Daniel Defense 12.0 Rail
Daniel Defense, Inc. is the Savannah, Georgia manufacturer of parts and accessories for the AR15 and AR10 weapons systems. DD is well known for many of their products, including the Burnsed Loop receiver end plate for sling attachments and also their handguard/rail systems, some of which are the lightest available at the time of this writing. There are currently two variants of DD free float rails; the M4 Rails which attach using the ‘Thread Ring Mounting System’, and the Lite rails which utilize the patent pending ‘Bolt Up’ system. Shown here is the Lite Rail 12.0, which as the name implies is a 12″ rifle length rail. It’s the lightest free float rail with a steel barrel nut, weighing 14.0 oz complete (rail and mounting components).
DD rail handguards are machined from 6061-T6 aluminum and finished with a black Mil-Spec type III hard anodize. Indexing marks/’T-numbers’ are laser engraved on all the Mil-Spec 1913 rails. The quality of machining and finishing is top notch. Width across the rails is approx 2″ and height is 2.4″. The handguard is symmetrical in cross section, with the top and bottom rails the same height/distance from the boreline. The Lite 12.0 is heavily ventilated with lightening holes, to which the light weight can partly be attributed to. A sleeve which provides the six-bolt interface fits into the rear of the rail and is welded in place. The rail free floats off the barrel nut. Since the bolt-up system doesn’t utilize a threaded nut to secure the rail to the barrel nut, the top of the rail extends back to the receiver, for an uninterrupted/’monolithic’ look.