TTAG reviewed Springfield’s SAINT AR-15 here, to the tune of four stars. My only real gripe was the BCM handguard. It’s a bit wobbly and under heavy fire, suffered heat-induced failure well before the rest of the solidly-built gun broke a sweat. Due to Springfield calling the SAINT a “series” of guns we assumed that a version with a free-floated handguard would hit the market eventually. That eventually is today. Here’s Springfield’s press release.

Springfield Armory® Introduces Latest SAINT AR-15 Model

GENESEO, ILL. (June 12, 2017) – Springfield Armory® is proud to announce the newest edition of the SAINT™ series:  the SAINT with Free Float Handguard. Like the original model, the new SAINT proves once again that high performance and upgraded features do not have to mean high price.

To further add value the latest version of the SAINT starts with a patent-pending Free Float Handguard (FFH) system with pinned low-profile gas block allowing the operator to grip the full length of the handguard without impediment. The hard-anodized aluminum FFH design accepts M-Lok accessories for easy, almost unlimited customization. The rock-solid pinned gas block runs wobbly set-screw alternatives right off the battlefield.

Elevation-adjustable, flip-up front sight, and dual aperture flip-up rear sight can be folded down or utilized to co-witness with optics. Bravo Company trigger guard and Bravo Mod 3 pistol grip surround the enhanced nickel-boron coated, single-stage GI trigger resulting in an incredibly crisp, grit-free break.

Upper and lower receivers are forged type III hard-anodized aircraft-grade 7075 T6 aluminum, locked together with Springfield’s Accu-Tite™ system to defeat the shake and clatter that plagues many AR-15 rifles. The M16 bolt carrier group is precision-machined, the bolt made from Carpenter 158 steel, shot peened and magnetic-particle inspected for durability. The 16-inch barrel is premium chrome moly vanadium steel with a 1:8 right-hand twist, chambered for 5.56 NATO (.223) to stabilize a wide range of ammunition types. Chamber, bore and exterior are all Melonite® treated, for second-to-none durability in the field.

With its ample cheek weld comb, dense butt pad, six positions, and tight rattle-free fit, the Bravo Company stock feels reassuringly solid when shouldered. The mid-length gas system and H-style heavy tungsten buffer lessons felt recoil, for fast and accurate follow-up shots. Combat-refined pistol grip and trigger assembly promote an effective fighting position. At 6 pounds 9 ounces unloaded, the new SAINT is nimble and well balanced – a significant advantage during long hours of practice, patrol, or in the heat of battle.

World-class design, engineering and components make the new SAINT AR-15 a worthy ally in any encounter. But the real advantage is how it feels –plinking, practicing, competing or defending. And with an MSRP of just $1049, the new SAINT with Free Float Handguard delivers premium performance at an incredible value.

For more information about the remarkable new SAINT, please visit www.springfield-armory.com

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71 COMMENTS

    • Springfield Armory is a very innovative company. They have roots as a government armory that John Garand worked for– oh, wait, never mind, that was the name of the armory but it’s actually a totally different company.

      Still, they were significant in developing their first product, the M1A which is a semi-auto only variant of the M14 and– what? They didn’t develop that either? They just made some from surplus parts? Hmm, okay.

      Well their other, truly original product, the successful, polymer framed, striker fired pistol series, the XD, competes along the M&P and the Glock– huh? Oh, well I’m told that was originally the HS2000 and was developed by HS Produkt in Croatia.

      Then there is their 1911 and AR… I can’t even begin to pretend they had anything even remotely significant to do with either of those…

      Yeah, guess they aren’t really innovative in the slightest…

      Oh, I know! They came up with the idea of a GRIP ZOEN!!!

      • I beg to differ. Their innovation lies in having developed the process by which donating to anti-gun politicians and throwing other vendors under the bus equates to supporting the 2nd amendment. That is nothing short of successful political alchemy.

        • Can’t speak ill of them over at GA, they’ll delete your post. GA doesn’t want to upset an advertiser I guess. The sellout list knows no bounds where the Almighty Buck is involved.

