Stag Arms - facts and opinions

Stag Arms is a well known brand nowadays. If you are left handed then chances are you looked into buying a Stag or Stag rifles were recommended to you. The left handed AR15 upper is Stags claim to fame and is what sets them apart from a sea of AR15 manufacturers nowadays.

Many police officers use Stag AR15's as their patrol duty rifle, yet many people still don't know much about them. As a matter of fact there are folks on gun forums that actually talk bad about Stag without any personal experience with their products? Its often guys just repeating negative info that they don't really know anything about personally. You probably know these types of folks. They are the guys that often think if you don't own "brand X", then your gun is junk and will fall apart the 1st time you shoot it.

I am writing this blog to clear up some of the mis-information that is put out there.

I own a Stag Arms AR15 (the model 8) and I did a lot of homework before I bought it. I have compiled a few facts for those of you who may be interested in buying a Stag Arms AR15. Keep in mind I am not a hard core shooter who attends lots of carbine courses or plans on outfitting myself for combat in Iraq or Afghanistan. If you fall into that category then by all means buy a top-tier rifle. But if you are on a tight budget and are perfectly fine with a mid-tier quality AR15 then here are some facts and opinions on the Stag Arms family of AR15's.

I think the most important thing to know if you are thinking of buying a Stag Arms AR15 is that its a mid tier AR. Its not top tier like BCM, Spikes, Noveske, Sabre Defense, LMT, LWRC, KAC, ect ect. This means it is slightly less mil-spec as the top tier guns. 

The question is...do you "need" mil-spec to do what you need to do with your AR15? What do you plan to do with it? If you are a hard core carbine course shooter or an operator outfitting yourself for combat overseas or you just want the very best...then pass on a Stag and get top tier AR15. With the AR market leveling off now, you can get a BCM or Spikes for $1000 which isnt much more than a Stag nowadays. Keep in mind you can always upgrade the heart of any AR15 with a mil-spec bolt and bolt carrier group later on down the road when your budget allows.


Don't expect to get a lot of respect from the top-tier elite when you display your Stag at the gun range. The AR15 community can be very...how can I put this? Snobbish? A lot of guys read a tactical magazine chock full of $2000 guns advertised in it and think they NEED those guns to be an effective shooter. The reality is that formal training and practice, practice, practice...makes you a better shooter. My opinion is its about 90% the shooter and 10% the gun.

If you need a patrol rifle or a home defense rifle then a mid-tier AR15 will do what you need it to do since patrol and home defense often does not involve hard core shooting. Stag AR15's are not mil-spec nor do they need to be for its core customer. Home defense handguns and shotguns are not mil-spec nor do they need to be for the type of duty they will be subjected to. A mid-tier AR15 is more than capable of performing under the stresses of a 5 minute firefight, which is about the length of the average home defense or patrol firefight. 

Talk to 10 patrol cops and you'd be surprised how many have actually shot their AR15 in the line of duty. The numbers are extremely low, and the ones that did shoot...ask them how many rounds they fired? The numbers are extremely low which is why many dept.s are perfectly ok with equipping officers with Stag or M&P15 or Rock River Arms (mid-tier) AR15's.

Now if I had to buy my own combat rifle for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan and I expect  to be in combat for a year or more, then of course I’d recommend a top tier, as close to mil-spec firearm as possible. 

Talk to 10 combat troops and you will learn exactly why they demand mil-spec guns. Their intensity and duration of trigger time in combat and potential lack of time to maintain the gun is far different than that of a police officer in America.

Now don't get me wrong, I fully support the mindset of "buy once, cry once" and to buy the very best if you can, even if you don't need it. I also know many folks who simply refuse to trust their life to anything but the best. I agree with that 100%. All I am saying is that if you do choose a mid-tier AR15...you still have a good defensive tool in the grand scheme of things for the average citizen.

A little history on Stag Arms - Stag is owned by Mark Malkowski. He is the son of Ted Malkowski who is the owner of Continental Machine & Tool (CMT) which has been making M16/AR15 parts for the military and civilian market since the Vietnam War. Stag was even contracted to make the initial run of M&P15's for S&W before S&W got going full speed on them?

Stag offers a lifetime warranty. This is by far the biggest selling point for choosing a Stag Arms product. What other mid-tier AR manufacturer offers this? If you are going to be a mid-tier gun maker what better way to offset the lack of individually tested & inspected higher end parts then to back up your product with a lifetime warranty.

Many law enforcement agencies use Stag rifles for patrol duty. Police depts. Often operate with strict budgets and they can’t justify buying the most expensive guns on the market with tax payers money like the military does. Police Depts. on limited or restricted budgets probably go with Stag because of their decent price point and decent quality and lifetime warranty? The fact is cops don’t subject their guns to the same abuse as a combat soldier so a Stag Arms rifle just makes sense as a patrol rifle. 

Stag uses 4140 chromoly steel barrels, not 4150 chromoly vanadium steel barrels. Do you need a vanadium steel barrel? If you own a select fire lower, then yes since vanadium is what resists heat stress in a barrel being shot under select fire. I can’t pull a semi auto trigger fast enough to melt a 4140 steel barrel and I don’t know anyone who has. Of course mil-spec 4150 CMV steel barrels are nice to have but not absolutely needed on a semi-auto rifle in my opinion. Do I want a 4150 CMV barrel? Of course I do but I am not fooling myself into thinking I absolutely need it at my level of use.

Stag’s have standard rifle feed ramps, not M4 feed ramps. Do you need them? If you shoot an M4 with burst or full auto...then yes. If you have a semi-auto AR then no you don’t need them. Rifle feed ramps work perfect with semi auto rifles and some military M16’s in service still have standard rifle feed ramps today. Full auto/burst rifles cycle their bolts so dang fast that they experienced feed issues. So the engineers added M4 feed ramps to help with the fast cycling M4 bcg's. Do you need them? No. Do I still want them? Yes, but the reality is, most civilians don’t need them. 

On the flip side, M4 feed ramps are not difficult to ad so all the top-tier manufacturers include them. Also, if you don’t have them and for whatever reason, you feel you just gotta have them…you can have a competent gunsmith grind them in for you for a small fee. Or you can even dremel them in yourself if you have the guts and skill. Just make sure you parkerize or protect the newly exposed metal.

Stag batch tests their barrels, BCG's and bolts, not individually. Individual high pressure testing and magnetic particle inspecting each part is the best option for building these types of firearm parts but the process is very "expensive" on large scale productions. Since Stag knows its market (average joes and cops) so they batch test as a cost savings and back it up with a lifetime warranty to offset this feature. This might be a deal breaker for the hard core shooter and I dont blame them at all. If it becomes an issue you can always swap in a mil-spec HPT/MPI bolt and BCG for a few bucks later down the road? Or you can just pass on Stag from the beginning and buy an affordable top tier AR like BCM or Spikes or Daniel Defense etc. etc. for a few hundred bucks more?

So as you can see Stag Arms is a good company with its fair share of pro's & con's. It all depends on what your realistic wants and needs are. I personally went with Stag for their gas piston model 8 AR15. Why? Because a top tier gas piston AR15 costs on average $1500 to $2000+ whereas Stag’s model 8 gas piston was only $1000 and does everything the expensive gas pistons do at my level of shooting. Why I went with a piston AR15 is a whole other blog topic that I am already working on.

Update - As of the summer of 2011 you can now buy a Stag AR15 with top tier features for only $100 extra dollars which is a very good deal. This makes it every bit as good as a basic BCM, Spikes or Daniel Defense AR15.

Good luck...Stay safe.