Just put this one together this week. Using a plane jane Troy low profile block I already had, it has plenty of clearance on the handguard. Waiting on a couple parts before I get out to shoot it, but I don't think heat will be an issue. Hopefully you can see this picture I attempted inside the handguard. That screw for the pic rail is about an inch in front of the gas block, however longer gas blocks may have clearance issues. This is a 15" guard with 18" rifle gas length barrel.