    • More like people want them to go the way of the Dodo. Is TTAG purposely trying to lose readers? I’m starting to wonder if someone is in fact getting paid, or if someone is just a brain-dead fool? Keep it up, and you can get on the list of places, sites and companies that I myself and anyone else I know or meet boycott.

      • Are you suggesting that TTAG, the site that researched and released all of the information on Springfield and RRA, is somehow in league with them? That’s rich. Please see my comment below on how I won’t be censoring information and don’t plan on acting as though those companies no longer exist. You’ll get all the information and you can decide what to do you with your own money while making your own choices for your own adult self.

        • ^ Kudos sir. i am so freaking tired of extremist wanting everything they don’t like to be obliterated. they are so blind to their hypocrisy.

  2. Did they say how much the price was going to go up? I didn’t see it.

    Be interesting to see how much their recent fiasco impacts their saint sales. I was on the fence about getting one but not now.

  3. New from Springfield Armory, the ‘never gonna buy your crappy AR Clone, you filthy traitors’, now with free-float tube.

  6. Springfield is still in business????
    This was on my list… alongside an m1a. I always had good luck with my springfields. Now i will get a fulton armory and an msr from savage.
    Now shipping from SA and RRA….. who the f*ck cares. You screwed over illinois gun owners and businesses. You dont bite the hand that feeds you.

  8. Do the thirty silver “challenge coins” come in the box, or do you have to go through customer service?

  9. “… the new SAINT proves once again that high performance and upgraded features do not have to mean high price mean squat when the manufacturer sends money to gun-grabber politicians.

    There, fixed that for them.

    And this really is too bad … I really like the features of that rifle and would have seriously considered buying one had the manufacturer not sent money to gun-grabber politicians.

  10. Nice gun. I just built a better one using Wilson combat upper and lower, FN CHF barrel, Vltor stock and buffer system and a Midwest industries free float handguard for about the same amount of money.

    The only component that pushed me over that MSRP was the Wilson combat drop in trigger unit.

  11. I sure hope someone buys my two Springfields I have on consignment soon. I’m getting antsy to purchase the replacements; which will not be Springfield.

  13. First World Problems with secondary Butthurt. Everywhere.

    The problem is not gun makers trying to play by rules established by Democrats. The problem is Democrats.

    • Preach.

      What if RRA and SA did not stay and fight the last 20-25 years and left for michigan, indiana, ohio, kentucky.

      Then what.

      I have not heard anyone explain why RRA and SA their lobbyist needs to fight for other gun makers, and retailers rights. Neither of them are even in gun retail or transfer business !

      I have asked, anyone please start listing 5 big companies, that lobby, and do it for things they are not in the business of selling, making, fixing, servicing.

      Maybe everyone on here is a real lobby genius, and gets lobby illustrated.

      Lastly, the thousands of dealers, and retailers, why did they not have a lobby? Seems pretty obvious they should have had one, no ?

      • The legislation directly affected manufacturers with onerous new licensing, record keeping, fees, inspections, and other bureaucracy. It would be easy to say, then, that the companies were just looking out for their best interests as manufacturers. However, when the same legislation also restricts normal people to 9 firearm transactions per year, which includes purchases, transfers, and sales, it isn’t something you’d expect any firearm manufacturer, distributor, or retailer to be okay with. After all, the law would have a hugely negative effect on the manufacturer’s customers (distributors, retailers, and end purchasers all), which in turn affects the manufacturer on another important level.

        Dealers and retailers do have lobbies. As do you (e.g. NRA-ILA, SAF, GOA, CGF, NSSF, etc.). However, the question/controversy at hand has nothing to do with which other people and groups were or were not fighting the legislation, but why SA and RRA thought it was a good idea to drop their opposition in exchange for a carve-out and to donate money over many years to the Democrat Victory Fund as well as directly to staunchly anti-gun politicians.

  14. Unless Reese is holding the authors daughter hostage, there’s no excuse for writing this article.

    • I won’t be engaging in censorship or blackballing in order to push my personal opinion of a company onto all of our readers. Maybe I’m personally boycotting them and maybe I’m not, but I’m not going to tell you what to do or what to think, or keep you in the dark because of my opinion.

