K from United States, NC Public Profile

Mated this upper with a Icon lower receiver, and the fit is tight with no rattling. So tight, in fact, that I had to file off a little of the surface on each side of the rear takedown lug in order for it to open/close without force. I also had to open up the rear takedown hole a hair to get a mil-spec takedown pin to fit through it smoothly, otherwise I was having to hammer it in and punch it out. The barrel extension also had to be thermal fit, but that applies to many uppers these days.

It is a very well-machined upper, however I think the surface finish might be a bit too thick which caused the binding issues I encountered. This only stacked with the similar lower receiver tolerances. This being said, I would much rather have to remove material than have too little from the factory, as one is fixable and the other is not. For the money this upper costs, I believe the finish thickness could be improved so that this issue does not persist, especially when used with other Icon parts. It doesn't do anything that a lower-budget upper doesn't, but has a nice finish and shouldn't have any issues with wear for the foreseeable future.

I ordered this charging handle to address a slight over-gassing issue with an 11.5" AR build. Using a mid-length gas system on a KAK suppressor-only barrel and a high-backpressure suppressor, the upper would become irritating when firing quickly. A slower rate of fire rendered much less gas, but was not nearly as fun either.

Rather than add potential points of failure at the gas block, research yielded that this would be a solid option. The Silencer Company charging handle was also an option, until I found out that the proprietary gasket that is used on that model likes to detach after some use, making it actually MORE gassy than a mil-spec handle. Install was easy and there were no functional issues afterwards. The handle does not sit any higher than the flat top of the upper receiver, and hangs down around the buffer tube by a few millimeters. The latch is large enough to quickly fall to hand, and curved enough to not easily slip back off your finger, although some texture added to the front face of the latch could assist this further.

The amount of gas flowing to my face is much lower now, and I can run whole mags quickly without any noticeable irritation. I would wager that this charging handle is a valid one-stop-shop option for reducing the crud flying backwards out of an over-gassed upper, but it will only cut so much. If it were a severely gassy upper, a better solution would be cutting the gas closer to the source; namely a reduced gas port on the barrel, an adjust