Advantage Arms Forward Charging Handle
This one caught my eye from a distance. Imagine a tubular frame firmly mounted on the upper of an AR-type rifle. The rear interfaces with the standard AR-type charging handle, while the tubes extend to a new charging handle alongside the forward hand guard. Like other designs such as the MP-5, your AR-type rifle can have a charging handle up front that’s accessible by your support hand.
Why? The idea is that you can operated the charging handle without breaking your firing grip and shoulder mount. Your sight picture (can) remain unchanged while chambering a round, locking the bolt back, or clearing a malfunction.
According to the company, you can clear a malfunction by simply rotating the rifle a bit so the ejection port faces down, operating the forward charging handle, then re-orienting the rifle. Door frames and other objects can also be used to operate the bolt in this manner.
Seems like a neat idea, especially for race gun sports like 3-Gun. Whether it adds too much complexity for combat use is a question for your military folks out there, so feel free to weigh in.
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