AR-15 rifle magazine optic EOTECH
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By Krieger

My preparation centers on addressing the worst situation possible and then working backwards towards a less hostile, less unforgiving situation. The worst situation that I can fathom would be an TEOTWAWKI, no power, minimal-to-no logistics, food or water, and exacerbated by the presence of a hostile occupying force.

In an extreme situation like that, the equipment and weapons I select are based on the ability to accomplish their tasks with minimal extraneous (needless) additions. They are as light as possible in order to reduce the expenditure of hard to replace calories. They’re durable, have interoperability across platforms, and a higher-than-normal likelihood of replacement parts or existence in storage.

An example of this applied selection criteria would be the following: The calibers I select are the most commonly found calibers in America: 9mm, 5.56mm, and 7.62 x 51mm.

If I were to apply this same thought process to AR magazines I would start with the following (non-exhaustive) criteria:

1. Durability
2. Space consumption
3. Procurability

DURABILITY

PLASTIC MAGAZINES WITH WINDOWS
There are several very good AR magazines out there. One of the points I like about the plastic magazines is that they provide the ability to observe the number of rounds that one still has in the magazine. That can be a huge advantage.

What allows this visualization — the composite and clear plastic that allows the rounds to be seen — can also be a huge disadvantage. This is this same plastic that in a cold environment can possibly become brittle and crack. Or, if it’s placed on a hot piece of equipment, it could melt thus rendering the magazine inoperable.

AR-15 magazines
AR-15 magazines (courtesy Krieger)

Of the two polymer magazines pictured above, the translucent magazine has a metal liner. It’s there as the contact surface between the magazine and the rifle and is the location where heat and wear and tear have the most negative effect on the magazine.

While this is an important advantage over the other polymer design, the rest of the magazine is still plastic and is, therefore, still susceptible to damage from the heat of equipment or other weapons.

ALUMINUM (GI) MAGAZINES
Also pictured above are two versions of aluminum GI magazines. The tan magazine has a light blue anti-tilt follower. As I have been informed (I have not verified this) the blue follower’s purpose is to provide the user with the ability to easily and quickly recognize that the magazine is empty when the bolt is locked back, as well as preventing weapons malfunctions.

The “gun-metal” grey metal magazine is a standard aluminum magazine with no frills and no anti-tilt follower. I have used many “old-school” magazines without anti-tilt followers. Rarely have they malfunctioned.

Is an anti-tilt follower a great addition to a magazine? Certainly. I’ve not had enough negative occurrences to make it mandatory in my selection.

Regarding aluminum mags in general, I have found that they are extremely durable. Are they damaged and at times rendered inoperable? Yes, they certainly are. But these maladies would most likely have happened with any type of magazine.

Certainly, one does not have to be concerned with an aluminum magazine being damaged by the heat of another piece of equipment or having it come in contact with a hot barrel of another weapon. That’s very important in my selection process.

AR-15 magazines
Dan Z. for TTAG

For durability, the aluminum GI magazine wins hands down.

SPACE CONSUMPTION

SIZE
The consumption of space is a very important consideration. When envisioning overland movement (vehicular or dismounted) every single ounce and every single inch makes a difference.

The size of the military issue aluminum magazine is the gold standard for me. It’s hard for me to consider utilizing a plastic, or even a steel magazine that carries the same 30 rounds as the standard magazine, but whose size, when compared to the STANAG magazine, should allow it to carry 30+ rounds.

In essence, if the magazine being offered for use is bigger than the STANAG magazine, but only carries the same number of rounds as a STANAG magazine…why would I choose it? I’m not really gaining anything.

Both of the plastic magazines are larger than the STANAG magazine. Again, for the same number of rounds carried, the plastic magazines take up more room.

SYMMETRICALITY
The STANAG mags are symmetrical in size throughout the length of the magazine. They’re neither wider nor narrower at any single sustained point of the magazine. This makes the STANAG magazines extremely easy to carry and or pack.

The AR magazine carriers on my gunbelt each carry two STANAG magazines each. Due to the larger size and asymmetrical port-to-base dimensions, the same magazine carriers don’t have the ability to carry two plastic magazines.

With regards to space consumption, the STANAG magazine wins again…hands down.

PROCURABILITY

PLASTIC MAGAZINES
Depending on where you buy, plastic magazines range from $12 to $17 a piece…ish.

