aerowill from United States, OR Public Profile

My barrel is an 18" Match Series with a "Gunner" profile. It's light, accurate and all dimensions (gas port, extension, etc.) are exactly right. I did a quick break-in and I was off and shooting 1" groups at 100 yards with hand loaded ammo. Not sure what it would do with surplus. I was surprised at how well it did when hot--even after rapid-firing 60 rounds, it still grouped very well. Faxon's claims about stress relieving appear to be true. I've tried many barrels in the $200-300 range over the years, and this Faxon has been the best performer for the price.

Here are some tips and details about this product that I wish I would have known before purchasing:

Finish quality is very good (no rough edges or burrs anywhere on the handguard)
It is narrow and very light--as I expected and wanted.
Mounting screws definitely need blue loctite when assembled
Barrel nut on mine was aluminum with 32mm wrench flats. It fits under the gas tube with no issues.

I bought a 1 1/8 Sunex crow's foot on Amazon for $9 and used my bench grinder to enlarge it to 32mm. I also had to grind it thinner to fit on the barrel nut's flats.

I torqued my barrel nut to 50ft-lbs with silver anti-seize on the Aero Precision upper receiver threads to get the nut timed properly for the handguard to mount. I also used 3 of the included shims.

The holes in the handguard are slightly oval so minor adjustments can be made to its position. It was not difficult to line it up with my upper receiver's rail.

This spring/buffer silenced the twang in my rifle and cycles perfectly. Here are the details of my setup in case you are trying to get the same result:

16" lightweight barrel with Wylde chamber
mid length gas tube
carbine length Aero Precision receiver extension (buffer tube)
.078 (5/64) gas port
normal hammer spring
nickel-boron coated bolt

Functioned well with no issues with various brands of 55-62 grain commercial .223 and 5.56 (including ss109 and xm193), as well as light, moderate and maximum handloads with common powders (Varget, Benchmark, 748).