Archangel M1A Adjustable Stock from Pro-Mag – Gear Review

Authors For Rifles Gear Reviews Paul Helinski
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The Archangel is a fairly simple polymer stock from Pro-Mag for your M1A that installs easily and brings some versatility to your rifle.

The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
This is the package, next to a stock M1A SOCOM. Visually the stock is an inexpensive copy of an aluminum stock three times the price, but the under $250 Archangel isn’t expandable or modifiable like the stock it is meant to copy.

The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The features it does have though are really well made. This is the adjustable comb. Even in the highest position it doesn’t wabble.

The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
Most people think of an adjustable comb as strictly an advanced long distance shooter tool, but they are also useful if you leave your rifle in a CQB, uphead mode with a red dot or holographic sight. Having a perfect cheeckweld with no adjustment gets you right on target.

The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The length of pull adjustment is a posistive click wheel, just like the comb adjustment. This is a more useful feature than you think until you actually try it. Fitting a rifle to yourself improves your shooting a great deal. Note that there is also a pull hook on the bottom, which is something many chassis charge extra for. The Archangel is a little fugly, but once you understand why things exist the stock gets more attractive.

The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The recoil pad is head and shoulders more comfortable to shoot than the standard steel buttplate on the SOCOM. Notice how nicely fit it is as well. All of the edging and fit on the Archangel is meticulous.

The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The big downside to the Archangel is that it only has one rail on the bottom. It does comew with this plastic rail cover as well. You could theoretically drill holes in the side of the stock to put side rails on, but it would probably void your warranty.

The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
There is a forward and a rear standard rifle sling mount. The front one is oddly canted, so you can’t use it for a Harris/Caldwell style bipod. This is probably because of the bottom rail. They figure that you will just use that. Note the apparently metal sleeved hole for push button sling mounts as well. The holes are ugly but it makes the gun more versatile, and it is a lot to work with conidering the original stock has just these military sling brackets.

The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The pistol grip is one size fits all, and kind of chunky for my taste, but it isn’t hard to shoot it well.

The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
One of the nicer things about the Archangel is that though it is a knock-off, at least it isnt’ a Chinese knock-off. PHOTOS CONTINUE BELOW

Pro-Mag Archangel M1A
https://www.promagindustries.com/aaM1A

“If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” is the way the majority of shooters treat their guns. But there are those of us who like to trick certain guns out because they fit a specific purpose better with cool stuff on them. The Springfield Armory M1A is one of those guns that can go either way. The M1A was designed as a military rifle, known as the M-14, so out of the box, in both its short and long versions, it’s good to go for close quarters combat, and the peep sights built in are good enough to shoot at a man sized target out to 600 yards. But tricked out, the M1A is even better, and the military even uses it today in a modern chassis system that can take rails and optics. The problem with consumer M1A chassis, like the bullpup Juggernaut Rogue that we reviewed last year, is that they are both expensive and heavy. Unless you have money to burn and the muscles of a special forces dude, most M1A chassis just aren’t worth the trouble, until maybe now. Pro-Mag makes a copy of a very expensive professional chassis that they call the Archangel. We found that it installs fairly easy, ads some genuine versatility to the gun, and probably improves the accuracy quite a bit. It retails for under $250, and besides being reasonably priced, isn’t a behemoth. At only 10 pounds for the complete finished rifle, the Archangel isn’t significantly heavier than even the fairly svelte M1A SOCOM I stock. If you have an M1A that you want to make that much better, this is an official heads up that the Archangel seems like a great buy.

Our test gun is a standard 18″ barrel SOCOM I. This is the model with the forward scope rail and no quad configuration on the forend. The stock on this gun weighs about 3 lbs. when you take it off the gun, and most shooters agree that it is extremely “wieldly” when you compare it to other .308/7.62 battle rifles. What the gun isn’t, is adjustable and expandable. If you don’t want to shoot a SOCOM I pretty much the way it is, plan on buying a new stock or chassis. The military uses a chassis that is made by Sage called the Enhanced Battle Rifle, and it has led the charge toward M1A stocks being made out of aluminum billet, which is heavy. The Pro-Mag Archangel is a fiberglass filled polymer copy of one of the aluminum stocks made by J. Allen Enterprises, which starts at a $599 base price with no options. We have never reviewed the Allen stock, but it looks to be extremely high quality, made from Aluminum with polymer side panels. The big thing about the Allen stock, which we will see later with the Archangel, is that they seem to have designed a system to lock the M1A action to the stock without the need for custom fiberglass bedding. M1As have been used by competition shooters and snipers for decades, and the best guns are generally fiberglass bedded. The Allen stock, and this Archangel, eliminate the need for bedding by using the lever force of the M1A takedown lever.

