The Helix Barrel is a turnkey solution for optimized gas control, whether you’re shooting suppressed or unsuppressed. Like our Gold Ring Barrels, our Helix Barrels feature our enhanced barrel extension with extended thread engagement and dedicated feed ramps, which are subtle but critical upgrades offering increased reliability and improved feeding. Our Helix barrels also come fully outfitted with the entire Helix gas regulating system for tool-less adjustment of your gas, but remain backwards compatible with any standard gas block.

Includes:

Helix gas block
Gas tube
Transfer plate
High-temp spring
Detent
M42 steel adjustment rod
Integrated adjustment knob

Just add your muzzle device and appropriately sized handguard — everything else is handled.

Note: Also backwards compatible with any standard gas block

The gas port diameter for our gas system barrels is as follows:

• 11.5″ Carbine:  0.0820” gas port diameter
• 12.5″ Carbine+1:  0.0890” gas port diameter
• 13.9″ Midlength:  0.0890” gas port diameter
• 14.5″ Midlength:  0.0890” gas port diameter

Our 416R stainless steel barrels are precision machined in house with our state-of-the-art manufacturing equipment and best-in-class chambering tools. Our internal acceptable run-out from extension to muzzle on our barrels is 3x tighter than the mil-spec allowable tolerances, resulting in improved accuracy and performance.

Our barrel extensions are made from 17-4 stainless steel and feature extended thread engagement beyond the mil-spec minimum. This choice of stainless offers superior tensile and yield strength over standard 4140 steel for withstanding higher bolt thrust loads. It is also harder and more wear resistant for better lug geometry over time, and is more corrosion resistant in adverse environments. It also is a beautiful bronze finish when heat treated which is a stand out amongst a sea of black barrel extensions. Our extended thread engagement design increases strength, durability, and concentricity for improve bolt lug engagement symmetry, better torque retention for consistent headspace, and enhanced reliability for high pressure loads.

We wire EDM cut instead of broaching our barrel extension lugs and ramps. EDM achieves tighter tolerances with exacting repeatability and produces perfectly sharp inside corners without exerting cutting forces. This method of manufacturing ensures precise lug engagement and improved headspace control for safety and extended service life.

We polish/burnish by hand every chamber to a mirror finish. This reduces friction between the case and chamber walls for faster extraction and smother feeding, results in more consistent brass expansion and uniform pressure curves for better accuracy and buttery cycling, and it results in a chamber that is more resistant to carbon and brass fouling for easier cleaning.

We use an in-house designed automated hydraulic tool to torque the barrel extension onto our barrels at an exact 150ft-lbs. This offers critical advantages in precision, repeatability, and structural integrity when compared to performing this task by hand. In particular, it ensures headspace consistency, bolt-lug alignment, and bolt-lug integrity, improving bolt-to-barrel fit and chamber pressure consistency across batches.

We do 100% QC on every single barrel for headspace using extension headspace gauges that are replaced at regular intervals. This ensures that every barrel is mechanically safe. We also test fire every complete upper and rifle that leaves our facility and check the casings to ensure proper gassing, cycling, and operation.

NOTE:

We recommend that the handguard sit 1.6” back from the tip of the barrel (1” back from the muzzle shoulder) for full Helix control knob access and access to the Helix lock screw. A longer handguard can be used, but given our robust detent system, this will compromise knob access and may necessitate the use of a tool for Helix rotation.

*All Helix barrels are cryo-treated polished finish.  Gas blocks and transfer gates will be supplied in H900 (bronze) finish. Control knobs will be supplied in black nitride finish, as they require the lubricity and hardness that comes from nitride to properly ride over the detents in the transfer gate.