Have you seen that XTech Tactical 650-pound binary explosion running around on YouTube and trending on Google? Were you left with questions about the video? A number of people were. Jeremy from XTech Tactical was happy to answer some questions about the destruction of all of those AK magazines and the huge explosion that did the job.

Here’s the back story:

US PALM contracted with Molded Devices Inc. in June 2016 to produce their polymer components. In August of 2017 US PALM closed their doors and as a result of accumulated unpaid debt, the molds were disposed of by Molded Devices Inc.

After the US PALM debacle, Molded Devices Inc. partnered with XTech Tactical to redevelop the magazine into what is now the MAG47 AK magazine. But Molded Devices Inc. was left with approximately 8,400 US PALM-branded magazines that they were unable to sell on the open market.

The decision was then made to destroy the product in the most stress-relieving way possible since they couldn’t even give them away.

Below is the video of Molded Devices, XTech Tactical, and Charlie Melton of Charlie Mike Precision disposing of all that unsellable product. The detonation of binary explosives also was a way to bring in Charlie’s 47th birthday with a 650lb binary boom.

You might be asking yourself what was involved in the cleanup. The company stated that they had dozens of staff on hand to clean the remnants of those XTech Tactical Mag47 magazines from the vicinity of the explosion that took place on Shots Ranch in Kingman, Arizona.

Some YouTube commenters assumed that the explosion was intended to help XTech Tactical and Molded Devices Inc. conform to possible impending state laws. That is not the case. XTech Tactical assures us that they will continue to make 30-round magazines for the foreseeable future (even announcing a merger with Century Arms International in September of 2018). They also reiterated that no state law was a motivating factor in the destruction of the unsellable products.

Others wondered why the magazines weren’t recycled and molded into new magazines. Unfortunately, the material would not have had the same structural integrity that it originally had and any magazine molded with the recycled material would have undoubtedly failed.

XTech Tactical released a statement about the explosion to clear up any confusion:

US PALM accumulated a debt of a significant amount owed to Molded Devices, Inc., based in Tempe, Arizona. After almost a year of non-payment, despite demands, it became clear that US PALM would not pay for the product that had been created.

Rather than sue a company that did not have resources to pay its bills, Molded Devices Inc. disposed of the molds as allowed by law. After this, XTech Tactical, LLC partnered with Molded Devices, Inc to created a new magazine that contains several innovative new features. The new features include: fully stainless steel reinforced feel lips, stainless steel spring, and making the magazine easily field serviceable.

Molded Devices, Inc. was informed US PALM had been acquired. US PALM’s new owners then told Molded Devices, Inc that it was forbidden to sell the US PALM magazines. Due to legal reasons, the manufacturer was faced with the decision to give US PALM’s new owner the product at whatever price they were willing to pay, or to destroy the existing inventory.

Molded Devices, Inc. elected to destroy the unpaid inventory of magazines. Since the decision to destroy the magazines was made, it was decided to make the best of it and bring together some of the greatest companies and people in the community.

I have had a couple of early production prototype MAG47s on hand for a few months and have been pretty impressed with their construction. Below are several photos of the prototypes. The final design of the magazine has changed slightly and we will be receiving production model MAG47s for review in a few weeks.

XTech Tactical is now shipping the new MAG47 that carries an MSRP of $28.95. They will also be shipping easy-load AR-15 mags called the XMAG that will carry an MSRP of $29.95. Learn more about Xtech Tactical on their YouTube channel or the Xtech Tactical website.

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32 COMMENTS

  1. Call me an idiot but I would have offered them as a free giveaway (as long as supplies last!) to anyone purchasing their new product. Buy one and get an additional three free!

    • Except that they couldn’t. They were branded under the name of the defunct company that was subsequently acquired by another firm. Contractually, they couldn’t sell them or even give them away.

      • Surely there is/was a way to remove the branding. But probably no cost-effective.
        Gun haters surely enjoyed seeing the carnage…

        • Only way to give them away was to scrub off the logos. But that costs more money than to make them.
          In the end they were just plastics and easily replaced by the production line. These were older and not as good models anyway. Get the newer improved models.

  2. That’s the most disturbing thing I have seen all day concerning guns. I could think of a thousand better ways to use those mags with out selling them or blowing them up. Stupid corp. Stunt if you ask me.

  3. I’m sure there’s a US ally involved in conflict, that uses AKs, that could use those. Maybe Ukraine, the Baltic States, or Georgia.

  4. Something is missing here – under what circumstances did XTech acquire the US Palm magazine inventory? Doing a repo on the molds is a no brainer given the non-payment but how did they end up with all that other USPalm property? If it was surrendered by USPalm as payment reparations to XTech, then the mags should have been fully the property of XTech to do with as they wished. If XTech just took the mags in a warehouse raid, then they should have been the property of USPalm at the time they were acquired by a new company and returned to their legitimate owners. Either way, given that XTech is making their own mags now it doesn’t make any business sense for them to give the USPalm mags away. All that being said, I’m not sure how much market penetration XTech plans on getting at a MSRP of $29.95, especially for AR mags when you can get M3 PMags for less than $15 on sale and M2 PMags for $12 just about anywhere.