How close the Archangel stock comes to the Allen is impossible without the latter in hand, but my guess is that the Archangel is a slightly cruder version of essentially the same thing, at literally a fraction of the price. Blasphemy you say? Well you do generally get what you pay for, and the same is true of M1A chassis, but there is an old explanation in the Lee Precision reloading book about reloading presses that you should really read. It explains that though Lee presses may look “chinsey,” for lack of a better word, the “higher end” reloading presses, like the RCBS Rockchucker, probably the most popular press of the era, were made for overkill. In actual foot pounds of force required for reloading, the article argues, you just don’t need that much metal. Lee presses, I suspect, are just like the Archangel stock. It is several times more solid than the actual gun requires, made out of plastic. Aluminum is a great material. As a rifle stock it feels good in your hand, and the sharp edges and nice finishes make you feel like you are holding a genuinely high quality piece of equipment. The thing is, for a rifle stock, plastic is probably a better material, and embedding fiberglasss into the plastic cures any weaknesses that pure plastic would have. These heavy, expensive, machined aluminum stocks are great, but they are, like a Rockchucker press, overkill for the job at hand.

First lets go over the features on the Archangel, then we’ll go to what’s missing. For most people who want to use their M1A for both close quarters battle and long distance shooting, the adjustable cheekpiece is probably the best feature. It allows you to adjust the stock to a perfect cheek weld position for long distance shooting, and then it can be re-adjusted for an uphead holographic or red dot sight. We found the adjustable cheekpiece to be solid and reliable, with no wobble at even at the high positions. The same goes for the adjustable recoil pad. Outwardly the stock appears to be solid plastic, but the gear adjustments for the cheek and rear pad pieces have an audible click as if there is metal in there, and they don’t slip or falter in use. The same can be said for the pushbutton sling mount holes on the Archanangel. They appear to be just holes in the plastic chassis, but I tugged on them with torque, and the swivels don’t come out and don’t appear to damage the chassis. Whatever the formulation for the plastic is on these chassis, the folks at Pro-Mag seem to have gotten it right. The Archangel has several more models out, including a recent Mosin-Nagant addition, and they are all based on the success of this chassis which was first released in 2011.

The weaknesses of the Archangel could be dealbreakers for you. It is a ‘what you see is what you get” kind of product. The only rail is the bottom front, made for a bipod, and it is more of the same plastic. I plan to leave this stock on this SOCOM, so I didn’t crank on the bipod, nor did I try a forward vertical grip. The rail doesn’t look sturdy enough to take any significant abuse, and like we suggested with the Kel-Tec KSG, if you plan to put a forward grip, get the polymer Tapco one instead of something made out of Aluminum. I could see twisting an aluminum grip off this gun, but a plastic grip won’t have a single point of failure, so it should stand up to most demands in CQB competition. The lack of an ability to add additional rails is kind of a bummer. Technically, this is of course plastic so you could just drill holes and mount standard rails if you counterbore the holes on the inside. Just make sure your rail toys clear the sides if you decide to try it.
Installing the Archangel isn’t as easy as they make it sound, but it is kinda worth it because you get a perfect fit. If you have never taken apart an M1A, you just pull the rear of the trigger guard out of its clip and the whole gun falls apart. The entire top of the firearm is held onto the stock by the trigger assembly, which is a lever, and the force is applied to the two feet that you can see here in the pictures. Like any M1A stock, the Archangel fits between the upper assembly and the trigger guard assembly. But what the folks at Pro-Mag did was make their stock slightly thicker than the distance between the metal pieces, so you squeeze the stock in. This is how they claim to avoid the need for bedding, because the action is locked to the stock via the plastic pads of the stock and the metal feet of the triggerguard. The only problem is that you buy a “drop in” stock, but at least on this gun, it needed some fitting. The directions say to use a file but I used a razorblade, and as long as I scraped only a few times before trying to re-fit, it seemed to be the ideal tool. Plastic is actually a good material for this, because unlike aluminum it has memory and springs back when you squeeze it.

