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Posted: 12/7/2008 11:27:30 AM EDT
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I just bought a WASR 10/63. Besides the annoyingly canted front sight it seems to be a great rifle. However, I am looking to replace the hand-guards because they heat up very fast. I have also read some posts about people burning themselves on the metal pins in the handguards. That hasn't happened to me yet, but I can see how it could.
I am thinking about going with synthetic hand-guards, but all of the synthetic ones I have seen look waaaay too "tactical" for my tastes. I'm not an ultra-purist or anything, but I really cant see ever needing all those rails for anything other than a misguided attempt to look cool at the range. I saw some made by a company called Cahote (or something like that) that looked pretty good, but I read a bunch of reviews about them melting. That's not good. What I want are some good basic hand-guards with a traditional look that will actually guard my hands from heat and not melt. I'm not a rich man, so I don't want to pay more than $75 if it can be avoided. Does anyone know where I could find something like that? I know that there are already several similar posts about hand-guards, but I'm not finding exactly what I want to know from reading what has already been said. |
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"Traditional look" tells me it seems you'd like them to be wooden. But your wooden ones heat up to hot for you. The best of both worlds might be to opt for a Romanian lower handguard with the vertical pistol grip. If you have an underfolding buttstock rifle, you can find them with that vertical pistol grip turned inward to clear the open buttstock when it folds in.
You only other option would be to find a thicker wooden handguard than what you already have. Perhaps a Polish or Hungarian set. Otherwise, a Bulgarian plastic handguard set that has the heat shield inside may be your option. However, if you'd like to keep your existing handguards, there is another option. Since they seem to get too hot for you, one idea is to make your own heat shield inserts to put inside the lower handguard. You can make some using a strip of aluminum or metal duct. Just cut into the right shape and form it inside your lower handguard, preferrably with as liitle of the metal touching the wood as possible. That should help dissipate the heat quite a bit. |
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Thanks for the replies. The k-var and Bulgarian synthetics look like good options.
However, I do like the idea of making my own heat shields. I don't know why I didn't think of that myself. I think I'll try that first and see how it works out. I do like the wood and I did put some time into finishing the wood that the rifle came with. |
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