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Posted: 7/5/2007 5:53:44 AM EDT
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Really want to get into an AR. I am a lefty and need feedback on what real problems I would face with a weapon designed for a right handed shooter. I have only found Stag in the left handed configuration. I have spent a lot of time reading and this one option seems to limit me on choices. If I buy into - this is the only weapon for me. Had what was called a CAR15 back in 69 that hung on my seat most of the time and I don't recall any problems but that was a long time back. Any help would be greatly appreciated. |
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I shoot long guns left handed and handguns right handed. Shooting an A2 configured rifle with the shell deflector works for me. Shooting an SP1 or A1, the spent casings ding my head. I add an ambi selector and I'm good to go. I wouldn't waste my time with the left handed stag. |
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As a fellow southpaw, welcome to ARFCOM. All my ARs are in the standard (RH) configuration. However, the Ambi mag release is a must-have ($90) for us. An Ambi safety ($25) is optional, imho, as it's easy enough to bring your left thumb to the left side of the pistol grip to apply the safety. Granted, it would be a second quicker to take the safety off if it was on the right side of the receiver, especially in a tactical situation. The only other downsides I deal with are during competition: In the sitting position, the hot brass ejects over my right shoulder and rolls down my back (if I'm lucky). An occasional one goes in my shirt on the right side of the neckline and as soon as it hits skin, it sticks. And burns like a motherfucker. And leaves marks. Ask me how I know. In slow prone (single shot feed) I need to break position in order to insert the next round through the ejection port. Other than that, get used to using right-handed equipment. There's many many more of them out there than the Stag left-handed upper. And when the SHTF, you never know where your next weapon is going to come from. 
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I shoot lefty with a right-handed Stag. I have had zero issues, except that I have to be careful to keep my right thumb below the ejection port. I like to cup my right hand around the front of the mag well. If I let my thumb stick up, it gets hit with brass. I have actually caught a few spent cases when they hit my thumb and deflected into the palm of my right hand. Even then, no damage, just be sure not to hang onto the spent brass too long. I went with the right-hand Stag for 2 reasons. One, my kids shoot right-handed, and two, easier to re-sell. |
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There's really no or minor issues with a regular right side ejection AR/M16 for a lefty as long as the brass deflector is there. Yeh you may get hit with some brass some times, but it's always pretty much just rolled off my right arm and that's not a problem. The controls are the main thing, but aren't hard to get use to in standard configuration and can be refined with the Norgon ambi mag release, an ambi safety and extended bolt release if you want. I was going to put on an extended bolt release on my POF, but decided the Norgon will be nicer and it's pretty much one or the other since the pad ends up right next to each. I'll just deal with reaching up a little higher to hit the bolt release, but it's still reachable with your trigger finger one handed hold on the rifle while the righthand is changing the mag. I wouldn't bother with the Stag lefty AR unless the brass is going to bother you that much but if you have that much problem with brass running off your arm than you might want to just stay home safe and sound with the other women.  (sarcasm)Other than that Stag didn't do what would be the real benefit I think which is make a true lefty lower. All the controls are the same instead of being switched to the other side for a lefty. All their throwing in too is a ambi selector you can easily put in yourself for 30 bucks. I recommend just finding the best deal on whatever AR you like most and refine it a little more for yourself with the selector and Norgon and drive on. I still need to put the Norgon and ambi selector in on this one, but I'll get around to it eventually. It's far from unuseable and I'm use to it anyway shooting all righty setup Ar's and M16/M4 over the years. 
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Lefties get lots of chances in this ole world to "make do" with right handed items. When Stag came out with a lefty AR for no appreciable price difference I was all over it. It is a great gun. I got the 2TL model. As far as the SHTF issue, or using a pick-up weapon, there is not enough difference to worry about it. I seek out left-handed items (guns, knives, scissors, guitars, etc.) because I see no sense in compromising when it isn't necessary. "Make do" doesn't have to be your first choice. |
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Rifles Lefty, Pistols Righty... Picked up a stag lefty for $700 OTD.. I love it.. Shooting a standard AR "Wrong Handed" is not a problem either... just like the guy above me, why would I spend all the money on a righty when they have a gun made for me.. When in SHTF scenerio your not gonna care about brass flying any which way.. CXS ETA: and as far as reloading for a lefty, use ur right hand and grasp the mag and hit the mag release button with ur thumb.. throw the empty mag in ur dump pouch and on the way up grab a mag out ur vest... Tada... no need for a $90 Ambi Release... But the ambi select is the shit!!!! |
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Welcome to arf.com I’m left handed and do everything left handed. Would never buy a left handed firearm though. I’ve not ever seen a reason for any of em (especially the AR) and don’t think rat holing myself into a purchase that is difficult (if need be) to sell is a wise decision. |
i,am left handed and left eye dominant and i have 6 righty ar,s and have no problems i carry at least one of them 5 days a week, and i,am good to go as long as i have a shell deflector, if not the spent rounds hit me in the teeth. i have never fired the lefty stag but i have heard good things, one of the guys i work with has one [ left handed] and loves it.