Accuracy with the M1A faces a lot of challenges, and the Archangel only cures one of them. It doesn’t replace the top handguard, which on the M1A (and the Garand), is held on by a spring clip mated to grooves in the barrel. If anything throws accuracy off in an M1A more than anything, it is these cuts and pressure from the clip. As the barrel heads up, it bends toward the cuts. The entire front gas assembly connection is also a problem. You can’t “free float” and M1A if you want it to remain a semi-auto, because that extra tube in the front that is mounted to the barrel is what works the action back and forth to strip the next shell. Nonetheless, we did find some improvement with this M1A SOCOM over the factory stock. Out of the box this gun shot about 3 MOA, and at 50 yards with open sights it shot about half that for these tests. Occasional flyers were the only thing keeping the gun out of MOA range, which is phenomenal for a gun with so many things clamped to the barrel. Without a well tested, full length higher grade M1A it would be difficult to judge what this stock can do as compared to a traditional bedded stock, but this rudimentary test showed promising results.

The M1A is a dinosaur of a firearm according to many, but the fact that it still soldiers on in our military, and also wins 600 yard matches, speaks volumes for the merit of the original design. The Archangel stock from Pro-Mag adds just enough versatility to the M1A to be worth the $227 you can currently buy it on Amazon for. It isn’t an elite product, and it isn’t even that good looking, but the Archangel isn’t a cheap made in China knockoff either. Pro-Mag makes these stocks in the USA, and they come with a full warranty. It would be nice if the Archangel had a rear scope rail, because though the peep sights on an M1A are great for what they are, long range shooting is much easier with good optics. The “scout” rail on the SOCOM is great for red dots and holographic sights, but the scout scopes, with the long eye relief required to see through them, are very limited in their usefulness. There is no doubt that the Archangel is a high quality piece of a equipment that you can buy with confidence that it will do what you expect of it. We hope to get the Allen stock in here at some point, as well as the Troy, another aluminum stock, but for now, this Archangel does the job.

The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
Make sure you read the instructions before you install your Archangel. It isn’t as “drop-in” as we would all like. It says to check the Youtube, but the videos are on the product page so you don’t have to search for them.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The M1A breaks down fairly easily. Once you unclip the trigger guard the rifle falls apart in your hands.

The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
This leaves you the upper assembly, the trigger assembly, and the stock in the middle. You just put the Archangel in the middle instead.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The front of it fits perfectly into the existing bracket.

The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
The fit of the Archangel is nearly perfect.

The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
If your trigger guard doesn’t close at first, this is actually a good thing because you can sqeeze fit your gun to the stock perfectly, just like a custom gunsmith would do.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
Very small amounts of plastic can be scraped away by a razorblade, dragging it, or you can cut forward like this a bit as well. Do both sides evenly, and keep testing to see if your trigger guard closes.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
Surprisingly the razor knife didn’t make the plastic white or create an ugly bruise.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
Just keep scraping until the top of the upper assembly is flush with the plastic and your trigger guard closes.
The Hog Saddle - Sniper Tripod Mount  - Review
We experienced what appeared to be great potential out of the SOCOM after installing the Archangel. As you can see, 4 bullets went into about a 1/2″ at 50 yards, but we kept getting these flyers. This could be a magazine issue or just the Walmart quality ammo.

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  • Chris D February 9, 2015, 11:27 pm

    I fitted a Norinco ‘standard’ length rifle into one of these and I confirm excellent results on accuracy. I think the main benefit is the stiffening of the chassis, and the enhanced ability to use a scope correctly. (The standard stock + a scope was difficult to use due to the lack of a cheek weld. More like jaw or chin weld.) I used a plastic cheek piece which was a good upgrade, but the chassis effect is even better. I now have a MOA capable rifle, which is comfortable to use prone and kneeling. My next move is to see how I can upgrade the optics mounts and see how that enhances the accuracy.

    As with most ‘projects’ the bang for the buck diminishes as you go further. This stock is very, very good for the money.

    On the JAE model, I have one of these too, on a Springfield Match rifle with a custom stainless steel barrel. The whole rig is several thousand dollars, and I like shooting it at the range and the occasional competition. The Norinco is a challenge, to see how close it be with modifications and yet still be less than $1500 / $2,000. I also use this out in the wilderness where conditions are more difficult. I am not so keen to have the Springfield in these conditions, because it cost me so much.

    The JAE is a work of perfection, and is probably the best available. But it is also at a price point.

    The Archangel is great for 95% of recreational rifle shooters. If you are in the military or shooting for gold, go JAE, if not the Archangel is a great budget buy.

    Candocald.

