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The Stag Arms SPCTRM represents the holy melding of an optimized tactical tool with a fashion statement. It’s like Chuck Norris and Kim Kardashian had a baby, and that baby chose to live its entire life in your gun safe. Featuring a top-end feature-set along with some truly superlative aesthetics, the SPCTRM is offered in three different hues for those who like to color coordinate their defensive weaponry. The SPCTRM is the modern sporting rifle that will reliably defend your family and look fabulous doing it. Stag Arms launched in 2003. Their niche is left-handed AR rifles. About 10 to 12 percent of the human population is left-handed, with slightly more guys than girls being thusly afflicted. I do myself fall into that timelessly persecuted cohort. I write with my left hand but, thankfully, shoot with my right. However, for those sinister purists cursed with left-leaning factory settings, shooting an AR rifle was an undeniable pain. The left-handed Stag-15 resolved all of that. With ambidextrous controls and left-handed ejection, the lefty’s Stag-15 leveled the playing field. However, from there Stag Arms started arming normal people as well.
Nowadays, Stag Arms offers the Stag 15 and Stag 10 as well as their Pursuit bolt-action custom guns. The Stag 15 is offered in seven different calibers, while the Stag 10 can be had in either .308 or 6.5 Creedmoor. There are 106 different Stag 15 variants and 89 of the heavier Stag 10 sort. If you can’t find something that appeals out of that expansive catalog, you’re just being too picky. The latest, greatest Stag 15 is the SPCTRM. SPCTRM stands for Special Tactical Rifle Makeup. That’s perhaps a bit contrived, but it sounds cool.
Details
Most of us grizzled military veteran gun nerds look down our long Roman noses at the vapid fashion-obsessed morons populating TikTok. Our lives are way more serious than those of your typical Instagram influencer. Nitnoids of hair styles, makeup and Brazilian butt lifts are all simply beneath us, metaphorically speaking. And then we invest immense time and treasure tweaking our favorite sporting rifles with the best kit and gear all properly color coordinated for maximum tacticool advantage. Tragically, it seems there is not actually the grand gulf between me and your typical 14-year-old girl than I might otherwise presume. Stag Arms just owns this space. The SPCTRM reliably fills that niche offering both flawless function and striking good looks.
It all started with America’s proper operators slinking about Iraq and Afghanistan with their service rifles slathered in dun-colored Krylon. Had I spray-painted my weapons back when I wore the uniform, my arms room guys would have simply had a fit, turned purple and died. However, this was the beginning of something both new and awesome. It all honestly made perfectly good sense. Most military weapons are uniformly black. The place where these guys were operating was monotonously brown. In combat, little things can be big things, and the capacity to blend in is a combat multiplier. From there, we civilian gun nerds just sort of ran with it. Overnight, our rifles became fashion statements.
Let’s get one thing out of the way. I think everyone should own an AR-style rifle. Owning one of these things will help keep the monsters at bay. It will also ensure that Uncle Sam minds his manners and doesn’t get all covetous of your stuff. There remains simply to ascertain the details. You can get into a no-frills bargain basement AR parts gun for less than $500 these days. Think of that like the Nissan Versa or the Kia Soul of firearms. It’ll reliably get you from place to place, but it won’t land you a date with a supermodel. By contrast, it’s shockingly easy to drop three grand plus on a top-end black rifle with all the bells and whistles. The automotive analog might be a showroom-new Corvette Stingray or a Porsche 718 Cayman. That’ll do the job and then some, but folks might think you’re compensating for something.
Nestled right in the middle is the Stag Arms SPCTRM. Featuring all of the cool-guy stuff and a price that shouldn’t make you spit out your dentures, the SPCTRM is indeed a well-reasoned combat rifle. Lightweight, versatile and fun, the SPCTRM will reliably secure your domicile while adding a splash of value-added class. The SPCTRM is naturally also available in a left-handed version as well. In case you’re not neck deep in this already, what separates a truly superlative rifle from everything else is the particulars. There are an infinite number of permutations of such stuff. From muzzle to butt, the snout is capped off with a superlative SPB muzzle brake from Rearden Manufacturing. This nifty trinket redirects the chaos to help minimize felt recoil and keep your muzzle on target. It also features a built-in Atlas/Plan B suppressor mount if you’re into such things. If you’re not into such things, trust me, you will be eventually.
The skeletonized full-length forearm is trim and lightweight. It also sports more M-LOK slots than you will ever use and forms a continuous Picatinny rail up top for optics. This encloses a Ballistic Advantage lightweight Hanson profile .223 Wylde barrel rocking a mid-length gas system. The .223 Wylde chambering doesn’t care if you feed it .223 Remington or 5.56mm NATO. The rifle comes with a Lancer Tactical translucent green magazine that allows you to see rounds remaining at a glance. The safety selector is bilateral. The rarefied fire controls orbit around an ATC AR Gold trigger. AR triggers range from incredible to crap with everything in between. That which differentiates them is nuanced. The really lousy ones are as creepy as Joe Biden at a Girl Scout convention and feel like you filled the lower receiver with sand. The really diaphanous sort will break like a prom queen’s heart. The ATC AR Gold strikes a perfect balance between precision and safety. There is literally no take-up and a beautifully predictable 5-pound break.
The Breach charging handle is ample and ambidextrous for quick, positive manipulation. B5 Systems furniture interfaces with the human form like your favorite set of broken-in boxer shorts. The Bravo stock has cheek swells for comfort. The Type 22 P-Grip is nicely textured and features a more oblique angle to help keep your strong-side elbow tucked in tight as it should be. The synergistic sum of all that stuff is a trim and svelte tactical rifle that runs like a crack-addled chimp.
Trigger Time
Let’s face it, all AR rifles run about the same at first brush. As a genre, these guns are lightweight, hard-hitting and eminently controllable. That’s why we love them so. However, there is indeed a palpable difference between a nice top-end AR and the base model. I outfitted this SPCTRM with a Trijicon ACOG and a Magpul AFG (Angled Foregrip) along with a Streamlight TLR-1 HL weaponlight. Laser sights fall in and out of vogue, but a decent onboard weaponlight makes things so much simpler if ever you are called upon to use such a rifle for real at night. The TLR-1 HL is delightfully lightweight and compact yet reliably displaces the darkness with 1,000 lumens of brilliant white light. The AFG gives you a handy place to lock in your support arm.
The ACOG kind of speaks for itself. A decent ACOG costs more than my first car and will reliably transform a crummy shooter into something special. I bought mine at a Law Enforcement surplus auction at a bargain price. The first thing you notice about the SPCTRM is its modest weight and slim chassis. That makes the gun both fast and fun. At 100 meters from a sandbag rest I could consistently keep my groups less than two inches. Several were less than one. Recoil is not a real thing thanks to the SPB muzzle brake. The Stag Arms SPCTRM is a simply spanking tool perfectly optimized for competition, recreation or home defense. Available in OD green, Flat Dark Earth or Gray, it also looks uber cool just sitting in the gun box. The dichotomous melding of gray receivers, silver forearm, and blood red trigger strikes a visceral chord. Fast, sexy, straight-shooting, and fun, the SPCTRM is the modern sporting rifle for the tactical fashionista serious about his craft.
Stag Arms SPCTRM Specs
- Type: Direct-impingement, semi-automatic
- Caliber: .223 Wylde
- Barrel: 16 in.
- Overall Length: 32 in.
- Weight: 6.3 lbs.
- Finish: Gray Cerakote
- Sights: None, Picatinny Rail
- MSRP: $1,499.99
- Manuacturer: Stag Arms
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