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As you can see lefties have learned to adapt and overcome. As a Marine the only thing I had available to me was right handed rifles and as most I simply learned how to use it as is. I remember in recruit training getting a few pieces of brass in the face but not all that many and I was using an A1 at the time. When the A2 came out with the brass deflector it was a nice change. Buy a right handed rifle. Shoot it left handed. Adapt and overcome. |
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I am left-handed and shoot left-handed. About a year ago I started looking for a short-barreled LH AR (my first) for use on-duty as an LEO. I talked to many companies about building a short-barreled gun for me using Stag parts (Stag would not build a SBR). CMMG was the only company that seemed more than happy to build it to my specs (10.3" barrel) using the Stag LH upper/BCG, ambi safety etc. I highly recommend them. My gun has been extremely reliable. I recently used my 10.3" CMMG SBR in a class taught by Larry Vickers (look him up - he knows his stuff). Mr. Vickers is left-handed and shoots left-handed but did not like the idea of a LH gun ( he is vocal about his preferences - but certainly has a reason for thinking the way he does). Mr. Vickers is coming from a background where you could very easily end up shooting some other soldier's weapon when the chips are down. With that said, I incorporated Mr. Vicker's suggestions of training/conditioning myself to use the standard safety and magazine release. This makes sense to me and makes transitioning to a standard AR fairly easy. However, I still believe for a direct-impingement AR, a left-hand ejection port makes sense for me, and here is why. I shoot with a suppressor most of the time. I consider it an unpleasant experience shooting a standard AR left-handed with a suppressor (too much gas/crap in the shooter's face). If I hand my suppressed LH SBR to one of my right-handed buddies to shoot suppressed. They fire a few rounds and say "That's enough of that. I can see why you have a LH gun." Maybe you would have a greater tolerance for the blowback when shooting suppressed in that scenario, or you won't be shooting suppressed at all. Bottom line, If you are shooting unsuppressed I'd see no problem with a standard AR. However, if you decide to go with a lefty make sure you have a good reason to do so and train to use the standard safety (I use the joint where my index finger meets my hand to take it off) and other features that wouldbe on a standard (RH) gun. I am seriously researching the purchase of a piston-operated upper (HK, unlikely this will happen, or LW) to see if it will work for me when suppressed to have another option as well. Good luck. |
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This is just a thought, but the Stag lefty uses a special leftside ejecting bolt doesn't it. To me that's one very important part that will completely limit my options when needing a replacement at an unopportune time and put my rifle totally out of commision. Rightside ejecting bolts have lot of options and you'll have a much easier time finding a replacement where you'll have to either use and have on you the spare you hopefully bought for your Stag lefty AR. If the shit does hit the fan one day and after a while that bolt breaks as they do or wearout and you don't have a replacement or two, your shit out of luck long term. It certainly doesn't fall into my idea of a shtf rifle. Parts availability and interchange is very important the way I see it. 
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Whoa, I'm in the same boat as you; righty pistol, lefty long guns. I'm left eye dominant. For an A2 AR or any AR with a shell deflector you shouldn't have any problems. I have a SP1 carbine that I don't shoot much at all because I usually get hit right in the face with brass. The only changes I've made to my main training/fighting carbines is the addition of an ambi magazine release. I don't have a problem using the safety lefty wise. |
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Don't listen to the naysayers about not getting a lefty Stag! They are awesome rifles! I am a lefty and sure I have some right handed AR's. But I really like my 2 lefty Stags. The quality is awesome, the finish looks great! I have been shooting a boatload of Wolf ammo this summer without a single misfeed! Get the ambi safety and mag release. Also, Badger Ordinance has an ambi charging handle!   |
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A lefty like yourself, I also had a CAR ( two actauly ) many years ago. Back when Colt was the only game in town, neither one of my slab sides hit me with brass, but I'm sure it happened. As has been mentioned, there is a shell deflector lump on pretty much all current uppers which makes the issue of being hit by brass moot. As for the Stag, it's top notch. You wont be sorry. Not to mention you can still use practicaly all the accessories you can for a righty ( sights, railed forarms, bla bla bla...) About the only 2 I can think you can't use would be the brass catcher that velcro's around the Delta ring area, and the Redi-Mag. Stag's people are also great to deal with. Get the Stag with the ambi-safety and the Norgon ambi-catch. As a nice bonus, the Stag's come chrome lined at NO extra cost.hat Lastly, welcome back to the addiction. It's people like these ARFcomers that I'm blaming for the hole(s) in my bank account |
More than enough reason for me too. There's just so little reason to go with the lefty ejection/forward assist compared to the standard alone.  The forward assist isn't any advantage at all that I can see. Actually that's pretty crappy making it more difficult to get to since I use my right hand for that and using my left would force me to take my left away from the grip and use my right at the same time to hold the forend. That's a total hassle to me and could get me killed even with the time it would take to do it in a spot. That's not a plus. 