  • James February 2, 2015, 3:04 pm

    Customer message: Bought the M1A standard, OD archangel stock for my sprinfield M1A. I watched the video put out on youtube titled AAM1A stock installation from Archangel development. I took it step by step just as the gentleman in the video did it. It was a very nice fit. Somewhat tight as when the trigger group was to lock into the receiver. Just as the guy said in the video I also had approx. 1-2 mm of space between stock and receiver. The trigger group locked into place and no play was noted to either side of the receiver. I then went out to the range and shot it. After shooting 31 rounds and sighting in my scope a piece fell out of the magwell. It was one of the ears of the trigger guard that locks the trigger group into the receiver. It was confirmed when I got home and removed the trigger group from the rifle that indeed one of the ears that locks it into the stock had broken off. I called Springfield and they are sending me a new trigger guard for 20.00. I saw on their website that they will be soon selling the rifle as an option in an archangel stock. I warned them of my problem and it sounded as if they were not even interested after receiving my credit card info. Im just telling you so that should anyone else have a broken trigger guard it looks as though the stress of firing the rifle with such a tight fit can cause failure. Please let me know if anyone else has had this part fail in your stock.

  • dan April 28, 2014, 12:32 am

    Wow there are some sensitive people here, sure the admin was a little inappropriate but so what? I am tired of hearing “thats not what the gun crowd needs” Well ok what does it need? People on a forum adding their worthless opinions? Demanding an admin to resign because he called out a JAE stock fanboy? I appreciate his comments it’s refreshing reminds me of a time when this weak ass country was as PC minded as it is now. Perhaps you all should keep a box of tissues near your computer incase you get offended on the internet and need to cry it out.

  • SGT Big Dawg December 26, 2013, 11:21 am

    If you went from shooting 1 MOA to 6 MOA it is operator error and not the firearm. First and foremost if the best you can shoot is 1 MOA at 100 yards you need much, much more practice as I can shoot that with a Cetme .308 freestanding. With my Swedish Mauser in 6.5X55MM I can and do regularly shoot 1/4 inch groups and with Norma brand ammo it will shoot these groups with some shots going through the same holes. If anyone is shooting only 1 MOA at 100 yards then I would suggest a lot more practice as with most of today’s rifles capable of and guaranteed for shooting 1 MOA there is no excuse for not shooting at least that and it should be even smaller groups than that. As for the stock I have no experience with the one reviewed here so I can’t contribute to the conversation on it. I will say that the comments here concerning JAE’s wife are both rude and totally uncalled for especially from someone who is supposed to be the administrator and keeping things such as your remarks off this site. It is not only childish but also an indicator of just how immature you are and I find it embarrassing for both you and the site itself. I am hoping to see an apology and a total retraction of your very insulting comments.

    • Bill in Lexington, NC January 25, 2014, 12:36 am

      Big Dawg, it’s been just about a month since you suggested that an apology was in order. Today, I concurred (before ever seeing your post). Moreover, I’ve decided to cancel my subscription.

      The GA Admin doesn’t have to take the high road if he doesn’t want to … but I’m not going with him down the low road.

  • Alexander November 12, 2013, 10:41 am

    Bravo Douglas! You are absolutely correct. JAE has NOTHING to fear from this archangel stock; people who want and can afford the likely superior quality that the JAE offers will get it; those who cannot or would never spend that much for a stock even if they could afford it, will not. It’s apple’s and orange’s here. (I imagine “Lisa” and the rest of the folks at JAE are savvy enough to know this.)

    On a side note; I don’t think that JAE invented this style/configuration of stock, I seem to recall years worth of Olympian shooters using similar stocks to compete for medals.

    If I owned this rifle, I WOULD purchase the archangel stock as an improvement on its original stock.

