P1140165

Magpul released their latest creation just last week: a 60 round drum magazine. Much like the Romanian 75-round drums we’ve seen for the AK-47 platform, the D60 uses a snaking interior design to hold the maximum number of rounds while being as compact as possible. In fact, the dimensions on the magazine make it smaller overall than the 30 round PMAGs, and allows it to fit both the HK416 rifles and the USMC’s IAR rifle. Most of the design details are similar to the Russian versions, but there are a few nifty upgrades.

The magazine is top loading, which means no mucking around with winding springs and dropping rounds in from the back like the Romanian magazine. There’s also a handy window in the back that shows you about how much ammo you have left, and when you can stop loading the mag.

P1140161

Another great feature is a loading lever. This little protrusion relieves the tension on the magazine spring, and allows you to stuff more rounds in the mag without having fingers of steel. Definitely appreciated for those times when you need to top off the magazine after only a few rounds. And as if they had only focused on loading the magazine . . .

P1140157

There’s a latch on the side that allos you to quickly dump all of the ammo remaining in the magazine out the front. Very quickly, that is. Like, think firehose level of volume. Great for emptying your mags after a day at the range or the end of a competition.

Price is going to be about $129 sometime in the middle of the year.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

43 COMMENTS

    • That $129 is MSRP, I believe that is the same MSRP for the Surefire 60 round quad and they can be had for $80 or so. I suspect the Magpul will work all the time, which can’t be said for all the Surefires I personal own.

      • I can’t justify that cost, considering two p30’s have the same capacity at a quarter of the price.

      • I don’t give a damn what it costs, Dianne Feinstein doesn’t want me to have it.

        IT WILL BE MINE. 😀

  6. Since it’s by Magpul, I expect it will work. That’s a bit awkward because I ask advocates of magazine capacity limits why they want to replace a big magazine that jams after a few shots with a reliable one that can be swapped out in a second or two.

    • I imagine some kind of general purpose pouches would work fairly well, Im interested to see if you could maybe squeeze 2 in something like a saw pouch.

    • You’d carry one attached to your rifle, and the rest would be regular 30- or 40-rounders in pouches.

      That’s if you want practical. If you want epatage, just clip them all over your “urban camo” assault vest.

    • EGL is releasing a handy enough pouch that holds 2 of these drums. Not only that, but they’re calling it the Hickenloop, as a fart in his general direction.

  10. Lots of $$ for a novelty range toy. It will sell like hotcakes. For serious uses, tape two 30rd PMags together. They are battle proven and reliable. I wouldn’t stake my life on a drum magazine.

  11. I have an existential crisis over buying one of these because they seem so cool (and from magpul they ought to be reliable) or spending the money on a bunch of 30 round mags. If street price ends up under $100 I’d try one, and if it worked flawlessly I’d probably get a second.

    I think this would be legitimately handy for a SPR AR for higher capacity when shot from a bipod. The 30 round standard mags sometimes interfere with the ground.

    • TBH, I imagine quite a bit of reliability and hard testing will be done to these once theyre readily available. Id like to see how many rounds you can shoot through one before it gets dirty enough to cause some issues as well. It may just replace the 2 coupled PMAGS on my rifle in the safe though, who knows.

  12. I can guarantee this is not “smaller overall.” It may well be shorter in height but that would be as close to smaller as it would get.

  14. Ya gotta admit this is cool. Who cares what it costs? Does it work?
    Nick, Tyler – get one and prove it.

  16. Cool but I think part of the concept for the IAR was to blend in with the common rifleman. Unless you’re handing these out to the whole squad (good for initiating ambushes), it defeats the purpose.

    My civvie ass wants one!

  17. One advantage that I can see is that it’s actually short than a 30 round magazine. So you get that capacity in a mag you can actually fire prone with. For standing up there nice and tall and blasting away at paper it won’t make any difference. If that range ever goes 2-way I’ll be glad to have something that makes it easier to get down in the weeds.

  19. Might just be a fluke, but I loaded up 60 rounds of 150 grain 300 blackout. Then I pushed off about 15 rounds and reloaded them back to top of the mag. Just feeling out the product. On pushing round 58 it snapped. Magpul is replacing it, but they didn’t ask what I had in there and I didn’t tell. The plastic belt of grey followers snapped at the base.