      As TTAG continued to post Springfield’s responses and public relations statements regarding their anti-gun bill carve-out and political donations in Illinois, we’ll continue to post news about their products. In fact, we’re still planning to fairly review an XD-E. If you decide not to support the company based on the news TTAG researched and broke — or for whatever reason — that’s great. We provided information for you to make an educated choice. We didn’t tell you what to do with your life or with your dollars.

      We’ll give you all the info we can, but I’m afraid you’ll have to form your own opinion and make your own choices with it.

  15. New from Springfield, some AR with a we didn’t know attachment and a bonus back peddle.

  16. This should not have been written or posted. (I did not read it).

    No free advertisement for sell-out companies

    Go back to Canik promotion

    Let SA wallow in their own crap.

  19. No Saint for me
    No M1A
    Both nice guns for the price
    Helping Democrats limit Illinois citizens to 9 gun buys and sells a year is outrageous!

    • You actually touch on something I thought about when this whole thing went down.

      Let’s say that in some hypothetical world RRA and SA both did exactly right by, well by the opinions of posters here. They collected money and gave it to all the right pols and to support the right policies in Illinois but that everything else remained the same.

      OK, well that’s still kinda not great in my opinion. Why should people who live in other states pay a higher price for their stuff just because the people in Illinois are too stupid to elect politicians that don’t try to infringe on their citizen’s rights? Isn’t that the people of Illinois basically saying “Hey, we can’t vote right. So now we need your money to fight the garbage legislation that the people we elected are trying to foist on us!”?

      It seems to me that the root of the problem here, no matter how you cut it and no matter how you feel about SA and RRA’s behavior, is the people of the state of Illinois.

      • Not all the people of Illinois, Just the ones that vote in gun grabbers, please. Us downstaters are at a disadvantage: we can only vote once per election, and we stop voting after we die.

      • I understand that, so I’ll rephrase.

        The problem is that the majority of voters in Illinois don’t care about their rights and elect politicians who actively attack those rights.

        Now, that’s an education issue, but it doesn’t change the bare fact that Illinois is a blue state that consistently elects anti-rights politicians.

        I just don’t much care for the whining. You reap what you sow and Illinois has sown the seeds of it’s own destruction for decades. In fact, it may soon be the state with the distinction of being the first to be completely bankrupt. Perhaps, when that happens it will cause a paradigm shift in how the electorate thinks but I wouldn’t hold my breath. None of this is a valid reason why people in “free states” should pay more for a product to bail out those who, as a group, are too foolish to guard their own rights.

        Someone out there probably sees this as me blaming the victim, yeah, well the term “victim” doesn’t apply to people who willfully harm themselves and continue their self destructive behavior for generations.

        Progressivism is intellectual cancer and it’s 99.99% fatal.

        • The really important thing to know about Illinois is that the Democrats have screwed us on the map. We cannot get the map fixed, because the IL Supreme court denied the latest effort to fix it. So, the map is designed in a way that benefits Dems, and Mike Madigan will do whatever is necessary in order to keep a stranglehold on it until the day he dies. That man has done more to harm the state than probably anyone else in IL state history. Those of us central/downstate continue to be screwed by Madigan. Outside of Chicago (Cook County) and a couple collar counties, this state is pretty red. Thanks to the map, it doesn’t matter.

  21. Didn’t come here for the article, I came here for the comments. I was not disappointed. I have been wanting to buy more springfield guns but now I will have to find substitutes. Ruger SR1911 instead of the Springfield Loaded is what I will probably end up buying.

  24. Coming soon from Springfield Armory, a new innovation: Bread that comes already sliced. Half the quality as the competition for 30% higher price.

  25. $1049? LOL, no thanks. You can buy better for cheaper from friendlier companies.

    No one needs to buy this from a Fudd-like company that sold out all others as long as they could keep theirs. I’m surprised they didn’t toss in a Clinton-Hole internal lock and change the whole line to CA-compliant for their political allies.

    Pass on the Springfield TAINT AR-15.

    • My thoughts exactly. The marketplace abounds with similar companies offering similar rifles for similar prices. Why buy a gun from a company that rather publicly sold the rights of Illinois gun owners just so it could enhance its market position?