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Jesus H Christ, some of you really need to get a grip. If you're that worried about it, buy a spare righty upper on the EE (or anywhere else; they're dirt cheap) and throw it in the closet. If your Stag lefty wears out, push two pins, install the other upper, and go on your merry way. Or buy a spare of the few lefty-only parts (there are only about six or so) in the Stag. I've yet to see the right-handed AR15 crowd get their collective panties in a wad because they don't have a full set of spares on hand. Do you think you'll be able to find ANY AR15 parts on the market in a SHTF situation? Hell, you could just spend another $500 and buy a complete, second Stag lefty upper for just such occasions, if you're that concerned. This "pick-up rifle" bullshit is just that: bullshit. Short of an active combat zone, you simply do not find assault rifles laying in the street, period. At Katrina's worst, there were not large piles of M16's laying in the streets. So any "pick-up weapon" you find is more likely to be some completely new platform, which you have zero experience with anyway, and as such the whole issue is a moot point. Having a lefty Stag as a primary weapon won't matter one bit when you end up with a Garand or an SKS as a replacement. All of that nonsense fails to address the single biggest argument for the Stag lefty upper: it puts the ejection port on the side of the weapon opposite the shooter's face, just like the designers intended (for 90% of the shooting public). This is the case, without exception, in the firearm design world and there are valid technical reasons for it. Those reasons don't take the day off for the ~10% of the population that is left-handed. Instead, we get told that having the port on the same side is a "feature" (which is bullshit; it isn't) and how lucky we are to get fucked, repeatedly, by every weapons designer on the planet. Take one look at a blown AR15 and then think about having your face on the same side as that port opening. Having your face opposite the port doesn't guarantee you won't be injured in a "kaboom," but it certainly improves your odds. |
| I am a militant lefty, former Army, and I run a stock M16A4 clone. I developed a unique manual of amrs for myself, anf I wouldn't change it for anything. I think shooting a stock AR left handed has more advantages than shooting it right handed. If I ever get around to it I'll try a left handed selector lever, but it's not a pressing issue. |
I'm glad you can tell the future and know all ends. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  Tell you what though, why don't you just look at in your own outlook not caring about what you don't care about and drive the hell on. I could give a shit less whether you think I and others need to get a grip, because the way your looking at it to me prefers to take things for granted with a narrow view and I find it stupid and sheeple like. Cheers.
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I agree with everything MTK said. Buy a lefty upper, put ambi controls on the lower, and drill yourself with the controlls pretending it's just got a lefty configuration...and then pretending it's just got a righty configuration. Buy some spare parts and you're golden! On a side note, I sincerely hope you have gotten the painful twist outta you panties Achilles1. 
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Fair enough, but since we're commenting on each other's positions, I find your position delusional to the point of thinking that Red Dawn was a documentary and not a work of fiction. There is no "predicting the future" in my posts, only a realistic assessment of the reality in which we live. Only a complete idiot would think they're EVER going to come across "pick-up weapons" in the USA. Yeah, those tactics make perfect sense in the military. Here in civilian land, "training" like that is mostly useless because you're training for a scenario that has NO CHANCE OF HAPPENING. NONE. Hurricane Katrina was, by far, the biggest disaster we've had in the USA in a long time. We had National Guard helecopters taking fire and a complete breakdown of civilization in that area. And yet, there were no "pick up weapons" to be found. None. Not one person acquired a new weapon by any means other than looting. This is similar to the objection some professional trainers have to ambi controls on an AR15, claiming that you're screwed if you have to use someone else's rifle. Again, a valid point in a military or contractor setting, but hardly relevant in a civilian setting since the only rifles you'll have access to are going to be ones you own in the first place (in 99.9999999% of cases). Now, we have the "the parts are non-standard" arguement. First off, I don't know where you live, but where I live there are NO AR15 parts for sale, lefty or righty, anywhere in this area. OK, there may be some, but they're at small, specialty stores; the kind of places that are unlikely to be open in disaster. Certainly they're not for sale at Wal Mart. So any spare parts needed for a SHTF situation had best be on the shelf in my home before it starts, otherwise I'm hosed either way. A right-handed AR that has a bolt failure is just as big a useless pile of junk as a lefty AR with the same failure. There is no civilian armory to keep my standard AR running, so any spare parts needed are my responsibility. Contrary to popular opinion, the number of lefty-only parts in a Stag is exceptionally small. The upper is left-handed, but everything in front of it can be installed on a standard upper. Barrels, handguards, rails, etc. all of it fits both types. Besides, as I already said, you can buy a righty AR upper and leave it on the shelf for your ultimate mastabatory SHTF fantasies and now you've got parts commonality with every