At the 2016 FN 3Gun Championships you get to see a lot of interesting gear and accessories. Anything to get an advantage in racing with firearms. One item caught my eye. A carbon fiber handguard. I have seen carbon fiber tube handguards before. Lancer and Troy make some. However this one was wildly different from anything I have seen before. It looks like carbon fiber chicken wire wrapped into a tube. It is made by Brigand Arms.

The handguard above is their 15″ Edge. It weighs only 5.0 oz and that includes the barrel nut and jam nut.

Here are some pics I grabbed from Brigand Arms’ website.

We can hang 40 pound dumbbells from the end of it and swing them around with no signs of bending. Under controlled laboratory tests the handguards can support a force of 100 pounds in any direction, and 400 pounds along their length – more than even extreme users require. We field test every handguard configuration, firing thousands of rounds in tortuous conditions, then bring them back to the lab and inspect there are no flaws nor slowly developing cracks. Dozens of iterations have led to the current braid that we use. The resulting high-strength design is unique enough that it’s covered by a US patent!

The carbon fiber handguards are a bit pricey. Their 7″ handguard starts at $259. Check out their website for more information.