    • Something is missing here – under what circumstances did XTech acquire the US Palm magazine inventory?

      I was under the impression that they made them for the old US Palm, which didn’t pay for them, so they were stuck with the product. I’m not sure how the law works on that.

      The new US Palm, which had nothing to do with the pile of magazines, apparently threatened them with legal action if they sold the pile of magazines with the US Palm name on them. I’m not sure what legal standing they have for that. If a store or distributor had a thousand of last year’s mags, US Palm would get laughed out of court if they tried to stop them from selling them.

      • Probably has something to do with commercial agreements and Trademarks involving the new US Palm. A store selling old stock is different than a contractor selling product produced for a customer under contract. The new US Palm might be able to bring a trademark infringement suit for selling crummy old product that sullys their good name.

        • “The new US Palm might be able to bring a trademark infringement suit for selling crummy old product that sullys their good name.”

          As opposed to sullying their own name by not paying the manufacturer a fair enough price for the mags…

    • I may be wrong, but I don’t believe PMAGs have the metal reinforcement in the locking lugs. That’s what really separates range mag from a combat mag when it comes to the AK platform. If you want a lightweight, polymer AK mag with metal reinforcement in both the feed lips and the lugs, your only choices are expensive milsurps or these. Also being US made, they don’t add to the count of foreign made parts when considering 922(r) compliance.

    • I can get M2 PMAGS all day for 9.99 & 8.99 on sale. So good luck to XTech to find enough Idiots to buy a new unproven product for 3X the cost. And the video stunt another really stupid idea.

  5. you have to remember that you are dealing with lawyers,they are the dumbest thing since man walked uprite.. common sense NEVER ENTERS IN TO THE EQUATION…

    • Yep. When something insane or stupid is being done by busness or goverment you can be sure that there is a lawyer behind it somehow.

  6. Are those MAG47 mags compatible with BHO followers? I would imagine they would be since they look to be metal reinforced. 🙂

  7. To quote John Wayne, but excuse the Hell out of me for being unimpressed. While attending New Mexico Tech back in the 1980s, I participated in a nuclear simulation that involved the detonation of 700 tons of Ammonium-Nitrate and fuel oil. I spent the next few days assisting my professor find and recover his experiment. He had placed a video camera in an armored box directly under the shot tower to get imagery of the explosion from an unpredented perpective.

    To explain how the camera survived the explosion, I would have to tell you the story of how Professor VanAllen lost his balls. Professor VanAllen’s balls were very large, but they were hollow steel coated with graphite rather than solid brass. In a fit of suicidal massochism, Professor VanAllen detonated a nuclear device in close proximity to his balls. Professor VanAllens balls were still intact when they were finally located many miles from the detonation. This inspired Project Orion to decelop space craft powered by nuclear explosions.

    • “Professor VanAllens balls were still intact when they were finally located many miles from the detonation.”

      One of the artifacts at the ‘Trinity site’ in New Mexico is a steel casing that was to be used to contain the Plutonium if the bomb failed to detonate as expected located 800 meters from the base of the steel tower used for the Trinity detonation.

      And it was found more or less intact after the first atomic blast :

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Trinity_-_Jumbo_after_test.jpg

      • It became routine to find large fragments of actual bomb casings in the aftermath of subsequent nuclear tests. Nuclear bombs operate on the inertial confinement principal. To compress either the Uranium, Plutonium or Lithium-Deuteride requires an equal reaction in the outward direction. The fragmented casing is at supersonic velocity a few meters away from the nuclear explosion as it begins. Much of the prompt nuclear radiation will penetrate solid steel rather than vaporize it.

  8. “Others wondered why the magazines weren’t recycled and molded into new magazines. Unfortunately, the material would not have had the same structural integrity that it originally did…”

    That very well may be true.

    One type of thermoplastic is a “thermoset plastic” that once it cools and hardens, the polymer turns into a different molecular structure and can’t be re-melted. –

    http://www.modorplastics.com/plastics-learning-center/thermoset-vs-thermoplastics/

    It kinda sucks they couldn’t grind off the branding and re-sell them, but the bankruptcy judge may not have let them.

    Which is kinda strange, since as I understand it, the job of a bankruptcy judge is to maximize the value of assets in the bankruptcy sale so the creditors can get back as much of their debt loss as possible…

  9. The US Palm mags were fairly well regarded. The new design adds metal reinforced feed lips which is an improvement over the older design. If these are anything like the old stock Ill buy loads.

    • Really? At $29.95? I had a couple of the old USPalm mags too but once Magpul started making AK mags, I moved on. The Magpul versions are high quality also but much cheaper. Midway has the MOE for $12 and the M3 for $25. My original gripe was with the pricing of the 5.56 though.

  10. I would be nice to have steel reinforced mags that cost less than Bulgarian Circle 10’s. The Magpul AK mags are nice, but they won’t fit my Bulgarian AK’s without extensive filing on the mags.

  11. Whoever their contract writer was they were terrible. They should have been able to take possession of the molds and the mags on the demise of the company and had all trademark rights be waived. “De-trademarking” the molds would have likely been pretty easy too tbh, just whack the lettering out of them.

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