Paragraph4

New AK-47 Furniture by FAB Defense

When it comes to furniture options for the AK-47 family of rifles our choices were limited to pretty much Magpul and Midwest Industries as the affordable options and companies like SLR Rifleworks and Russia based Zenitco for people with piles of extra cash laying around. Well things constantly change in the firearms world and when one of our friends reached out to us and asked if we wanted to try to the new Vanguard AK/AKM hand guard by FAB Defense we happily said yes and waited patiently for our toys to arrive.

WHO IS FAB DEFENSE ? 

Some of you may not know who FAB Defense so allow us to give you the rundown. FAB Defense is an Israel based country who brought us the KPOS pistol to carbine conversion kits as well as GL-Core family of rifle stocks that we have been fortunate enough to use from time to time as well as a host of other goodies. FAB Defense makes a wide array of stocks, grips, bipods and other accessories that are all built to very tight standards and can flat out take abuse. They might be one of the sleeper companies out there that once people learn about and test their gear become lifelong fans.

FAB Defense Vanguard Specs 

Manufacturer: Fab Defense

Country of Manufacture: Israel

Model: Vanguard

Capability: All stamped and milled AK pattern rifles

Colors Available: 

• Black
• Green
• Tan

Dimensions: 

• Weight : 6 ounces
• Length: 6.4 Inches
• Width: 1.9 Inches
• Height: 2.6 Inches

Features: 

• M-LOK compatible handguard accepts direct attachment M-LOK accessories or M-LOK 1913 Picatinny rail sections
• Easy installation, no Gunsmith required
• M-LOK Slots at the 12 & 6 positions for mounting forward grips and optics
• M-LOK Side Slots at 2, 4, 8 & 10 positions for mounting additional accessories
• Innovative additional heatshield for proper thermal insulation
• Provided with three 1913 M-LOK Picatinny rail sections in various lengths
• Two integrated QD sling swivel sockets

Price: $77.50

INSTALLING ON OUR TEST RIFLE 

Our test rifle is my Aresnal SLR-106, while not chambered in 7.62×39 it will be a good test bed for this furniture. I will say I had a harder time getting my Arsenal hardware off than I did installing the new FAB Defense hardware. I started with the gas tube cover seen in the first picture, and it went on smoothly with no issues. I then decided to install the small section of rail for the future adding of a red dot from Primary Arms.

Installing the lower was a bit slower process overall because of the tight tolerances in my Arsenal receiver. A few taps with a rubber mallet and it went in and seated completely. One point to note is that on the front of the Vanguard set up the recess for the hand guard retaining plate is nice and deep. This allowed me to tap the plate into the lower hand guard and made for a very tight fit. No wiggle, no slop, just a great result of good quality control and molding process, this was much easier than I anticipated. When dealing with any AK rifle nothing is “standard” exactly.

IMPRESSIONS AND THOUGHTS 

When it comes to gear we have collectively seen a lot of it here at the site in the years we have been doing this. It’s great to see gear that comes to us that fills a need, and does it in a very simple straightforward and affordable way. What FAB Defense has done is listened to the complaints of AK-47/AKM owners and produced a great piece of gear to fill that need. You can’t ask for anything more than that. The kit we received was perfect in detail, coloring, no snags or weird molding marks. It also comes with a few sections of rail which was an added bonus and potential owners should take notice of that. I’m not sure if Magpul gives you rail sections when your order their rails but I know FAB Defense does.

The fact you get two quick detach sling points, six points to add rail section (that they give you) and it’s affordable just stuns me. The only thing that I can say that even remotely bad is “Why didn’t I know about this before”. We are really looking forward to getting this out on the Arsenal SLR-106 and running a few hundred rounds through it in the next few weeks. The below listing is the full set up we intend to run during our evaluation

• Arsenal SLR-106 (chambered in 5.56mm)
• FAB Defense Vanguard
• Primary Arms Micro Dot
• 62 Grain Green Tip FMJ ammunition
• Warmachin HAMR Sling

WHERE TO BUY 

• FAB Defense Vanguard: $72.00 www.Zahal.Org 
• Primary Arms Micro Dot: $116.99 www.priamaryarms.com