2-piece quad rail for under $25.00?

I decided to be a guinea pig and bought one of those $25 quad rails off a gun auction site...but they are listed on other auction sites as well. The seller claims it it manufactured in the USA....but I'm still confused on who the manufacture is. Listed as Omega manufacturing/ Omega tactical or deltateamtactical.

Anyone else try one of these? It looks kinda like the UTG 2-piece quad rail, but it has no manufacture markings at all. It does look nice and has a good looking finish. It installs easily enough and seems about as good as any other forearms I've used in the past. I'm guessing there has to be a background behind them...either product overrun, or left overs from a closed business....something.

I made a vid of me installing one on my 9mm AR pistol...I have to say, I'm very impressed with it...especially since it cost less than a pair of movie tickets.

Someone has to know something about these, please chime in.

Here is a link to the vid I made last night.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZoe5GIxkUU[/youtube]

UTG is usually crap. Go look at the one by Primary Arms, its on sale.

Personal experience or just what you've been told? Anyway...the one I purchased isn't a UTG,was only $25 and fit and finish is as good as handguards costing 4x's as much.

As far as UTG/Leapers go's....they make some decent stuff. I have one of their quadrails on my AK and it worked better than any of the others I tried first. I also have a T168 6x scope on my 22lr upper that has been dropped,slammed, beaten and abused. Amazingly it still holds zero and the glass is perfectly clear. I can't say that for alot of the higher end scopes I've gone through in the past.

As easy as it is to slam UTG stuff, I've never heard a bad review on their 2 piece handguards, that is from people who actually owned them Yes they are on the heavy side, but they are rock solid and just plain work.

I have a UTG 2-piece carbine rail on my m4orgery and it works and looks great. Heavy? I would say not because everything else I own/shoot are bull barrels so I can honestly say the weight does not bother me one bit. I would be willing to try a $25 rail.

ok.. i owned an "OMEGA" quad rail when i got my first AR and new nothing about ARs at all. i took the dealers advice on it, that it was good and i would be happy with it... it was really heavy but solid. then after firing 60 rds i touched the rail and burned my hand. the entire rail was super hot. i was so pissed off. DO NOT BUY ONE !!! you get what you spend. they are truly POS rail

Seems like that's still the case. Any 2 piece rail would have had this problem in your rifle.

Are you trying to say the the low cost hand guard is not as good because the aluminum its made with
is not heat resistant and the big dollar ones are.

Radiation/convection/conduction. How do they work?

Oh God, I can see it now....Big ass heat sinks on the rails as a new tacticool option.

If you can't handle heat transfer...stick with plastic.

I guess I don't understand where this guy is coming from...This cheap rail only has a tad bit more surface area than my YHM lightweight.

Maybe just a good 'ol case of "Girly Hands"?

Kinda been dun befo'

What do you consider "higher end" ? BSA?, Simmons?
How exactly are you "going through" optics?

looks cool...But that won't help the guy burning his hands. The heat still has to get through or out of the hand guard somehow.

Higher end in my mind has been Bushnell Elite, Nikon, Redfield and Burris. All in the $200-300 range. Not the ultra high class" Nose bleed " makes or models.

My Bushy 450 destroyed 3 scopes...the cross hairs didn't hold up. My son knocked over one of my rifles at the range bent my Burris.

I personally have never spent over $500 on a scope, which I wouldn't consider "nosebleed" high, but I don't mind buying used for big savings. I've also only ever had one break, and that was when my old '06 slid out of the treestand on the way down one time...

My point is you're comparing a bottom of the barrel Chinese scope on a .22 to somewhat better optics on a jackhammer .450.
Also, people spend $300 on Osprey super-tactical sniper scopes, but that doesn't mean that they're not still Chinese crap inside, and that IS personal experience. I've had an Osprey hold up fine on my .22, but I would never trust one on anything else.

Ultimately, when you get your $25 rail, I dare you to take a spring punch to it and you'll see that the aluminum is probably about the consistency of butter compared to quality stuff.

Yeah, I get where you are coming from. I dislike chines junk as much as the next guy. I work in a automotive shop and Chinese junk is taking over the parts supply.

I'm not worried about this rail not being able to take a beating...I don't plan on beating it.This is what their website claims about the quad rail.

