the nsr rails are badass. i'd have bought one if they were even remotely available.
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the nsr rails are badass. i'd have bought one if they were even remotely available.
I'd like to expand on the OP's original question concerning the heat shielding abilities of the NSR. How does the NSR compare to other aluminum hand guards in that regard? Does the narrow diameter of the NSR play any part, or do all aluminum hand guards heat up about the same? Obviously lets try to keep the comparisons equal, don't compare a naked NSR to a hand guard sporting polymer or rubber rail covers. Thanks.
Good to know. Have you tried the polymer rail panels from Noveske on the NSR? I'm just curious if there's a way to have your cake and eat it too... the lightweight, compact package of the NSR sure is appealing, but nobody likes burnt hands either. How hot does it actually get? Uncomfortably so, or just enough to warm up your extremities in the winter?
Shooting 5 magazines in 15 minutes, it gets damn hot. Toward the end, too hot to hold with bare hands and uncomfortable with gloves (MechanixWear and PiGs). I just put some rail covers on it, plan to head to the range today, we'll see if they help.
The Noveske rail covers slid on and locked very well for me. I don't know how well they'll stay on or hold up, but the installation was very straightforward.
Installed one a few months back and put panels around the grip area. My girl and I put just under 400rds through it Easter weekend in about an hour with a few mag dumps here and there.
The NSR itself got hot, but we both held the panel area without gloves through the entire shoot. It got warm towards the end but nowhere near uncomfortable. Throw on some gloves and it's basically unnoticeable.
I would be trading it out for something different if this weren't the case.
Same experience here with mine. With the polymer panels installed it is very manageable.
One odd thing I noticed is that with steel barrels mine heated up more but when running it on stainless barrels it doesn't get as hot. I can't imagine it's the material so it must be the profiles or something but I don't know. I didn't have equipment on hand to record any real world measurements so this is subjective at best.
I've been shooting the NSR with and without gloves for a couple months now. I have a lightweight BCM barrel and use the Noveske rail panels. I've yet to have any issues with heat or notice any discomfort.
I just got back from the range. I shot 240 rounds in 20 minutes, the last three magazines being more rapid fire (90 rounds in about 3.5 minutes). This is after installing some of the Noveske rail panels.
Those panels helped a lot. Although they got hot, I wasn't wearing gloves and found the heat to be very manageable. I used an infrared thermometer and after I finished the last magazine measured the temp of the rail panel at 145 degrees at the point where I gripped it. The barrel was 310 degrees just in front of the rail.