STANAG magazines
STANAG 30-round magazines can always be found at around $10 to $12, less when bought in bulk.

All of these prices seem inexpensive to me.

I usually acquire my magazines in bulk when they’re on sale at a brick and mortar store. They’re usually discounted to $11.00 for the older styled gun metal grey without the anti-tilt follower.

Point of this is, STANAG magazines are generally less, sometimes far less expensive than polymer magazines. That means I can buy more of them. Or pay the same amount and lave money left over for for more ammunition.

OVERALL DECISION

When considering using plastic magazines versus STANAG magazines, I find it hard to justify:

  1. Spending more to carry the same number of rounds

  2. Using plastic magazines that can be more easily damaged

  3. Losing carrying and packing space by choosing larger, asymmetrical plastic mags

For my TEOTWAWKI selection I choose STANAG mags. I make no extra effort to acquire anti-tilt over regular magazines. My choice is based on acquiring the maximum number of magazines possible.

TAKEAWAY
My planning process is based on first addressing a TEOTWAWKI situation. While plastic-based magazines have served well in combat, for me and in a TEOTWAWKI situation, the STANAG magazines fit my criteria better than plastic based magazines.

 

Krieger is an instructor with Hybrid Tactics Security. Hybrid Tactics is dedicated to providing its customers with the highest level of security available, whether that comes in the form of personal protective details, shooting courses or cybersecurity awareness and training.

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97 COMMENTS

  1. I’ve had *zero* issues with the pile of PMAGs I’ve accumulated.

    Anything bad about them I should know about?

    • Me too Geoff. I’ve also cut myself on my buddies GI mag. I consider Magpul good enough(and I’ve had zero problems with about 10 gen 2&3-got some MFT mags that have also been ok).

    • No Geoff, nothing bad. The author isn’t saying they are bad just that in his prep with his criteria he prefers the standard aluminum GI mag and he does make his point on the matter for his criteria.

      • IMO…5.56 USGI 20 rd. mags with the metal follower are the best. Out of the box reliability .308 goes to the 20 rd. polymer PMag.
        D&H Mags use rounded springs and they work however the spring and follower design does not provide enough positive lift on the round primer ends compared with metal mags using square springs like ProMag. Some of the. 308 ASC that use rounded springs are junk until the springs are replaced with shortened Wolff Springs.
        Nonetheless a mag that cannot pop depressed primer ends back up with 3 rounds in the mag is a mag prone to fail.

    • I’ve had feed lips break on several p-mags during the winter. The temperature was in the teens. That is why I stopped buying them and switched to aluminum D&H with magpul followers. I’ve had zero problems with the D&H.

      • Living in Florida for the past 35 years, I’ve kinda forgotten about winter in the ‘teens.

        *Brrrrrrrr*… 🙁

        • I’ve gone shooting at -9 to see what would fail. The 2032 coin cell batteries don’t do as well as bigger batteries. No problems with Slip 2000 EWL for lube.

        • That’s the beauty of end of the world scenarios. You may be in Florida on Monday and Wyoming on Thursday. The very nature of an end of the world situation puts just about every scenario on the table.

          That’s why, even though I live in the bay area of CA i hit the thrift stores regular looking for wool clothing and blankets.

          I have family in Utah and Montana amongst other places. Given a life or death choice I’m on the road.

        • “AK49 October 3, 2022 At 16:51
          I’ve gone shooting at -9 to see what would fail. The 2032 coin cell batteries don’t do as well as bigger batteries. No problems with Slip 2000 EWL for lube.”

          Me. I will fail at -9 😉

          I’m not going out there and you can’t make me.

          I tend to approach failure in the 20’s.

      • I have a $hit ton of mags of all types. If we are in a situation where I think I need a rifle and at the same time the temp is in the teens I will just
        1) shelterinplace/lockdown/2weekstoflattentheoccupyingforces
        or
        2) take the alunimum mags

        To the author, wait for a mag making company to F up. Then you buy their mags from brick and mortar places who got them before the F up and are just stuck with them because nobody will buy them post F up. After Troy F’ed up I was buying their mags for $5 each from LGSs.

