School me on FF handguards

[nisils14]

I've been looking at some rifle length FF handguards to have a longer sight radius. I have one question in mind, how is the durability of a FF handguard? With a FF handguard obviously only being supported by a single point. How prone is it to bending, breaking, etc? I won't be banging the rifle around but I was wondering this raises in concern in terms of ultimate durability. Also any recommendations in brands of handguards, a few in particular that I like were the Daniel Defense MFR, JP VTAC.

[ray1970]

This free float rail by Daniel Defense seems to hold up quite well. The Aimpoint really impressed me more than anything in this video.

[Batteriesnare]

Buy a Troy Alpha and you'll never look back. Unless you feel like carrying several extra ounces/pounds for unused quad rail, in which case DD is probably your best bet.

[BPTactical]

You get what you pay for. For your premium dollar you get lighter, stronger and impeccably engineered products that fit well.
Troy, Larue, DD all good bits.
For the cost conscious crowd Yankee Hill Machine, Midwest Industries are decent bits as well..

[00tec]

I have a Yankee Hill diamond on my rifle, I don't see it being practical to spend much more than that on one. I know they get lighter, but $200+, no thanks.

I don't see bending or breaking the thing unless you are swinging it from the buttstock like a baseball bat.

[cebeu]

"...any recommendations in brands of handguards,

I run a DD Omega (7.0) and while I've not beat the hell out of my carbine it's been solid. For absolutely no good reason I have been looking into a Centurion C-4 Carbine Cutout recently, all nice products, and Troy of course.

[Skully]

This free float rail by Daniel Defense seems to hold up quite well. The Aimpoint really impressed me more than anything in this video.

That was a good video, seen it before and what they do to that carbine was killer. I like the drop from the helicopter. FF rails are a lot stronger I think than the standard handguard with cap system. The video Ray posted shows how much abuse the FF rail can take. Unless you plan on doing that to your rifle I think you should be pretty safe with any of the FF systems out there.


I have had almost all of the FF hand-guards. I personally do not like full quad rails just cause I never used all that space.

I have had TROY, Midwest, and YHM.

YHM and Midwest for the price are great but I found they are a little heavier than others.

TROY is great product, currently I have VLTOR and Samson and actually like SAMSON a little more than the older TROY that used their own barrel nut. TROY now has the Alpha versions that use the standard barrel nut so they are pretty equal now. Plan on using a new Alpha TROY FF rail for my next build.

Daniel Defense everything I see and have heard are great product but the price for me at least, is very unnecessary. I also have heard great things about CENTURION but again they are pretty pricey.

[SideShow Bob]

If you are concerned with bending a FF guard and throwing off your front sight, you can go with a railed gas block or an A-2 front sight base mounted to the barrel in front of the FF.
This will add an extra inch or two to the sight radius, and be a rock solid front sight.

[Wiggity]

Daniel Defense RIS II FTW

[ray1970]

I've tried many of them. I agree with others that a full quad rail is pretty much a waste for me. I do like a full top rail to give me flexibility with optics. Besides the top rail, a couple of smaller sections to maybe put a light or forward grip is all I would need. I am partial to the Troy TRX or Alpha ones but the Midwest Industries ones are a good bargain for the price. I recently picked up my first VLTOR handguard and really like it except for the fact that finding optics mounts to co-witness with the iron sights are difficult. Here are a couple of pictures. The top is the VLTOR CASV-M and the bottom one is the Troy TRX Extreme.