Designed for the CZ Scorpion Evo 3 S1 with the standard 7.8″ barrel. Or in my case the ASG A1, which is one of the closest electric airsoft replicas to the original firearm. Hence this forend can be fitted to it with minimal modification.
You don’t tend to see M-LOK in plastic the majority of the time, because obviously there’s no suitably rigid extended/freefloat handguard for the AR that is made of plastic. The material doesn’t lend itself to that application and shorter/non-freefloat handguards aren’t usually specified in any new weapon design, given the desire for accessories up front. Compact SMGs are one of the categories where exceptions to the rule are commonly seen however.
The stock 1913 forend from CZ is serviceable with a decent amount of 20mm on all 4 sides, certainly with enough room to slap on a light and foregrip. The angled front deliberately shortens the 12 o’clock rail for no good reason I can ascertain however. I also found it generally lacking on the ergonomic front.
With the HBI, you get a significant extra bit of rail estate on top where you need it, an integrated hand stop, you save about 1.5oz of weight and the comfort in the hand is going to simply be superior for most people. I reckon it looks a lot better as well.
I can’t help but feel that at least another half M-LOK slot could have been included at the 6 o’clock here, adding just a bit more granularity to the end user selection of grip positioning. Small nit-picks aside though, the plastic blend used seems more than adequate and the walls of the handguard are sufficiently thick to negate most of the downsides of using plastic vs using metal.
My Canon’s auto exposure produced just slightly different results in the above image, so I thought I’d include it here. Because I tend to take all my imagery in bright natural sunlight it can slightly skew the exact colour appearance of some items and that will vary from shot to shot. Just something to keep in mind if you are acquiring any given item purely for the fun of it and are worried about the specifics of aesthetics.
Priced at only $55 (at the time of writing) via HBi and with minimal requirements in terms of tooling to fit it (to either a firearm or the airsoft gun), I rate the Sapper as a very high value option by comparison to the various aluminium handguards that are out there for the Evo 3 platform. You get a few less M-LOK slots than, for example, the Midwest rails, but there are more than enough on here for any and all accessories you will actually attach. Plastic is also a lot better in either the high heat or deep cold when compared to metal, a factor I think is often under-estimated.
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