  2. Lancer along with aluminum and stainless 30 rounders seem to work flawlessly for me. However, every Magpul I try all fail in the same way. The bolt catch gets caught behind the follower and creates malfunctions. I would need to catch with a longer paw to make these work correctly. Magpul makes some good stuff but I cannot use their magazines.

    • Had the same problem with a 5 rnd Lancer in a Sig 716. Out of spec mag or rifle I don’t know it was the only mag that didn’t work. I have several Lancer mags in 5.56 that run like clockwork.

  3. I think this person should understand that people can comprehend what he is saying the first time without all the redundant statements repeated to make this article far longer than it needs to be.

    Additionally, I can’t say I enjoy reading anything that overdoes acronyms like TEOTWAWKI. What the heck does that mean anyhow. I have often read articles by former military or police who use these types of terms. They need to learn how to communicate with the general public.

  4. I never had any issues with the “Cooper Industries” 30 round magazine I owned. Ditto for the factory 20 round Colt magazines either.

  5. The ‘4 Boxes Diner’ YouTube channel is reporting today a 2A victory at the SCotUS, by GVR-ing a Massachusetts case called ‘Moren vs Liver’ (Moren vs the state of Massachusetts).

    Dr. Moren had a Mass. license to carry and walked into a Washinton, DC museum, where he was arrested :

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3w2tNxGWO88

    • The High Court told the first circuit court in Mass. to reconsider their decision in light of the ‘NYSRPA v. Bruen’ decision… 🙂

      A damn shame they didn’t do the same for bump-stocks… 🙁

  6. For those that don’t know; TEOTWAWKI (pronounced ‘tee-ought-wah-key’) is a prepping world acronym for ‘The end of the world as we know it’. At its basics in definition it means the outcome of different events that would ultimately lead to the dissolution of our current economic, political, and societal institutions AKA ‘The end of the world as we know it’ (TEOTWAWKI)

      • That’s the song I was blasting on my stereo on new year’s eve, 1999…

        • I have to admit that the song has staying power. ’87 release and it still gets radio play to this day.

          IMHO, it’s yet more evidence that the masses of music consumers have questionable taste and that this is why the labels and RIAA can lead them around by the nose.

        • just another band that will receive no airplay on my wdpt station.
          “we don’t play that.” there is a long short list. i have never not referred to this group as “the whining band.” every damn song, all of them.

    • BTW, I’d venture to offer that we are CURRENTLY TODAY closer to TEOTWAWKI than we ever have been since the Cuban Missile crisis. A wounded Putin in one corner and the senile Sponge-Brain-Sheets-Pants in the other. Compound that with a Leftist White House brain trust that think men can get pregnant and fantasy belief that Putin “hacked the 2016 election” and insist on Russian regime change at any cost including exchanging nuclear threats.

      Is not the trajectory of Ukraine obvious when you have Petraeous saying “Oh if Russia does something we don’t like we’ll just destroy all Russian targets in East Ukraine, Crimea, and all the Russian fleet in the Black Sea”. Oh really, so Russia will do nothing in response?

      Pretty soon the only real question may be … “Do I off myself with my favorite C&R rifle or just wait for the radiation sickness to do finish me off?

      Something tells me Potassium Iodide is going to be in short supply at Amazon in a little bit.

      • In the situation you describe Potassium iodide is about as effective as a sugar pill.

        I mean, you won’t get thyroid cancer but you wouldn’t have lived long enough to do so anyway.

  7. I make it a point not to place a magazine, namely if it is loaded, on anything hot.

  8. The only difference I’ve noted between aluminum and a PMAG is that aluminum mags are more prone to be dented in ways that are… detrimental to functionality.

    Extreme abuse can break the feed lips on a poly mag, but generally I don’t think the aluminum mag would have made it that far to begin with.

    • By now I have to assume that most aluminum magazines are using the tan followers (or similar) that started being issued over a decade ago that fixed most it the jamming issues I ever had with the m4. Never managed to break a pmag but saw plenty of dents that deadlined the aluminum magazine’s ability to feed despite being able to be loaded and chamber the first round. Both work and so long as it feeds reliably individual preference (or local limitations) would probably be the deciding factor. With that said sucks to be limited to 10 rounds if you want anything other than pmags.

        • Locked mag if you want features (ie typical inexpensive parts) for the extra you suck and we hate you…….oh right and semi auto rifle permit apparently. Lawyers are going to make a killing up here

  9. “Using plastic magazines that can be more easily damaged”
    Magpul features videos of their magazines being run over by a vehicle, I would not attempt that with a USGI aluminum one.

