Home Reviews Guarder Tacguard MP5/G3 Tactical Handguard

MP5/G3 Tactical Handguard

by Arnie


MP5/G3
Large Tactical Handguard
made
by Guarder/Intrudershop

reviewed
by Arnie

Stock
Specifications
Length: ???mm
Weight: 295g

RRP:

93 USD

Click here to visit Guarder


Early Christmas
prezzies!
Well
here we are, it’s the day before Christmas Eve 2001 (the day before the
day before Christmas :o) ), and a new parcel has arrived on the doorstep.
Having received much hype and after hearing a lot of good information about
the Large Tactical Handguard (LTH) from Guarder, we thought it was
about time that we reviewed one of these babies.

First a little bit of
history, why fit an alternative grip? Well with the standard TM foregrips
on the MP5 series you’re restricted to a 700mAh battery, which are good
for about 4-8 200 round clips. Obviously a larger battery brings huge advantages,
such as only needing one battery for a day’s skirmish, and not having to
change batteries mid firefight. Now to your average skirmisher this brings
several choices:

  • stick
    with it, and get used to the low capacity and changing batteries

  • fit
    a stock to hide a larger battery in

  • learn
    the advantages of ‘gaffer tape’ “young padawan..”

  • buy
    a larger replacement foregrip

Now I for one have been
found wandering a skirmish site with a 8.4V 2000mAh NiCad taped to the
underside of the standard grip on an MC51, but there are better alternatives,
and much as I love ‘gaffer tape’ and it’s myriad of uses, the sticky goo it
leaves on everything it’s stuck to is slightly more than annoying to clean off.

This is where the Large
Tactical Handguard (LTH)
from Guarder comes in. Not only is it functional
and tidy (carefully and tidily boxed to boot), but it has some added bonuses
too.

What’s in the
box?
So
what exactly do you get in the box? Well everything shown on the image
to the right actually. :o)

  • The LTH grip
    itself (shown to the right)
  • Three rails (one
    lower, one left and one right, shown middle left)
  • Two instruction
    cards (again middle left)
  • Vertical foregrip
    (lop left)
  • Battery adapter
    cable (bottom left)
  • Fixing bolts and
    ‘Allen key’ (middle bottom)

Build
Quality:

The first
thing you notice about the grip straight out the box, is how sturdy
it is. Up until now the only large handgrip you’ve been able to get
hold of has been the First Factory grip.

Now not to belittle
the product from First (as I personally believe it was a pioneering
product), but it has some downfalls. Firstly, it’s rather flexible,
and tends to creak, secondly and most notably, it has a bad habit
of splitting down the mould seam at the front.

When you get hold
of the Guarder LTH you’ll notice that it’s made of a
heavy plastic and even ‘unmounted’ it’s amazingly rigid. If you cup
the grip in your hand, as if it was mounted on an AEG and squeeze
you’ll find it barely bends – even in my great hairy mits.

The TLH literally
oozes quality from the outset as the box and the included instructions are
carefully printed both in Chinese and English, which is a welcome change
to most Airsoft imports.
(Guarder
also have a decent website in English)


The included instructions recommend that if fitted to an MC51 variant you
use a 9.6v 1100-1700mAh ‘twin-type’ battery

Assembly
This is a bit of a DIY kit, as the component parts need assembling.
This isn’t a bad thing as it doesn’t exactly require a PhD to assemble,
so much so that Guarder didn’t include any assembly instructions.

The
three rails need to be fastened to the grip, which are attached to
it with two Allen headed bolts each for the side rails, and three
for the bottom rail (seven in total). This is where you come across
another welcome attention to detail – Guarder have included
the required Allen key (seen in the image to the right)!

There
are three rails each with detailed engravings. One is engraved ‘left’,
one ‘right’, and the other (the lower rail), which has an angled end
to fit the curve of the lower side of the grip.

These
rails are standard 20mm weaver style rails, that can fit a huge assortment
of goodies. You get the vertical grip in the box to start with, but
this grip is ideal for use with a tac light or laser unit.