  26. Meh. I’d rather have a delton AR15 for $399. It’s really hard to beat that. And if it gets run over by a truck or whatever – no big loss.

  27. So how many of you are truly out campaigning for gun friendly politicians to replace the anti-gun dems? I mean really out there with a clipboard getting signatures and handing out fliers. Doesn’t IL have any gun friendly republicans? If Springfield apologized and gave a donation to the NRA would that make a difference? If you want change you have to work for it. Or just come to AZ and live with us zany zonies.

    • In time AS will be super lefty. It’s going to happen. You’ve got California and Liberal Nevada to your west and NM fruit loops to your east. They will soon diffuse across each other.

      • NM is an interesting state in that parts are super hippy liberal and others are extremely Conservative.

        An interesting state that, to this day, has looser gun laws than Texas in a lot of respects.

    • In time AZ will be super lefty. It’s going to happen. You’ve got California and Liberal Nevada to your west and NM fruit loops to your east. They will soon diffuse across each other.

      • Actually most that are moving out of Cali go to Texas, very few head for AZ. And the libtards from New Mexico have been steadily crawling to Colorado, especially after the legalization of weed up north. Arizona has a large and growing influx of retirees, who are vastly conservative.

  29. Hopefully will be leaving illinois in the next couple of years. I grew up here and loved here most of my life.
    The only thing that ever changes here are the taxes. And tolls.

  31. Go to their YouTube channel, 0 subscribers. Rock River Arms at least has a bit over 800. 😀

  33. so their strategy here is to list as many mundane features as possible and act like they are innovative selling points? i see a bankruptcy a comin’.

  34. What is this shit? Why is this garbage on TTAG?, i mean TFB are sellouts, the no politics bullshit is silly, ammoland meh, does spri gfield think they can buy everyone off?

  35. I have no problem with the article. An honest product review is a product review, that’s respectable.
    I had every intention of buying a Saint, but purchased a Savage MSR (for more $) Instead because of the garbage they did in Illinois.
    What surprises me is that Springfield isn’t selling guns at reduced prices to try to lure new blood in .
    I do love the 30 pieces of silver comments.

  36. Do you even know what the bill was, or did you just read the headline ” SA and RRA 2nd Am. Traitors, BURN THEM!” and think ” Oh, well, that’s all there is to it.” The CEO of Springfield Armory publicly apologized, and said that the man that SA and RRA put in charge of their lobbying group didn’t “understand” the importance of the bill, probably meaning he was paid off by the democrats, because the lobbying group has opposed dozens of anti-gun laws over the past 25 years or so. It doesn’t make sense why everybody ignores all the good it had done, and instead focused on the one bad thing that happened. The man in charge of their lobbying group was fired, and the group itself disbanded. Now, why would SA, which has supported gun rights for years, suddenly flip on a dime, and support anti-gun legislation? The CEO seemed sincere, as he, according to himself, grew up with cleaning, firing, assembling, and selling surplus guns. Why would he support something obviously anti-gun? He may not have worried about the bill, because, as far as he knew, the lobbying group would oppose it, just like they’d done the past 25 years. He didn’t think they would support it. I’m not a fanboy of any gun manufacturer, but one things sure: SA makes a quality AR15, at a decent price. Yes, there’s a few lemon SAINT’s out there, but, from all I’ve seen, either the rifle was repaired, or a refund given out. Some people in SA may have had something to do with it, but the majority of the people in the company, I’m willing to bet, did not support the bill. Stop hating a company that’s been supporting gun rights for over 25 years, just because they screwed up once. Now, SA could be guilty. They could have done it on purpose, and might be trying to cover their own butts. But, I don’t think so. SA will be down in the dumps for a few years, but it’ll come back. Plus, chances are, the bills not going to get passed, since the Governor of Illinois is a Republican, and a known Pro gun advocate.

  37. hmm. lots of righteousness on display here in the comments. like all gun owners have to be absolute on no gun regs. sorry, attempt to censure or demand people fall in in because they don’t have your same view is bullshit and anti-american. i’d say stfu, but then i’d be a hypocrite like so many others.

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