  • douglas August 17, 2013, 9:28 pm

    Its an interesting dialogue.
    The stock offers features and performance improvement from the M1A for a modest price.
    I have a scout M1A and am former Infantry.
    The walnut stock is just too pretty to let get dinged up.
    The McMillan GI issue Designated Markman Stock is my comparison point not the JAE.
    I came up through infantry both as an 11B enlisted man, and eventually years later as an Infantry Lieutenant.
    This was the era of the M16A1 and E2, all pre M-4.
    Every soldier with real combat experience I have spoken with from either end of age spectrum, oldies from the ‘nam years, or returning young vets from the Sand box, ALL praise the M14 as the most desired platform.
    This Arch angel product achieves the most important aspects of why I would purchase the mil spec McMillian, at 25% the cost, plus it has a rail to attach the Magpul AFG I have come to love on the AR-15 M4s. Pistol grip, check,
    adjustable cheek riser for sighting through optics, while still allowing use of iron sights, check. improvement in accuracy, check; durable enough to beat on, check. cheap enough to treat like a piece of field gear, check.
    This infantryman likes it, this is my go-to MBR, the one I will put the trust of my life behind, not my M4 despite over a thousand hours of M-16 training over a dozen years.
    If you could just barely afford a Ferrari, would you actually buy one? if you did, would you drive it every day?
    The Sage EBR system costs as much as an entire set of Energy Star replacement windows for my whole house. Try telling even the most reasonable wife, “Honey, you know that $1500 rifle I saved up to buy last year? well this year instead of new house windows, how about I buy a fancy stock for the rifle.”
    Get real.
    The Arch Angel M1A stock serves a legit market niche.
    For any responsible husband and father of a middle class life.

  • Diego Martin August 13, 2013, 10:58 pm

    A little overpriced for me, but for around 200 bucks perhaps some people could find it interesting..who knows…

  • Tsquare June 15, 2013, 9:21 am

    I wanted to buy a Kimber but it was just a rip off of a Colt.

  • August Martin June 5, 2013, 3:20 pm

    At the very least Pro mag should give a shout out to JAE as there insperation.
    Or maybe its better for JAE if they dont ,why align your self with a company that would rip off a small mom and pop american co, who actually did the homework and spent the money.
    Administrator you have taken the low road in your responses about a female employee of JAE. I suggest that you resign your poition as you are neither funny nor professional .Your juvinil respose is not what the gun industry needs right now.

  • PFG June 4, 2013, 4:51 pm

    Looks like another overpriced piece of crap. Not as ridiculously priced as the bull pup stocks but altogether unnecessary. Considering all you really get out of it, that you couldn’t easily modify the original stock from is a pistol grip, wow. Most standard LOP’s are too long for me anyway & most shooters will find a little shorter is actually better. Bull Pup would be neat but not a $1,000 & this thing for $250 no thanks I’ll keep my battle spec M1A1 just the way it is thanks anyway.

  • PFG June 4, 2013, 4:51 pm

    Looks like another overpriced piece of crap. Not as ridiculously priced as the bull pup stocks but altogether unnecessary. Considering all you really get out of it, that you couldn’t easily modify the original stock from is a pistol grip, wow. Most standard LOP’s are too long for me anyway & most shooters will find a little shorter is actually better. Bull Pup would be neat but not a $1,000 & this thing for $250 no thanks I’ll keep my battle spec M1A1 just the way it is thanks anyway.

  • TangoDown June 3, 2013, 11:42 pm

    Good article and for the $ wouldn’t be a bad “novelty” stock. BUT, Walmart “quality” ammo..? ‘Winchester Super X .308’..is the SAME regardless of what STORE it’s purchased from. Curious as to whether this would “work” with a standard M1A RIFLE, not just the SOCOM I OR II shorty…

    • Administrator June 4, 2013, 8:37 am

      Of course it would. And Olin ammo is walmart quality, regardless of where it is purchased. If you want precisely made ammo buy Hornady.

  • Ricardo Laureles June 3, 2013, 11:15 pm

    Will the Archangel fit the standard M1A?

    • Administrator June 4, 2013, 8:39 am

      Yes, the receivers are all made on the same CNC machines.

      • Bill in Lexington, NC January 25, 2014, 12:29 am

        CNC’s are not dedicated tools. I made 10,000 back-pack rocket keys from titanium with a tolerance of 30 millionths of an inch on two machines originally put in service to make dot matrix printer parts.

        New fixture, new tooling, new code … different part.

  • Mark June 3, 2013, 7:07 pm

    I picked up the Archangel for my M-1A late last year. Despite some reviewers’ negative comments, I’ve been very happy with it. I have purchased and used other Pro Mag products, and, overall, have been pleased with their quality.
    When fitting the Archangel stock to your M-1A, the You Tube videos were bang-on for tips and details. The written instructions weren’t terrible, but left a bit to be desired. Yes, I eventually did a bit of trimming with an “Exacto” to make removal and installation easier, but the rifle fit quite well from the start. Since you cannot compete with the Archangel in any competition sanctioned by the NRA, being able to go back to the original GI stock is important for me.

  • Lou760 June 3, 2013, 3:31 pm

    I will never buy another Pro-Mag product. I bought one of their magazines for my M1 Carbine and it would not lock into the receiver. I sent them several e-mails and they never responded.

