Stag Arms Announces New .300 Blackout Line, Return of the Varminter
Last year, in June, TFB reported that Stag Arms intended to leave their home base in New Britain, Connecticut, where they had been headquartered since their founding in 2003. Then later in the year, in November, TFB reported that they had chosen Cheyenne, Wyoming as their new home. In conjunction with a concurrent announcement regarding the appointment of Chad Larsen, formerly of Aero Precision, as Stag’s new President, the company looked to be positioning themselves to make some notable efforts to inject some new life into its product offerings. Recently, they have announced two such endeavors: the introduction of a new AR series chambered in .300 Blackout, and the re-introduction of a previous Stag offering, the Varminter.
As most AR fans are aware, AAC’s .300 Blackout cartridge has gained quite a bit of popularity in recent years. A significant contributing factor to this surge is the fact that it tends to work exceedingly well suppressed – which was one of the key intents behind the round’s development and design. Looking to capitalize on this, Stag Arms has released a new line of ARs utilizing this caliber. The offerings include a 16-inch rifle, an 8-inch brace-equipped pistol, an 8-inch factory SBR, 16-inch and 8-inch complete upper receivers, and build-ready rifle kits (which only need a compatible stripped lower receiver to complete) also in 16-inch and 8-inch versions.
Longtime followers of the brand will recall their Varminter guns. Previously known as the “Model 6”, these represented a bit of a step up from their base models, but the series has been off the table as a new offering of late. This has now changed, and the Varminter is back. As quoted from one of their recent social media posts:
The Stag Varminter line of rifles is back with all the accuracy that you’ve come to know from the platform plus some modern features that you would expect on the most tacti-cool carbine.
We started with a bull barrel, added Magpul MOE furniture and a sleek new slimline 16.5″ Stag SL M-LOK handguard.
If you opt to try out any of Stag’s new offerings, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. See you at the range!
Photos courtesy of Stag Arms.
Lifelong hobby/sport shooter and hunter, former US Army infantryman, perpetual firearms student. Always seeking to become better and learn more. Interested in a wide variety of shooting disciplines, and passionate about all kinds of guns. Contact on Instagram: @WillTFB
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It really pains me to say this, because I love Stag for everything they did for us lefties, but I’ve been extremely unimpressed with them as of late. I got an mid-length 16” upper from them on a Black Friday sale 1.5 years ago and didn’t get it for like 5 or 6 months (they never said it wasn’t in stock at the time of ordering). When I did get it and tried it out, it wasn’t nearly accurate as my old 16” Stag carbine, and was definitely not in the same league as anything I’ve built (admittedly, every single one I’ve built had a barrel that cost almost as much/as much/more than the whole stag upper [no BCG or CH]). Around the same time I ordered two stripped upper receivers, both of which sound like a pair of corduroy pants being rubbed together when the BCG is moved through them, presumably from machining marks left behind.
I think they feel they can get away with this because options for LH stuff is so limited. If you want a upper receiver, you can get a CMT, a Black Rain, or a Stag.
- Stag is cheapest and most often available, but quality is hit or miss.
- Black Rain is expensive at $299 MSRP for a stripped upper receiver. It is billet though, I have one on the way that I got for $199, hoping the quality makes it worth it.
- CMT seems like an obvious choice, but they’re perpetually out of stock and they’re so stupid over at Cross that they can’t figure out how to make a left-hand upper that can accept a dust cover.
It’s a sad day when Wilson Combat May end up being the most economical option for quality left-handed AR stuff.
I have not tried Stag’s LH AR-10 offerings, but their hybrid SR25/DPMS thing kinda concerns me from a proprietary standpoint. I could be wrong about it though, I need to look into it deeper. Hopefully they can redeem themselves with the LH versions of their PCCs that they’ve been teasing us with. Although the simple blowback operation has me skeptical about those as well.
Edit: Funny how Mgmt responded to most everything else besides this.
I am thinking of a 5.56 LH SBR, actually. Just a few more months of saving...