Features:
High quality USA Manufacture
Fits all style carbine length rifles
Installs in minutes. Allen wrench included
2-piece design
Machined from aircraft grade aluminum alloy 7075
Hard anodized black matte finish triple hardcoat anodized
All four rails are of MIL-STD 1913 picatinny specification
All rails are Laser T-marked for easy accessory location
Great for mounting tactical accessories such as flashlights, laser sights, bipods
Ultra light alloys for the lightest and strongest Quadrail on the market.
FITS BUSHMASTER,COLT,DPMS,YHM,STAG,AMERICAN SPIRT,ROCKRIVER,CMMG,LAR,LEWIS MACHINE AND TOOL,MEGA MACHINE,SUNDEVIL MFG

Either they are lying or there is more than one type of 7075 alloy?

For the heck of it...I might just put the T168 on the Bushy....I know the reticle won't break, it's etched glass.

What's the MSRP on those rails, and are they new or used for that price?
If they are new and that's roughly the MSRP, then someone's lying somewhere in that description.
7075 is 7075, but it can be heat treated to a wide range of hardness.
As for the glass-etched reticle, there are still tiny mechanical adjusters inside the body.

MSRP is $69.99...but they have been selling them New for $25 .They come in a plain white box with no label, no instructions, 4 screws and a hex key.

Yeah, I know I could easily destroy the adjustment system. The biggest problem I've had is the reticle wire itself breaking. I was recommended a good Etched reticle scope for the Bushy, I don't recall what it was though.

I did exactly that a few months ago out of curiosity. On this pseudo Brinell hardness test, the UTG indentation was ~1mm vs .7 mm on my Larue!! ZOMG

Honestly, the constant teeth gnashing here over the hardness of the Al on "cheap" rails is beyond stupid. The most battle proven handguards used all over the world by our military are made of plastic, and the couch commandos on ARFCOM are huffing and hawing all day over which handguard has the harder aluminum?

yeah man, me and my girly ass hands cant handle heat....it was years ago, maybe they changed the rail sense then but the one i had was junk..it was as hot as the barrel. id like to see how you react when you grab a scorching hot rail unknowingly.

my rail now is a DD Omega free float and that does not get hot at all

i asked my brother about his troy 2 piece rail, and he said his rail doesn't get hot. so yeah, i blame it on the rail.

so quick to judge a new shooter. like you never made a mistake in life. if you find that cheap shit works for you. good. better you than me.

You realize that 1mm vs 0.7mm with a conical tip is a HUGE difference in hardness, right? Like in the range of 2:1. Take it off and put it on a few times and then. see if your threads start to look gummy. I'm not super uber tactical, but i'm a mechanical engineer and i don't like substandard materials

That's awesome, I'm a ME also, and I've taken it off and on and wildly enough, no "gummy" threads. See, you're not talking from experience or empirical evidence, merely from speculation and ignorance. If it were substandard, people would be dog piling all over these rails but in every thread about these cheap rails, but they don't. These threads always follow the same course:

1) OP asks about their quality.
2) People that have never used them manufacture all kinds of bullshit reasons why they will fail (ie soft Al), none of them based on observation.
3) People who actually use them disprove these notions.
4) Naysayers shut up because they have no proof.

Ok then, keep trying to justify your junk Chinese knockoffs. Have you jumped on the PlumCrazy short bus too?
I went through my dumb phase early on and bought UTG, NcStar, Leapers etc, and you know how much of it I still have and use? One cheap red dot as a placeholder on a .45 AR. Had 4 complete failures on red dots, had 2 scopes that wouldn't hold zero on anything, had a couple rail adapters with out of spec rails, 2 sets of QD scope rings that fell apart, etc. So no, I'm not talking out my ass and I'm done buying crap. The only reason people like me speak up on here is the hope that we can keep someone else from wasting money on the same stupid mistakes. Will every cheap part fail? No. But the rate of failure is exponentially higher and the quality control is nonexistent.

Why does this rail keep being referred to as a " Cheap Chinese Knock-off"? What part about "Made in the USA" keeps getting ignored? I only mentioned it resembles a UTG...never said it was....even though it is possible it is made by the same manufacture who makes the US made UTG pro for a Chinese company.If so...It's about time we started reversing the roles.