It’s
here that again I was impressed with the detail and build quality
of the handgrip, the threaded holes that the rails lock into are made
of a nice anodised steel, and are very securely mounted into the grip
(you can see them in the photos below)


Note the threaded fitted metal bolt holes on the bottom and the side of
the grip above

So
how secure are these rail fittings? Well I didn’t have the heart to
do it to one of our AEGs, and sadly I was also lacking a couple of
spare fire extinguishers, but Richard (of IntruderShop) sent
me some photos of one of theirs that they hung over 25kg from.

Not
only did the grip support the weight, but it also survived to tell
the tale. They would have hung more from it, but they could only find
2 fire extinguishers!

Now
I think you’ll probably agree this is a fairly nutty test to do, but
if these grips can support this kind of stress then they’re more than
up to the job of Airsoft skirmishing.

The
grip itself is made of the same material as the standard MP5
Tactical Handguard
from Guarder, so the texturing of this
grip is almost identical to that of the real-steel Surefire grip,
this material is a decent high density plastic known as FRP (FRP stands
for Fiber Reinforced Polymer. basically Guarder add some tough
fibers into the polymer, meaning that the grip cannot be fractured
at all easily – much like adding fiberglass to a concrete mix for
anyone that’s done building work).

So
what about this grip in the box?
The
grip is made of much denser material than the LTH itself, and has
the Guarder logo on one side, and the Guarder web and street
address on the other. These marks are deep enough to read, but shallow enough
as not to detract from the replica (to be fair they had to put their logo
on somewhere).

The grip
fits to a rail by sliding it on, and tightening up the threaded bolt with
the knob at the bottom of the vertical grip. This pushes the slide on the
top of the grip onto the rail, and simply stops it sliding off by friction
– a stupidly simple but effective design.

In this
image I’ve unthreaded the internal bolt so you can see it. At the bottom
of the bolt just above the knob is a rubber O-ring, this provides some friction
simply to keep the grip secure, and to stop it from undoing itself in the
field (never a good thing).

Features
As mentioned the grip can be fitted to the G3 MC51 and other similar
variants (like the HK51).

The only small
issue with fitting the LTH to the MC51 is that a slight modification
is needed to fit the grip. (nothing that some simple, careful work
with a Dremel can’t fix)

Also because of
the size of the MC51 receiver you can fit a 9.6V 1700mah twin-type
battery at most. Having said this a 1700mAh battery is still
better than a stock 700mAh.

(You can see the
differences between the G/MP5 cocking tubes and upper receivers in
the image to the right)

So
what does the LTH look like with all the goodies attached to
it? Checkout this image to the left from Guarder which perfectly shows
the myriad of ‘bits and bobs’ you can now fit to your MP5 to light
it up like Blackpool Lights.

Personally I’m
not desperately keen on RIS kit, but that’s just me, there are taclights,
lasers and gas
grenade launchers
that you can fit, and plenty of masterkey
odds and ends out there.

Looking for an
easy way to fit an M203 (TM or SP) variant to your MP5, this is one
of the simplest ways going.

Conclusion
Several
cheap copies of the Guarder LTH have sprung up recently, which
to my mind is proof that Guarder‘s product is a real winner
– I mean why copy something unless it’s a good idea and worth making?
Even though there are other version out there, we still highly recommend
Guarder. You get your money’s worth, and the complete package
is second to none – accept no substitutes, buy the best.

Upgrade
Potential

4/5
The ultimate for the MP5 series, but not quite
perfect for the G3 range.

Build
Quality

5/5
It’ll last you a lifetime.

Value
for Money

5/5
Best ‘bang for
your buck’.

Overall
Potential

5/5

External
Links:

Guarder/Intrudershop

– the
manufacturers of this fine Airsoft product.

Click here to visit WGCWGC
are official dealers of the Guarder range, so we recommend dealing
with them for international orders(as do Guarder themselves)

Site
links:

MP5
Tactical Handguard
– a comparative review of the standard
Guarder MP5 Tactical Handguard

Guarder
2001 Glasses review


Comment
on this review in the forums


Last modified:
Wednesday, May 9, 2001 9:37 AM copyright 2001 ArniesAirsoft




Cookies are used improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Accept Read More