    It’s possible that 150 grain is too much. I know people have run 110 grain just fine.

    Anyhow, I’m not going to try it again so there will no follow up.
    Maybe I just had a detective unit.

    • Buying it because the powers that be, Would not want you to have it.and 60 for the Zombies sounds good. after you fired the last round out of a thirty round mag, You would wish you had the drum..Who knows what the future will bring.

      Former Beta Drum Disb.

  21. Just received two of these in the mail – sent directly to the People’s Republic of Kalifornia! How you may ask? Because they have been permanently blocked to 10 rounds by having a large rivet inserted to prevent more than 10 rounds being loaded…the ones I received actually only accept 9 rounds, but that’s okay for now. Creating a permanent block by rivet is acceptable because one cannot easily remove the rivet. Yes one could contrive to remove the rivet, but for all realistic purposes, I can leave the rivet in place since I seldom shoot more than five rounds a time anyway, yet when the SHTF, I have the ability to convert them to original capacity. I have also obtained Magpul 30 rounder the same way – blocked by a rivet through the body to limit follower travel. Some mags are blocked with an insert riveted to the floor plate.

    Anyway, I find the D-60 to be typical Magpul which is to say well made from the same material as their stick mags, and the way the drum goes together and comes apart seems pretty secure. Perhaps a brutal torture test could cause the clips to pop loose, causing the loader panel to fall off, but if so, the mag would still function to shoot, yet perhaps even more slamming against hard objects with deliberation to cause the rear cover to pop open could render the unit inoperable, but one would have to be trying to break the thing. At the same time, since there is no need to open the drum up to load, a cross-hatch of “100 mile an hour” tape would not only make it impossible for the retaining clasps to “pop” loose, but would also create shock absorbing impact points to make the drum even harder to “kill.”

    Beyond that, the thing works very well. As stated in the article and elsewhere, about the only way to jam or damage the D-60 is to attempt to unload it improperly, which to me begs the question of why they even incorporated a fast release tab to allow the rounds to come straight out without being pushed forward. As I experienced it, the problem is, that to lift the rounds release tab outward, one must remove tension on the rounds by using the loading lever to rotate the drive gear (located under the front cover), and then the rounds are free to start dropping out, yet because the loading lever is “up” and holding the drive gear locked, the follower is fixed and does not automatically move upward as the rounds drop out. On the other hand, if one releases the loading lever with the release tab lifted, the entire contents will be rapidly ejected at high speed, causing the follower chain to forcibly slam into the interior of the drum body with almost certain damage. The only way to prevent this is to release tension on the rounds, lift the release tab, then place the thumb on the top round, release the loading lever to unlock the drive gear, then “control” the rate at which cartridges are allowed to come pouring out in order to avoid internal damage. For this reason, I agree with the idea that the best way to empty a full drum is to simply push out each round in turn. This avoids risking an internal jam, or damage.

    Firing is not the same as suddenly allowing all 60 rounds (10 rounds in CA) to spew out, because during firing, the cartridge stack is only allowed to move the width of a cartridge before pausing. So regardless of how fast the ROF, the drum only “feels” one round being stripped off with tension being maintained on the stack.

    As for cost versus value…well, nobody really expects a drum to be as inexpensive as a “stick” magazine. Also, as stick magazines increase in length, the weight of the rounds can lead to function problems, though my experience with Magpul is their magazines work very well across the board. While one can debate the cost factor, another way of looking at it is simply total rounds up and ready without pause. Single fire, the D-60 allows 60 shots versus 40 or 30 for a 33% increase in shots available before reloading. considering it takes no more time to insert a D-60 versus a stick mag, the advantage only increases as one goes forward, assuming one can afford to have a large number of drum magazines. Additionally, if one were using 3 round bursts, the D-60 would again deliver 33% more, in this case, 20 bursts of 3 shots, versus 13 bursts of 3 shots…a whopping 7 more bursts before reloading, and this is of course the rationale behind moving to any form of higher loaded capacity. So for those who can afford the cost, or simply want one as their “starting load,” it’s a good option to have.

Comments are closed.