    • Pete,

      Furthermore, I am thinking that PMAGs are made of something more akin to nylon than plastic–and are therefore much less brittle than “plastic” in cold temperatures. Can anyone confirm this?

      • PMAGs are made from a proprietary nylon polymer. The exact formulation (blend) for them is… well, proprietary.

        I’ve never managed to break one in cold weather but I’m sure that they are vulnerable to crystalline flaws just like a the occasional polymer frame is. I’d guess that they’re also made using another substrate or additive(s), like Glock which adds something like fiberglass and carbon black to, IIRC, Nylon 6. Glock’s exact method is proprietary too.

        Most issues with such a substance are due to pre-existing flaws in the material that only become a vulnerability when quite cold. It’s probably rightly considered a QC issue.

  10. When I’ve had magazine related issues, it’s always with Magpuls. I stick with Lancers and GI for 5.56 and Lancers and steel for 7.62×51. Of course, there’s a Beta C-Mag for those out-of-state shooting trips. It should be legal again soon.

    • I like Lancers but had a Sig 716 that wouldn’t run with them. Traded it for a Galil Ace that has no issues with the Lancers.

  11. Talking about saving weight and space on mags. As opposed to getting rid of the heavy extras people like to hang on their AR’s. Lights, sights and other gizmos.

    My issue m16 with a 20 inch barrel weighed just about 7 pounds. I’ve seen AR’s that top the scales at 10 plus pounds and they are the m4gery variant. Might as well have an AK.

    • Makes sense for night shooting with the appropriate nvg/thermals……..but how often is that the case?

      • Depends entirely on the end user.

        Serious hog hunters and high-speed cool guys will use that a lot more often than flat-rangers.

        • Which would support the point of gizmos being useless to most but very handy to a few. Still don’t mind the geardos tricking out everything as they often figure out better ways to set things up.

        • They do find ways to do this, been that way for a long time. The serious high-speed guys tell their problems to small businesses which come up with solutions. Look at the evolution of NODs mounting on helmets for a plethora of examples. Gear has evolved tremendously in the past 20 years and most of that is driven by private people finding solutions for high-speed problems.

          It is, however, true that in a serious situation, those gizmos and basic knowledge of how to use them provide a serious advantage vs those who don’t have anything. If SHTF you will find thermals to be invaluable. The people that have zero thermal capacity will die to people who possess unmounted monocles and have a basic concept of how to employ them.

          Same thing is true of regular NODs. A guy with NODs and an IR laser on a suppressed rifle will slaughter gangbangers at night with ease. Sure, he’ll lose to actual SEALs but how often will he fight them? (Never… or once, lol).

          And if you were to take a trip over top OpticsPlanet and drop $5K on dual tubes right now you’d be much better equipped that the average National Guardsmen, by which I mean you see better in lower light conditions and you just plain see at longer ranges. Add a thermal and you’ve got a major nighttime advantage in avoidance and in combat. Will you or can you use it? The statistical chance is low in most appraisals. But if those appraisals are wrong… well, that’s another topic, huh?

          So, is it useless? Definitely not. Can you make full use of it? Depends on your usage. Can you take advantage of it the way serious high speed professionals do? No. Is it worth it to look into this? Maybe. Depends on your appraisal of your current situation which has enough factors that anyone outside of you really can’t give you good advice.

          Properly considered, gear stacks advantages in your favor but it never guarantees you’ll win. The question is who you plan on employing this against and what their capacities are. If their capacities are low then you can greatly increase your survivability against them with a few properly chosen “gizmos”.

          Just like hogs.

      • Conveniently about the limit of distance where some effective level of terminal fragmentation of m193 can occur from a 20 inch barrel.

    • I don’t much care what’s on the rifle. The debate on mag size/weight is more of a pouch issue IMHO.

      You’re not going to fit two of any of these mags in a single mag pouch, so who cares? If your shingle carries three 30’s it carries three 30’s regardless. Swapping back to a STANAG doesn’t let you store extras on the shingle, so WGAF? Want to use space “better”? That’s what mag extenders are for.

