If you wait long enough, everything in life comes back around again. Sometimes it takes weeks, sometimes years … sometimes a century and two separate pandemics, and such was the case with Savage’s compact pistols. The Stance marks the company’s return to the conventional pistol market and it was quite the buzz at this year’s SHOT show Media Day. Although Savage has made some bolt-action pistols during the interim, this would be the first defensive pistol they released in more than 100 years.
The Stance is a polymer-framed, striker-fired, semi-automatic pistol that is designed for concealed carry. Yes, you’ve read that hundreds of times but setting the Stance apart from most of the others is that it’s built with a chassis-style frame, allowing it to be swapped out to other grip and slide kits. This opens it up to endless possibilities with the CCW configuration only being the beginning. I am completely in love with the concept of going to the gun store just once and then having slides and grips mailed to my house as a manufacturer comes out with new designs.
Standard features include snag-free sights, a crisp trigger and a stainless steel melonited slide. This lefty was also appreciative of the ambidextrous slide stop, magazine release and thumb safety. These features alongside a maximum magazine capacity of 10 rounds are going to make the gun legal in most locales. It wasn’t stated at SHOT, but we would be forgiven for speculating that larger magazines and extensions could possibly be in the not-too-distant future.
At the Savage outdoor range booth, I got to send rounds out towards a sea of steel and while the ergonomics and ample stippling were impressive, the flat shooting nature of this gun is what caught my eye the most. Double-tapping targets took next to no effort, as the sights returned to my original point of aim with both target-grade and self-defense ammunition. I thanked my hosts and talked a bit about the Stance’s future. Keep an eye on this space for a full review in the coming months!