other AR on earth. In the meantime, you can use a lefty upper and benefit from all the reasons why the designers put the port on the right for right-handed shooters as a lefty. If your lefty upper fails, push two pins, install the righty upper, and press on. Or buy a stripped upper and some tools and you can swap the barrel and such onto the righty upper if the need arises. Either option would be more than adequate to cover the worst forseeable disaster here in the US. One thing is certain: if you're relying on this parts commonality to be a benefit in a SHTF scenario, your plan had better include either a large stock of spares or having friends with a stock of AR spares. Either that or you'll have to shoot National Guardsmen for your spare parts, which hardly seems like a sound plan. Or do you have some other source of AR15 parts that will still be available in a period of civil unrest? In my case, if my lefty AR fails, I'll simply exchange it for my M1 Garand and/or my SBS Ithaca 37 and call it good. Yes, the AR hold more rounds, but the Garand is better for cracking skulls with the buttstock.  But please, tell me where I've gone wrong in the above assessment. You claimed I was "stupid and sheeple like" for my position. So, put your money where your mouth is and prove it. Tell me where I've gone wrong. Or more accurately, tell me where these pick-up weapons come from (the training issue) and where the spare parts come from (the parts interchange issue) and I'll be happy to see your point. Until then, all I see are imaginary problems, or more accurately, real problems to which you've only prepared imaginary solutions. |
| My buddy was having the same issue as you, and was not sure what to do about it. I took him down to the range, let him play with my varmint and my M4. The bull pup was definitely out. After 2 hrs of playing. Hes getting an right handed M4 and hopefully real soon! |
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Another lefty here! I have 9 completed AR's and I have 0 left handed models. While I am very happy to see someone building left handed stuff, I can't bring myself to buy one. I've never had an issue shooting any AR as long as they have a brass deflector The only thing I've done to all my guns is add a ambi safety. I've never really found the need for anything else. I suppose adding a ambi mag release would help with faster reloads, don't know, I've never really tried. |
I'm sorry but if you don't understand alot of this stuff already and you think that alot of people around here don't think about parts commonality because you haven't seen it. I'm surprised at that really. It was parts commonality that I was talking about, and I don't know where out of your ass you pulled this pick up rifle shit and why we needed the rant about it. Hell if I care, I feel like arguing with you is wasting time arguing with a fool. To say though, the "sheeple like outlook" is the part of you taking for granted how much there's no unknown. Like no matter what it's going to be like you think it is. You seem think that looking ahead and thinking about being better off with a more common parts system and a little planning is silly. I don't know if you've looked around but there are lots of people who have AR's period unless you live in some Democrat gun hating shithole area and the AR's they have are righthanded AR's. Any spare bolts and bolt carrier they may have are righthanded. Yes, the police forces use righthanded AR's too, and yes the military and whether you think it's delusional, Red Dawn caught in a fantasy doesn't really matter to me, but you'll find I'm far from the only one here.  Whether your bolt breaks at the worst moment or not isn't the point. It's just being in a better spot to find a replacement bolt/bolt carrier somewhere down that unforseen road for it than not. Whether barter, beg or steal it's just a better chance and many here besides me would rather have it than not. This is why I find you stupid and sheeple like. Go on if you want but it's just a waste of more time from here for me to argue with a fool.
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I am quoting the NO CHANCE< NONE and SHTF fantasies comments made. We had the flood of '97 that wiped out a town of 70,000 here in ND. There was no electricity, 95% of the homes were wiped out, and Marshal law was declared and the National Guard had to deploy! To make a long story short there were dike vandals and the only ways to protect ourselves was to guard the dikes while armed. And we did! The area was a war zone, no food, no running water, a murderous river on the rise, and Bubba Clinton was flying overhead in a chopper observing. Life was NOT BACK TO SEMI-NORMAL for three years! Our beautiful town was a smelly shithole. SHTF scenarios are a reality here in America whenever there are natural disasters like this from flooding to tornados. Remember the Mississippi floods? Its just not on a national scale. Suitcase bombs will be a reality that we will have to deal with and there is a strong possibility that we will see a detonation of one in our lifetimes. |
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'Nother lefty here, with longarms anyway. I dont use the ambi-catch or the ambi safety. I had an ambi safety on the RRA carbine I used to own, but didnt really use it. I didnt realize that I didnt really use it untill someone at the range mentioned that DPMS made an ambi safety. I was so used to using the RH safety I forgot that there was one for a southpaw as well... I thought about the ambi-catch, but since I'm used to usine the RH controls with the wrong hand, why bother? I personally dont see myself getting a LH stag upper. Nice to know someone makes an effort for those of us who have to fire from the wrong shoulder though. |
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