Almost new for this year, Dark Storm Industries teased the launch of their lightweight DS-25, a .308 AR-10 style rifle that weighs more like your average 5.56 NATO AR-15 and shares some interchangeable parts.
The gun was a standout feature for their booth at SHOT Show 2022 in Las Vegas – with Dark Storm Norm pulling in a fair amount of doggy glory as always. The rifle can nearly fool you into thinking it fits into the crowd of AR-15s on the SHOT Show floor, but all is not quite what meets the eye.
While AR-style rifles aren’t generally known for their heavy weight, you normally still add a fair amount of junk in the trunk when you move from your traditional 5.56 AR-15 to a beefier .308 like the DS-25. To make a lighter and more user-friendly gun, Dark Storm shrank the receiver a bit and hosted the trigger group a bit further back in the rifle. But the dead giveaway that this thing is no normal AR-15 is the obviously chunky magazine, which screams AR-10 without the gun doing it on its own.
More significantly, the entire system boasts quite a few more standard AR-15 parts as an added benefit of the design. It’s not only lighter as an entire unit, but the bolt-carrier group also has less mass for lesser felt recoil. We haven’t gotten a chance to run the gun just yet, but the prospect of a .308 AR that wheels and deals like an AR-15 has us intrigued for sure.