      If you’re toting them around in a bag the extra size/mass isn’t going to matter much unless you’re carrying more of them than you can realistically carry so at that point go belt-fed or go home. If you’re gonna basically immobilize yourself in a SHTF situation you might as well do it as a human MG turret.

  12. I’ve got a slightly different perspective. PMAGs are the king shit of everything in my experience, and while there is no argument that can be made against the ubiquity of .223/5.56, my choice is 9mm and .300BLK. Don’t roll your eyes. My AR can be shorter without adding flash, I can take game with it I can’t take with the native chambering, and a suppressor is insanely effective with 300BLK. The flexibility of the round and rifle leave me with less stuff to carry and fewer supplies to protect.
    My TEOTWAWKI guns are home manufactured, and listed on no database, my 9s are Glock based, and so is the wife’s AR, allowing interchangeability of magazines and rounds, and easy acquisition of replacement parts or more mags.

    • Keep a 5.56 upper as a backup and what is there to complain about? If anything I envy your suppressor option.

      • Getting NFA ‘goodies’ your way is in the cards, I have heard…

        • Great the only thing keeping me from dropping stupid money on H&K goes away in the middle of stagflation 21st century edition. Hope it happens but gotta love timing.

    • Mike,

      There is no question that .300 BLK is a very good choice for the use cases that you mentioned. The only drawback comes if you are scavenging for more ammunition: there is no question that you are far more likely to find 5.56mm NATO ammunition than .300 BLK.

      By the way 5.56mm NATO can be quite effective on antelope and white-tailed deer if you limit your range to about 100 yards and use heavier bullets with softpoints. For example shoot 62 grain or even better 69 grain softpoints and you should bring antelope and deer down in short order (assuming proper shot placement).

      Of course .300 BLK subsonic rounds with a suppressor are the bee’s knees and extremely quiet. That would be the perfect close-quarters combat platform.

      • In a state such as CA where suppressors are uber verboten, subsonic 220g don’t make much sense with an open barrel. Supersonic 120g loads are the ticket.

        And wonderfully loud. Make quite an impression over others next to you shooting their standard 5.56.

        • Even better, I use a Silencerco ASR mount that has a 3 segment muzzle brake. Whisper quiet to liquefy your organs with concussion in 3 seconds.

      • A agree with your assessment. Proper stockpiling is required to ensure supply, and the stockpile is something that needs protection, but a solid loadout combined with carrying extra mags can reduce that handicap. In my semi-meaningless opinion, the advantages outweigh the drawbacks. With that in mind, it goes without saying that as 5.56 is ubiquitous, so is the rifle that fires it, and when the ammo runs out, a 5.56 upper remains easily obtainable. We come back to PMAGS, because they’re the one mag I know of that runs 300BLK just as well as it runs 5.56. GI mags can be shitty feeding the bigger round, which is part of why PMAGS are king shit of everything in my book.

        • Mike,

          Interesting thought that you could very well come across a 5.56x45mm NATO upper receiver and barrel while scavenging for ammunition.

          And actually all you would need is a 5.56mm barrel since magazines, upper receivers, and bolts are supposed to be common/compatible between typical 5.56x45mm NATO and .300 BLK AR-15 platforms. That being the case, why not just stock a 5.56x45mm barrel, which does not take up very much space and does not weigh very much, for your .300 BLK AR-15 and have even more options?

          By the way you are probably already acutely aware:

          Stockpiling virtually eliminates the need for scavenging as long as you are able to stay with your stockpile. If you end up having to evacuate and leave your stockpile behind, though, you will be hard pressed to find .300 BLK at random homes and businesses.

          Keep in mind: if some massive catastrophe happens where society has failed and you are totally reliant on your stockpiles, there is a very good chance that you WILL have to abandon your “stronghold” and move a significant distance to another location. And in that type of scenario, I seriously doubt that you would be able to load up all of your stockpiles into some box truck or trailer and drive to a better location–either the roads will be impassable or marauders will attack and raid your box truck or trailer.

  14. I have fired probably close to 100 thousand rounds over time out of literally a couple hundred well used surplus aluminum GI mags without tan followers… never had one problem.

  15. Other than dimensions, I think the author’s critiques of the better polymer mags (pmags and lancers) are rather weak.
    Aluminum mags are more prone to dents and feed lip issues. Also, anti-tilt followers exist for a reason…
    I’ve had single digit problems with Pmags, but have seen (abused) GI mags that turned a M16 into a straight-pull bolt action. The problem is that the GI mags were not noticeably broken. Polymer mags tend to be easier to ID failures.

