Brigand Arms makes carbon fiber hand guards.  The pictures show the revolutionary use of sophisticated materials, but until you handle one you can’t really understand how light they really are. The 9-inch rail weighs only 3.9 ounces without rails or accessories.  That’s less than $5 worth of quarters and they are stronger than you can believe. According to Brigand Arms website the rails can support a force of 100 pounds in any direction and 400 pounds along their length.

The tube is made of T700 carbon tubes braided from special composite yarns in a lattice that minimizes weight and maximizes stiffness and strength. The carbon T700 is coated with a protective layer which shields the carbon from the elements and keeps it from degrading. It doesn’t crack, splinter, or break. When you shoot it fast and a lot, it dissipates heat as fast as you can generate it.

This is a picture of two Brigade Arms handguards attached to each other supporting a 40 pound weight. You could do pull ups on these things if you could mount them.

It’s a seriously strong and light rail. Some people strive to minimize weight at all costs. For a lightweight build, an SBR or a Pistol caliber carbine the Brigand Arms rail is your best choice with no trade off in performance. This is the Blade handguard, very light and angled for your pleasure.

I chose to make a heavy gun lighter. I like long barrels, I figure that when Stoner picked a 20″ barrel, he knew what he was doing. Long barrels and rails are front heavy, Brigand has the solution. I had a heavy rail which pulled the gun down in the front and held heat in. Now my gun runs cool, looks cool and is much better balanced for rapid transitions.

Another advantage of the Brigand design is the ability to attach accessories virtually anywhere along the length of the tube at any orientation.

I wanted a fore grip, so I used the excellent Tyrant Designs’ HALO Mini AR-15 Vertical Foregrip  It is compact and  saves even more weight.

Brigand sells an M-Lok adapter which connects your device almost anywhere on the rail in any orientation. They also have light weight rail sections which attach to the handguards.