That's why I asked questions about it to begin with...I was hoping someone might know the background story...Not to start a bashing contest.

Not to mention the lack of CS in the event of a failure... companies with a reputation for quality will take care of you if anything goes wrong with their stuff (which it will probably won't).

It's $25.00....I can give a rat's ass about CS. If I destroy it, I'll get another one. Now, if I spent $200 for a top of the line....yes, CS would be an important factor.

I don't need to hear everyones justifications on why they have to spend huge amounts on stuff that does the same thing.

Bottom line...I blow twice that much on ammo everytime I'm at the range....$25.00 is piss in a bucket. It fit's, it looks nice and i can attach whatever I want to it.End of story.

I realize that; I was responding to the discussion in general.

Do you have a link to an online retailer that sells this?

Yeah...I really didn't want to post a link in fear of getting a mod on my back for some sort of infringement.

But here it is:

Deltateamtactical

To be honest, I wouldn't buy one because I if I am going to get a railed handguard, it will be for a rifle that is built for defensive purposes and will need a flashlight, sling mount, and IR laser. And I don't want to ever worry about those components or the rail they are on failing.

If I had an upper just for plinking, I don't see any point of getting one to begin with. I'd just stick with the standard plastic handguards, or the MOE handguards.

Sorry it got off track, but if they are selling them, brand new, for $25, then my bet is that at least one (if not more) things in that list you provided is a lie.
I know what things like machining, extrusions, and hardcoat anodizing cost. If they're selling it for that, and it's made in the USA, they would make more money throwing them in the dumpster.

1) They aren't chinese
2) Optics =/ rails

So yeah, you are talking out of ur ass. As a ME, you ought to know what material and mfg process is appropriate for the application. Just like I am not going to consider the internals to my glocks to be "substandard" because they are stamped from sheet metal instead of being machined from forged steel, I don't consider this rail to be substandard because it's not milled from 7075 t6 Al. It works perfectly fine, regardless of ur assumptions.

They are supposedly "7075 T7" which just sounds like an attempted one-up on T6.
Omega Tactical says nothing about "Made In USA" and they don't even have their own website, only their Ebay Store

Their shipping location is listed in Lindon, Utah, and Delta Team is in Orem, Utah.

Find one piece of gear in their STORE that's made in the USA...

I picked up mine off gunbroker. Payment was sent to Orem,Utah.

Ebay is a little generic when it comes to "location"

Typically UTG is garbage but I will say the handguards aren't bad at all. I've received a few sets in trade over the years one of which appeared to be very used and i saw no problems with them aside from the weight. They lock up well and the rails are in spec. I personally wouldn't run one on my rifle but they are far from junk.

Never owned a set, so maybe I don't qualify -

but having worked part time at a shop that did some pretty heavy volume, particularly during the 2009-buying craze, and stocked UTG two-piece rails, I've had quite a few pass through my hands for install, repair, and removal.

Among the issues where rails that deformed if you gave them an ugly look (I'll admit, I gave them many ugly looks ), screw holes that crossthreaded and/or stripped, and rails that were grossly out of spec and needed to have accessories be either hammered (return to the deforming issue), shimmed, or just plain Dremeled to fit.

Add to that things that I might consider "minor" issues if the above weren't true - a finish that sucked and flaked off, heavy, ugly, and just plain ridiculous attachment method (clamps over the front cap?!)



http://www.midwayusa.com/product/316070/utg-2-piece-handguard-quad-rail-ar-15-carbine-matte

IIRC, this was the model we were selling, and I think we charged $85 for them - I did *NOT* set the prices. They sold like hotcakes.

~Augee

Come on Mr ME, do you realize that T7 is an actual temper designation? That it's actually not as strong as T6? Hence my comment "I don't consider this rail to be substandard because it's not milled from 7075 t6 Al."

Exactly what point is it that you are trying to make or grasping at? Like all your other arguments, you have no factual counterpoints, just assumptions. It must be made in China because their shipping location is in the US and you can't find anything on their ebay store? Do you think "Omega Tactical" actually owns an extrusion and machining center or do they merely buy the same rails that UTG, Aim Sports, etc... get theirs and market it under their name?

Honestly I could care less where it's made or what it's made from because the bottom line is they work well. You admit you've never even used these, but in your mind they must be junk based on your experience with cheap red dots? That's your contribution to this thread?

