ITW – 2006/7 : Surefire M73 handguard

Posted on by Switch
Table of Contents
  1. Hiding in plain sight
  2. All hail the rail

Hiding in plain sight

Spend enough years on a hobby and you’ll start to take finds for granted. Specially on photos you’ve repeatedly seen on and on and on. Look at this famous Task Force Knight photo.

If you think there’s a little something off about the side rail of the handguard of the L119A1 to the left then you’re onto something because that is not the issued Knight Armament RAS handguard. It’s a Surefire M73. An interesting one off in a sea of shiny L119A1s, and whose end user appears in quite a handful of TFK photos offering a glimpse at the suite of accessories he used during his 2006-2007 tour in Iraq. In-between the CompM2, the Eotech 552, the AN/PEQ2 and the DBAL there’s quite a bit of choice to go with that specific handguard.

On top of the different accessories, there’s also a whole timeline hiding within the evolution of the rifle’s paintjob.
Close up shots offer a better view at the partial picatinny slots on the side rail.

In the end I don’t know how this handguard ended up on this rifle. Was it to replace a damaged RAS ? A trooper trying for something he judged as better ?

All hail the rail

Building another L119A1 was on my backlog after I finished my first A2. I since missed every opportunity to own the genuine Knight Armament UKSF RAS. So a few years ago now, making this discovery I figured I might as well go for the unique and find a Surefire M73. And oh boy was I in for a quest. But I finally managed to score one very recently.

Markings are discreetly engraved on the bottom face of the right rail. The lower extended rail is one of the defining features of the handguard.
The second prominent feature has to be the partial picatinny slots most likely envisionned to cut down on the weight along with all the circular cuts.

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