Unique AR Handguards

Although I was unable to attend SHOT in person this year I had a great many friends who did, and they kindly fed back to me anything and everything that they thought I might find useful. My good buddy Eric from TheGearLocker website sent me some pictures of custom handguards from Unique ARs which were simply stunning!

UniqueARs are based in McCall, Idaho, and specialise in extremely distinctive front ends for your AR rifle or carbine. They are 100% dedicated to helping shooters by personalising their rifle or carbine and in their own words: “From mild to wild we can turn your dreams into cold hard steel, or brightly coloured aluminium. Purchase one of our stock forends, add custom colours, or have us fabricate a completely custom hand-guard. We can use your favourite logo, tattoo, saying, insignia, or wild idea to turn your AR into ART!”

To say that their work is stunning is a definite understatement, and although many of their stock designs are wonderful it’s the one-offs built specifically for the client that are inspiring. I looked at the pictures and thought “Cheers, Eric; thanks for teasing me!”, not ever thinking that these fabulous creations would be available in the UK.

ARs in Gear

After SHOT I was speaking to another good mate, Scott Allan at Land Warrior Airsoft, and in the course of our conversation the UniqueARs handguards came up; I told him that I’d seen the models online and expressed regret that we in the UK would probably never see them. Scott simply chuckled and told me that he’d actually struck a deal with UniqueARs to deal with their products on this side of the pond!

He went on to tell me that LWA would be stocking both 12 inch and 9 inch rails in the Hurricane, Molon Labe, Hex, Razor Wire, Skulls, and Web off-the-shelf designs and that they would also be offering the Unique AR full custom service.

Although the stock designs are very, very attractive, it’s the custom service that is really exciting. What you get with this service is a fully customised one-off AR front rail using the UniqueARs tubular front rail as a base. The design process is simple – just provide them with your design and/or concept and their design department will draft up a virtual sample for you to take a look at. If you decide to move forward with ordering then, quite understandably, they require a full deposit to be made prior to continuing the processes. They will work with you until you are completely satisfied and approve the final design for production. Production lead times are 4-6 weeks, with approximately one week for shipping from the USA. These rails are available in most major lengths and come with the barrel nut as standard, so basically you just specify exactly what you want and they build it for you!

To the Fore

I can see that these super forends will be popular not just with airsofters, but as they are manufactured to stand up to being used in conjunction with a full bore .223 or 5.56mm cartridge, I can see that many rimfire and straight pull AR owners in the UK taking a keen interest as well.

As you can imagine these sadly do not come cheap, but as always you need to look at the quality and the workmanship involved. The off-the-shelf rail designs come in at between £175 and £190, but if you want something unique, be prepared to pay in the region of £360. It sounds a lot, but that’s not far off what you’d pay for a real but bland tactical style rail, and I stress that these are high-performance parts with unique designs – as always, you get what you pay for.

To check out the UK range of UniqueAR parts and accessories please visit www.landwarriorairsoft.com. To have a look at some stunning one off custom work, head to the US site www.unique-ars.com and be prepared to drool more than a little!