Triangle Tactical Podcast and Blog on Guns, Gear, and Competition Shooting
When building my AR-15 last year, I decided I wanted to run a long, slim handguard, with a low profile, and I did not want full length rails. I played with a friends Noveske rifle that came from the factory with the TRX extreme, and I was hooked.
Out of the box impression:
Upon receiving the TRX Extreme 13″ handguard, I opened the box, and took it out, and I was astonished at how lightweight it was. I tried to grab the weight off of Troy’s website, but they seem to have taken this particular model off of their site, in favor of their newer Alpha rails. The rail is so lightweight that I was afraid that I was going to break it, however that had not been the case.
Installation:
The TRX Extreme series are not “drop in” rails. They use a proprietary barrel nut, and require some experience, or at least familiarity with how the AR-15 rifle is built. Being that I had a “M4” style supper receiver, I had to remove the front sight base, and either chop it into a low-profile gas block, or replace it with a ready made low-profile gas block. My original intent was to punch the pins, slide off the front sight base, chop it, re-install, and be done with it. Turns out, using a little wimpy hammer and punch, trying to hammer the pins out in a second floor apartment is just about impossible. I ended up cutting the pins with my dremel, and replacing the whole thing with a Troy low-profile gas block.
Anyways, I swapped the barrel nut for the Troy barrel nut, and used it, and the supplied barrel nut tool (surprisingly high quality tool supplied with this handguard), and cranked the barrel nut down to spec. From there, all I had to do was to drop in the gas tube, and install the gas block, and slide on the rail.
The TRX Extreme rail slides over the barrel nut at an angle, and it is then rotated until the indexing tab on the rail meets the upper receiver, lining everything up nicely. The two screws on the rail are then tightened, and everything is installed. The screws that hold the rail onto the barrel nut are threaded into heli-coils installed in the aluminum rail, so be very careful when tightening them, and do not over torque them.
The Troy TRX Extreme comes with 3 sections of picatinny rail that can be installed anywhere on the rail with supplied screws. I would recommend installing them with the handguard off of the rifle, and a telescoping magnet will save you much frustration when trying to drop the nuts into the correct holes.
Function:
Functionally this rail is awesome. It is very thin, allowing even small hands to grip around the rail, putting a thumb over the top to control muzzle climb. Being able to reach out towards the muzzle, I have found that I have much more control over the rifle when compared to the old carbine handguards I was running before.
I ended up topping the rail off with a Streamlight TLR-1 weaponlight mounted upside-down on the very end of the rail, directly in front of a Daniel Defense rail mounted front sight. Both of these are great items, and they all work well together.
All in all, I give the TRX Extreme an A-. It is lightweight, and very functional. The only knocks I can give it are for the means of installation, using the proprietary barrel nut. Troy has addressed this with their new Alpha rail series, which at the day of this posting, they have a graphic on their home page showing that the TRX Extreme series has been replaced by the Alpha rail series. I’ve not had the chance to have a good look at the Alpha rail mounting hardware, but I do know that is uses the standard barrel nut, which should make installation a breeze.