    The only thing that is going to help a gun business in these times is customer service, and they suck!

  • Joe June 3, 2013, 10:41 am

    Well Matt, you claim you don’t own a JAE stock and do not claim to have a financial connection to JAE but the tone of your post makes it sound like you do. You clearly fear that the higher quality of the JAE stock will not be enough for customers to justify its cost given there is a lower cost stock with similar features. If the higher quality is as good as you claim, you have nothing to fear but if people were buying it only because it had no other real competitors, then JAE allowed this to happen through its pricing structure. In either event I suggest you consider this instructive video:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91YxXk3fmw8

    • Matt June 4, 2013, 9:43 pm

      Joe,

      My connection with JAE is simple…I wanted a JAE stock for my own Socom years ago. However, I ended up selling the M1A to fund a Remington 700 project – but not before having spoken with Lisa briefly about their stock. Then, after some elapsed time I got wind of the fact that they were going to make a Rem 700 chassis, so I spoke with Lisa and emailed with her on numerous occasions about options and personalization – even got permission from AAC to have their Skull and Crossed Rifles engraved into my cheek piece (took a pic of my AAC flag to send to Lisa as a file.) However, firearm ADD struck again and I ended up selling my Rem 700 before the JAE 700 chassis was ready for production. So, no, I don’t have a JAE product..yet….but I DO have a distant acquaintance with Lisa and the ethos of the company. (I say distant, I actually did get to meet Lisa for a couple of minutes at SHOT year before last when I was there with another company) I know how hard they’ve worked to get these chassis right – absolutely perfect, with some innovative and ground-breaking features. They’ve done the work to create a unique product. I don’t care if ProMag wants to make a craptastic stock for the M14….but they should NOT have made it as close a clone in appearance as they were physically capable. That’s riding someone else’s coat-tails….it might not be illegal, but it’s WRONG. Apparently you don’t see that…I’m observing that to be more and more common these days. You also seem to be implying that JAE charges too much for their chassis. That’s a crystal-clear indicator that you either don’t know the details of the JAE product…or you don’t have the experience to understand how much effort must have gone into designing and producing such a work of art. By the way…don’t mistake eloquence and logic for shilling. I don’t have a connection to JAE…but I’m intelligent enough to recognize a shitty copy and articulate an argument against it.

      • Administrator June 4, 2013, 10:01 pm

        is “Lisa” hot by any chance? it sounds like you have more of a concern for her than the stocks.

        • Matt June 4, 2013, 10:22 pm

          You know, now that you mention it, she is pretty sharp looking, not surprisingly. However, the caliber of that comment is so appallingly below the level of behavior that should be expected of someone who is an “Administrator” that you have officially quantified for us the value of your reviews – and by connection, your company. Maybe re-think that little tidbit? I’m good with you pulling your remark and leaving my response to it off the record if you are. I know the internutz can get a fella worked up at times, but that one is a little too far.

          • Administrator June 5, 2013, 9:15 am

            Have you shared your feelings with her? I mean having her back and all like this, you just never know.

          • Bill in Lexington, NC January 25, 2014, 12:26 am

            Ya know, you’re right: the Admin is out of line with that comment about Lisa’s sexual desirability. Period. He needs to apologize for being snarky about a woman he has never met.

            He needs to apologize here and he needs to apologize to her personally.

            Come down off it, Admin, your ‘stuff’ stinks.

            You took a pot shot at JAE by mentioning their price … implying that they were too expensive to consider as an alternative to the ProMag offering. That is making a comparison: it is not letting your review “stand on its own”.

            A review that ‘stands on its own’ doesn’t need to reference any other device by any other manufacturer. Ever.

            And then you took another pot shot at both Matt and Lisa, implying that Matt’s reason for defending JAE is somehow unsavory.

            Taking a shot at personalities indicates that you are all out of rational arguments.

            You are also light one subscriber. Me.

        • Matt June 4, 2013, 11:21 pm

          I applaud your willingness to allow honest conversation about the stock and it’s origins. Wish you’d clean up the messy personal comment about the designer’s wife, though. Kinda kills the whole “objective review” vibe. I AM actually more concerned about the PEOPLE of JAE than the product. It’s a crappy move by a big cheapo cloner to make a direct aesthetic copy of their product. The stock is inanimate and doesn’t perceive the offense or that the market is muddied and reduced by a stock that LOOKS like theirs, but, no, isn’t one of their products. It’s offensive and class-less for Pro-Fail to persist in making it. The stocks don’t care….but the people do, and the market SHOULD.

