When the temperature of the forearm becomes excessive, either the rifleman cannot hold it or the heat rays given off by the forearm rise and interfere with sighting of the weapon.”

If equipped with a metal forearm, it would get too hot to handle. If equipped with the usual wood forearm, there is the danger that it could burst into flames.

“It has been found that during extended endurance firing tests, a gun barrel can exceed 1,000 F. Sullivan patented his handguards for the AR-10 in May 1957, explaining that: Plastic shells filled with rigid plastic foam for the AR-10′s furniture. With background in the aircraftĪrmaLite’s main engineers put new technologies to good use and were ahead of the curve in their use of fibreglass reinforced I thought it would be interesting to compare the two.īoth of the handguards were designed for the same purpose, to provide a lightweight forend that would protect soldiers’ hands and allow air to circulate around and cool the barrel. I was recently doing some research into the ArmaLite AR-10 and early AR-15 prototypes and while looking at the original patents for the guns I came across the patents for both rifles’ handguards.

Armalite ar 10 free float quad rail