smile:

[Zane1844]

My DD LITE handguards get warm, but is nice when its cold where I am shooting :)

But I have not yet fired it fast enough for a long enough time for it to be unbearable, but the barrel more than anything is not so fun to touch when I have got it hot.

[Gulfstar]

I ordered a Fulton Armory Liberator carbine. I have dealt with FA in the past and the quality of their work has far exceeded my expectations.

Interestingly, there's not much about them on the Internet, except that the people who don't have one don't seem to like them. The people who do have one like them just fine. Odd.

As for taking anything based on the AR platform to war where there is sustained combat, I would not. I'm not going to argue about it because I will never change my mind. If anyone is interested in my reasons I'll state them but I'm not interested in a dicksizewar.

[Zane1844]

As for taking anything based on the AR platform to war where there is sustained combat, I would not. I'm not going to argue about it because I will never change my mind. If anyone is interested in my reasons I'll state them but I'm not interested in a dicksizewar.

Good idea. Forums are usually the best place to have full on internet commando combat about why guns like the AK are Almighty .30 killing machines and the Jamomatics .22 caliber AR-15s do not belong in battle. I love those fights though, almost everything I just wrote I read somewhere. :lol:

[yhmspecter]

Just curious as to what you ended up paying for this rifle. What do you plan to use it for?

[JSantoro]

OP, it stands to reason that the question "will aluminium railed handguards diffuse heat....?" will have been asked before.

It has; that and similar baseline info is discoverable via the Search features.

Orange Search button, keywords "freefloat handguards heat" : https://www.m4carbine.net/gtsearch.php?cx=003496919632624929056%3Adhiwgm0hbaa&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=UTF-8&q=freefloat+handguards+heat&sa=Search&siteurl=www.m4carbine.net%2Fsearch.php&ref=www.m4carbine.net%2Fnewreply.php%3Fdo%3Dnewreply%26noquote%3D1%26p%3D1468061&ss=4453j1417849j25

There's also the stickied threads at the top of this, and the AR Technical subforums. Start with the ones marked "Knowledge Base Threads," and read from there.

If they prompt more questions (which they should...), conduct Searches based on that, on the presumption that somebody thought up the same thing as you; forums like these existing in the first place makes that the norm, not the exception. Narrow the scope of an inquiry.

You may post in an older, inactive thread IF that post adds new info to that thread, asks an unaddressed question, or seeks clarification of a part of a topic. That's greatly preferred to a new thread on a topic that's been done before.