          • Administrator June 5, 2013, 9:12 am

            Ahhh so she is hot. Now we get it. thanks for clearing that up.

  • Patrick June 3, 2013, 9:24 am

    Bought this and HATE it. Waste of money. My M1a was set up and used for service rifle comp. With a scope and match ammo I can keep 1 MOA groups. I put this stock on and was lucky to get 6″ groups @ 100yds. Tried 6 different types of ammo from Match, commercial, Brit, South African, POF, Spanish, German. Never got closer than 6″ and that was using Black Hills Match. I used the BH Match in my standard 700BDL hunting rifle and get 1 1/2″. I put the rifle back in my bedded stock and got the usual great results. I even put it in a standard GI wood stock and still did better than the Archangel. So it is not the ammo, rifle, or shooter. It is the stock.

    • Mike Ballard June 4, 2013, 12:48 pm

      Sorry… Gotta call BS on this comment. Every M-14 or M1A I have dropped into one of our stocks has been able to shoot sub-MOA with the right ammo. It’s literally impossible to shoot a 6″ group at 100 yards unless you’re doing it blindfolded….. SHILL.

      • Chris December 23, 2013, 11:08 am

        Come on, really Patrick? 6″ ? I have to agree with Mike, this is utter BS. I could have my kid whittle a stock out of fire wood and it wouldn’t screw it up so bad that you go from 1 MOA to 6″. Now, maybe if you chugged a fifth of Jack before testing the new stock….. that might explain it.

  • Matt June 3, 2013, 9:23 am

    “How close the Archangel stock comes to the Allen is impossible without the latter in hand, but my guess is that the Archangel is a slightly cruder version of essentially the same thing, at literally a fraction of the price. Blasphemy you say? ”

    Yes, I DO say. First, the author states that they have never reviewed the J. Allen chassis, but then makes free to say that it is “essentially the same thing” as this shameless aesthetic copy that includes NONE of the refinements and benefits of the JAE. My impression of Pro-Mag was always that they made cheap crap. This proves it, and if JAE were a bigger company then ProMag would probably have had to eat this flagrant copy. Although, considering that it doesn’t resemble the JAE in ANY respect OTHER than being a direct look-alike, then I suppose they might have been able to get by with it even after a suit. By the way, a tight fit into a plastic stock that the end user has to whittle on to get it to work….that’s not a replacement for bedding. The author’s claims of a 3 MOA Socom “and at 50 yards with open sights it shot about half that for these tests” is a bit murky, too. If the rifle did 3 MOA at 100 yards, then 1.5 MOA at 50 would make sense, regardless of the stock. The stock is a joke. Pair it with your Hi-Point and some face camo and you are “essentially the same thing” as a SEAL. That having been said, I appreciate the fact that the reviewer did give JAE credit for being a more refined unit and the basis for this copy. Get a JAE and do a side-by-side comparison with detailed pictures and a full understanding of what is involved. Sheesh. I don’t own a JAE, but I have talked to Lisa on numerous occasions and she and her husband (J.A.E) deserve better than to have some big knock-off company flood the market with utter crap that purports to be (but isn’t anywhere close) to being “essentially the same thing” as the JAE chassis, which is an absolute work of art. Pro-Mag should be ashamed of themselves. Accuracy International had the clout to get an AICS copy pulled off the market. In the absence of that entirely appropriate action, the market should reject this Pro-Mag abomination on it’s own. Just saying..

    • Administrator June 3, 2013, 9:30 am

      The JEA website is terrible and has virtually no information.

      • Bill June 3, 2013, 10:00 am

        Your comment about the J.Allen Enterprises is pretty weak. You get called out for comparing one product to something you admit to never having seen and then go on to trash the company again? What’s the matter J. Allen Enterprises won’t send you a test stock? I looked at there site and found a lot of information, just what were you looking for?

      • Matt June 3, 2013, 10:20 am

        Thanks for allowing my constructive criticism. No, the JAE site doesn’t have a ton of info on it, but I think that’s a by-product of the company being a relatively small family operation. They dump their time and resources into product development and production, not so much into IT. However, this review wasn’t comparing websites between Pro-Mag and JAE. Call Lisa at 714.692.3523 if you have questions that aren’t answered on the website. They are GOOD people. I would love to hear your impressions of the REAL JAE chassis. I don’t think the Pro-Mag review is complete without a first-hand account of the chassis that was it’s inspiration.