    Big picture, after you get past 20/30/40+ mags, favoring marginal gains in reliability is probably a better bet than getting from your 160th to 170th mag.

  16. No issues with my .308 Pmags. I leave them loaded for years and they pop hogs just fine. I suspect most people get polymer mags because the metal STANAG standard is associated with unreliable USGI mags that nose-dive, cause feeding issues, etc. Maybe my Pmags are a hair bigger but that’s not an issue.

    I don’t intend to drive over my mags with a military vehicle or walk around with them on the surface of the sun. Keeping a few new-in-bag mags with the kit is good insurance against a bag mag if one fails.

    I personally prefer .308 over 7.62 because .308 and eat both calibers due to the .308 having higher a chamber pressure. I’m a mule and prefer heaver rifles and bullets but a skimpy, nimble, rice popper has its place and I might eventually build a pistol in .300BLK. The 80% lower for it has been in my closet for years.

    :Frown face: no monies.

        • Bound to be worth more than the dollar for the ink alone and if not a wheelbarrow full of them along with the wheelbarrow should do the trick. Not like anyone is going to investigate random wheelbarrow thefts let alone prosecute them up here.

        • In such a situation the wheelbarrow is probably worth many times more than the total amount of currency that can be carried by the wheelbarrow.

        • None taken I do tend to be more optimistic than I should be. Maybe we can get away with only being as bad as Argentina from the same time period.

      • Half joking as that was absolutely the case 2 years ago up here to the point where emergency edicts we’re put in place to prevent $50+ rolls of toilet paper being sold on the local markets.

        • Makes you wonder what they’ll do about the downstream effects of $8+ diesel, which is something they clearly intend to *cough* bequeath us with *cough* in their *cough* righteous benevolence *cough*.

          Odd how the Biden administration, which is so concerned about gas prices that it burns half the SPR instead of doing something smart, doesn’t care about that new OPEC+ meeting to cut production by between 500K and 1.5M BPD, right?

          Could be worse I suppose. We could be stuck in the UK or Continental Europe. That would suck.

        • Yeah Europe is going to be rough in ways they haven’t seen in the better part of a century. If we are stupid blindly lucky it will only be a bit worse than the 70’s but I expect and plan for worse especially hearing how natural gas along with gas/diesel are being planned to be banned up here (no plans to build nuke plants).

        • No offense intended here but comparisons to the 1970’s make me kinda laugh.

          If you’re really lucky this will make the 1970’s look like a walk in the park.

          Simply put, the tools the Fed had with <$900B debt and a nearly $3T economy don't exist when you have $31T in debt, $240T in total liabilities and a $22T economy.

          On top of that a large part of the world is actively campaigning to dethrone King Dollar and Biden's actively helping them whether he knows it or not.

          Two years from now count yourself lucky to not be living in what is essentially Zimbabwe ~1999.

  17. Oh okay, all I need in a shtf scenario is a lot of money then I can hire a security guy to do all the heavy lifting.

  18. OK. Magazines. AR mags. I agree that the author is correct. The aluminum magazines are more compact and maybe lighter. Never looked into it. However, they are not as reliable, or durable as P-Mags. I’ve often said the two weak links in the AR platform are the gas system (it is what it is) and the magazines. When I was in the Army I hated the 30 rd. Adventure Line mags. I’d snag a Colt 20 every chance I got. Speaking of which. When I bought the aforementioned Palmetto Arms I bought 10 30 rd P-Mags. That’s what they had. I ordered 20, 20 rd P-Mags. Got those now. Recently bought a like new, vintage Ruger 181 series Mini-14. It takes me back. What can I say? I am looking for at least 10 Ruger manufactured 20 rd magazines. Only Ruger mfg and only 20 rd. They’re kind of hard to find. No mag restrictions here. I just prefer 20s.

    • Loved my 181-Mini-14 Ranch with the GB folder on it, until life turned to shit in the early 00s.

      May get another one in the future, as I kept the mags…

  19. I have a .22 gun thing I got when my grandpa died. Its one with one of those round dealy things that goes around. I’d say I’m prepared!!