I see nothing wrong with the clamping method. It is more solid than relying on the weld spring and does not deform the HG cap.

I have no doubt that many people managed to cross thread them. Nothing is idiot proof.

If these were your high runners as you say, just stands to reason you'd see more problems with them.

I think this thread has gone a little far away from the OP's question...

I stand by my opinion that if you only want to spend $25 on a railed handguard, then you shouldn't get one. After all, it is to hold lights ($) and lasers ($$), etc. If the only purpose in getting a railed handguard is to cover it with rail panels and put a VFG on it, get the MOE handguards and install their MVG. Or stick with the regular plastic handguards and install an accessory rail with a grip on it.

Those *were* the problems I'd see when they came back. Given the timeframe - I'd suspect a decent percentage of the ones that actually got taken to a range eventually came back - the other ones I venture to guess were probably impulse buys "just to have" before the "impending" AWB of Obama round one and may even now have never left the crappy plastic case.

I don't think I ever crossthreaded or stripped one on install.

Again, the attachment is a minor issue. You see nothing wrong with it, I don't like it. Minor anyways - but I have seen deformed handguard caps - particularly M203 clearance cut ones deformed from someone using "gorilla strength" to install it. I'm also pretty certain the one or two that this happened to were also ones with stripped out holes, but that's neither here nor there.

I've got no dog in this, like I said, they sold damn well. And the shop had a "warranty" that meant we put another one on and called it a day. The profit margin must've been good enough - I never ordered stock - but I don't recall ever sending one back on a manufacturer's warranty. You said you'd never heard a bad review from someone who owned one. I took some liberties with your statement to mean "with direct experience."

I don't own one, so maybe my review is irrelevant, and you can still make the claim to have "never heard a bad review from someone who owns one," but I do have experience with them, and I do have a bad review.

Granted - they're not $25 like is being asked about in the OP - MidwayUSA want's $60 and change for them - the shop charged $85. For those prices, I see no reason why people wouldn't simply buy a used KAC RAS. But that's a different matter entirely.

~Augee

1. Yes I know T7 is a real temper, but I have my doubts as to the actual processes claimed in the production of these rails.
2. My point is that you usually get what you pay for.

Never said I only wanted to spend $25.00. But it beats spending $60+

MOE handguard + MVG = more than $25.00

Factory handguard fit loosely and rattles (Colt), I tried a spare set of Oly handguards off a 45acp upper. They fit tighter, but are too fat for my liking.

a couple add on rails = almost what I paid for the whole quad rail forearm...and not as sturdy.

I guess it would be ok to purchase these quad rails...but only if you you spend at least three times as much, so everyone else that payed too much for theirs doesn't feel bad. ( sounds like a Liberals way of thinking)

No, we would be happy for you if you got good, quality rails at that price.
But odds aren't in your favor.

Post a review after you get them installed and use them a bit.

Actually, the quad rail will end up costing and weighing MUCH more if you get rail covers (as the bare rails will get hot/cheese grater effect) and a quality VFG.

Do some more research, your later self will thank you.

Well if it's the same as my $33 shipped Aim Sports rails, it will come with the covers. Weight doesn't bother me as my testicles descended a long time ago. I use a $7 VFG. Amazingly, it works just as well as my TD and Magpul VFGs.

I dont guess you do much other than bench shooting? Have you put your cheap stuff through a carbine course yet?

Nope, not a tier 1 guy but I've used them on my beater AR which has seen everything but a toss down the driveway and my LE buddy uses one on his duty rifle which he took through a qual course and none of us have had problems.

Ok...

No need to be so defensive. If that is how you choose to spend your money... buying parts that you don't use for their intended purpose that merely add unnecessary weight, that is your right. There is literally no purpose to a quad rail if all you use it for is to mount a VFG and cover with panels. It doesn't even look good.

Once again, do you have a point to make? Or are they so weak you're afraid to express them?

No, Osha summed it up pretty good one post up...

You don't really need high quality gear to walk from the car to the bench and back.

Where did I say that's all I put on it. My beater AR is also my hog AR, and I have a tac lite on it. Prefer to mount it at the 3 o clock and use my thumb to actuate it instead of pressure pads so a quad is great. Thanks for your input on aesthetics though.

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