        • Administrator June 3, 2013, 1:59 pm

          The product review stands on its own merit and has nothing to do with the stock that it has a physical resemblance to. It is a completely unrelated product, made of plastic, not aluminum, and it just happens to look like a product three times the cost.

          • Michael May 1, 2014, 12:58 pm

            An article that starts by comparing an all-plastic stock to the stock it’s copying, then admits they’ve never actually seen the stock being copied, does not stand on its own merit – it’s shilling for a ripoff of the JAE product. A plastic picatinny rail, and other such parts prone to flexing or wear? You’re not really fooling anybody but yourselves…

    • Steve Evans June 3, 2013, 9:48 am

      The article was a bit overly positive but this is after all a promotional sin off site that is in the business to sell and promote stuff.

      J.A.E obviously is a ‘much’ better stock.

      A new Ferrari is obviously a much better car than any Chevy , but to say the plastic body Chevy is a POS is way over the top.

      Sorry not all of us can afford a Ferrari ( Matt included )

    • Abe Doty December 23, 2015, 1:00 am

      Brush up on what moa means there brother. Minute of angle doesn’t change with distance, that’s the entire point of its usage. 3 minutes at 100 yards is 3 minutes at any distance. Stop crying about JAE, they obviously make a superior product, but neither you or I can afford them, that’s where this pro mag market is, people who want half the quality for a third the price.

  • Chuck Moulis June 3, 2013, 8:55 am

    I read the instructions and followed them to a T and had no luck fitting my Archangel to my
    Springfield Armory NM M1A. A friend of mine also had the same problems and returned his for another and still could not get the stock to fit without forcing it and even then the trigger would not activate the disconnect. I managed to finally Dremil Tool enough material away from the inside of the stock where the trigger housing would move forward and engage the receivers channel and allow the trigger guard to close. I’m happy with the stock now but would recommend the Archangel stock to anyone who does not have enough gunsmithing experience to fit this stock system.

    • Administrator June 3, 2013, 9:02 am

      It could be they have improved it. We only had to take off maybe 50/1000s if that.

    • Dennis June 3, 2013, 10:27 am

      FYI
      I have an older Springfield receiver. I have good feeling and bad about an investment cast receiver but have been told by a very reputable source that the older one’s are closer to Mil Spec. In fact some builders have stopped using the Springfield because the newer receivers are just difficult to fit.

      My source shot the Army’s shooting team taking the President’s 100 twice. Ken was a “graduate” of Coronado Island before his time with the Army. I trust his judgement on this matter emphatically.

      I would suggest a fine mill file for removing material. It helps to eliminate the wash board effect of scraping and it is a bit more controlable than a machine such as a Dremel or die grinder. The ears are not exactly flat in the trigger housing either so angle will help with the seating while removing the lest material required for a fit. If you fit the trigger housing and stock so that there is an odd angle and the ears on the trigger housing ears do not contact a flat surface, compression of the polymere over time will result in a loose fit and a whole new set of problems come up.

      Above all check the dimensional relief for the reciever lugs and the trigger housing. This is the problem point. The way and groove should provide a nearly exact match between the two parts. If you are having to force them that is a major concern. It will affect functional relaibility. I do not want to be in the field with a weapon that is tweeky. If you are building start with a Smith’s LRB receiver and find youself a GI trigger housing. The rifle I bought years ago had trigger consistancy problems. After I shot the barrel out and took it to be replaced we found the the investment trigger housing by Springfield had the trigger pin hole driiled at an angle. Replaceing housing took care of that.

  • Chuck Spence June 3, 2013, 8:21 am

    The Navy adopted the EBR and married it with the Leupold Mark IV MRT. The problem with the EBR is the Sage International stock. You cannot get the proper eye relief without sacrificing stock length. Additionally because the stock is not free floated accuracy suffers immensely. Factory stocks on the M1A, the Scout, and the Socom 16 are without a doubt a million times better than the Sage. It appears that this new stock will be an excellent upgrade as long as the eye relief does not suffer when married with a rifle scope.

  • William Dixon June 3, 2013, 6:11 am

    Definitely on my X-mas list.

  • Jon joe June 3, 2013, 5:45 am

    The instruction that came were horrible! No pics. Or anything. But once you get the thing fitted to your gun it’s pretty good to hold and shoulder. The pistol grip feels just right for my average hand and makes a big difference in shooting then the original stock. Overall not a bad investment for around 200 bucks.

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