    Honest…that’s all I have, really! I wouldn’t lie!

  20. I will have to agree with Krieger on a few other mags. Just not the AR magazine. I think I have around 20-30 Galil magazines. All steel. Don’t care for the synthetic mags for the reason the author stated. The synthetic ones don’t fit the mag pouches well. Especially the two mag cell pouches. Of course, the worst thing about those 35 rd Galil magazines is that they hold 35 rds. They, all .556 magazines, should hold 25 rds. HK got it right with the 33/93. One good thing though. If you’re out of ammo you can beat a man to death with those long pieces of steel. Let’s see. What else? Oh AK mags work equally well on a skull. Lastly 7.62 mags. I find factory steel manufacture served me best. It’s all that feeds my HK-91 and M1A. Years ago I had some aluminum G-3 surplus mags. They were lighter. Same bulk. Just couldn’t warm up to aluminum mags. Traded them away for steel. The magazine is already the weakest link in any semi-auto weapon system. Do not skimp.

  21. MAD and DELUSIONAL. Does any sane person really get into this kind of stuff? Are you really tooling up for some kind of imaginery war? I have never in my entire life read such lunacy. ARE there really really such mad men in the USA?? And I thought it was all HOLLYWOOD play acting and wannabe be RAMBOS.

    I was in the UK ARMED FORCES for the best part of 20years both in the Royal Air Force as an ARMOURER/ SMALLARMS INSTRUCTOR EXPLOSIVES DISPOSAL TECH and as a member of the UK ARMY INFANTRY RESERVES so I really do have some PROFESSIONAL credentials.
    LEAVE BLOODY WAR FIGHTING to those trained for it

    Otherwise the very best thing you could do is get yourself over to Ukraine and get some real practrice in

      • At least he strays outside his Marxist echo chamber once a week to join us here. Most of their cult doesn’t even do that.

    • No, Pence Albert, I’m not crazy. I just like to poke the Troll occasionally. I find it, amusing. You really are very easy.

    • Princess Albert, bless your heart. I’m glad to be Scott’s/Irish. Saves me the embarrassment of English blood. I’m looking at two blackthorn shillaleighs next to my front door now. Has anyone else noticed that for a man, with all that military experience, he seems awfully squeamish when it comes to using deadly force against an adversary. Maybe that’s why, after having enough of England’s shit, we came over here. Then you followed us. So we kicked your ass. Twice. Then saved it. Twice. And we have kept the bear out of your garden since. You, sir, need to sit down and shut up until you learn to say, “We’re sorry.” and “Thank you.” I’m out for a while. I find stupidity tedious.

    • Well bloody damn good for you, mate. It would be best that you and your ilk refrain from coming to the States, we have enuff of your sort of our own here already. I assure you that any war we may or may not be gunning up for will be anything but imaginary. Many of us have already served and gotten our training in- what war have you served in?Are you even in long pants yet?
      Just in case you really ARE a Brit, congratulations on you new king. Your kind deserve him!

    • God, magazines hold ammunition in preparation for it to be fed into the weapon. Clips hold ammunition in preparation to be fed into the magazine. I suspect you knew that.

  23. Nothing but problems with AL mags, even the Brownells. Never had a single problem of any kind with a PMAG. Just bought another case of the Gen 3’s.

    • Change the followers to the magpul or newer issued ones (newest I remember were tan colored) should take care of most of the issues unless your mag is dented. Or PMAG as they work great generally.

  24. I buy what’s on sale. That said I like to stick with GI because they go into the 3 mag ALICE carriers and pmags etc. don’t.

    I won’t buy Hexmag 308 mags honestly. Heaps of trash, I gave away a couple to a guy who was going to make a vise block with em. Then they’d actually be useful. I could use a colorful metaphor about how they spread but will refrain.

    Also, I love the 25rd pmags for LR308s but my only issue is it’s almost impossible to find mag carriers for them. I’m about ready to start buying up 20 round aluminums for the same reason.

    Anyone got any pointers on AR 7.62X39 mags since I’m on a roll here? Want to get a couple and finish that build.

  25. Been using various mags in various auto/semi weapons- pistols, rifles- since the mid VN war years. Have never really *TRUSTED* any but the AK all STEEL mags. Like ’em or hate ’em, the Reds know how to make weapons and other such equipment.

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