Cobalt Kinetics have added two more products to their lineup of accessories. The first of these, called the EDGE, is the free-float handguard found on the EDGE rifle, long anticipated by home-builders everywhere. The second, called the TEAM (pictured above), is a version of the EDGE meant for practical competition, and thus with four blunted corners at the front, in place of the EDGE’s trademark points.
As the blunting is the only difference, both handguards are built around identical lines. Machined from 11 pounds of billet 7075 aluminum, the TEAM is guaranteed to be perfectly straight, keeping iron sights centered right over the barrel. Speaking of, top and bottom Picatinny rails sit at the muzzle for easy attachment of bi-pods, lights, or said backup iron sights, while M-Lok covers the rest at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock for endless mounting options. For your primary target-viewer, 1.5 additional inches of picatinny rail sit just forward of the receiver, in case you want to get creative when mounting that optic. QD sling mounts are inset at each end, on both sides, and we still haven’t gotten to the best part.
The handguard mounts to a two-piece barrel nut and sleeve, with two offset rings of 12 threaded holes on the nut, and 16 countersunk holes on the sleeve. This combination allows for the nut and sleeve to be screwed together at any of 48 locations, using three screws. This results in a perfect alignment, and a gap-free fit regardless of upper receiver. The proprietary nut driver is provided, though other standard AR-building tools, like a torque wrench and 3/32″ Allen, are obviously required.
Skylar Stewart, vice president of marketing at Cobalt remarked, “The handguard has by far been the most requested item since our EDGE rifle hit the market in 2015. It took some clever engineering from our team to develop the barrel nut assembly that will work well with all of the different brands of upper receivers without leaving timing or gap issues. A gap between the upper receiver and the handguard is not acceptable to us. The original 16″ handguards are in stock and ready to ship. We’ve also got some shorter versions in the works. Look for those to be available toward the end of this year.”
Both handguards retail for $285, and can be found on Cobalt’s website: www.cobaltkinetics.com
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