Couple of weeks ago I finally had the opportunity to take the M77 and the I.Q Munitions mag to the local range and give it a work out. Prior to that as posted above I played around with the Deerfield and removed some slight amount of wood from the mag well to see if the mag would fit better. It does remove a little easier because there's almost no tension on the sides of the mag now but the issue is rocking it back and forth to remove it. Which takes considerable effort and is frustrating...so I decided not to use the mag for the Deerfield which was the PRIMARY gun I bought it for.
Back to the M77. The I.Q. Mag goes in and out of the M77 much easier and from the git-go the M77 did not require removal of any wood in the mag well because of a tight fit.
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I loaded it up with 10 240 grain LRNFP rounds and fired it flawlessly. Max COL was 1.640. No failures. Same for the second batch of ten.
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On the 3rd mag somewhere down inside the follower got hung up. I noticed while loading the rounds on this 3rd mag that the bullets weren't pointing exactly at the same angle as the previous mags were. Didn't think anything of it. Anyway, had to tap the mag a little to get the follower and rest or rounds to pop up to top of mag. I checked the rounds and noticed almost imperceivably tiny burs on the rim of the brass on a couple of cases.
3rd full mag were follower hung up somewhere inside the body:
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Mags 4-8 I was more deliberate about pushing the rounds into the mag and ensured they were seated to the rear and pointed up like the previous mags which gave me no problems. All mags worked as intended. No hang-ups/no issues/no failure to eject etc.
BUT...now the mags became harder to remove from the mag well. Not sure what that was caused by. The first 3 mags after emptying dropped out just fine but they became progressively more difficult (finicky is actually the better word) to remove.
My overall assessment: If I was to use ONE word to describe the mag it would be ' temperamental'. This mag is a 98%+ there product. It's trying to bridge the gap of functionality for a couple of different guns which were in production (one still is) for a number of years.
I have 4-6 Ruger mags which drop out of both rifles without issues. I.Q. Mag needs to make that happen with their product. I WAS able to get the mag to run flawlessly once I paid attention to how I loaded it it. It's pricey for what it is at $150 per unit. They made 200 or so this run and that works out to approx $30,000 on that production run. It's a small machine shop and after paying the staff their labor, taxes, buying the alloy for the product etc. they're not getting rich. the owner is willing to speak to buyers to assist with issues. I've not taken them up on that.
Since I managed to make it cycle flawlessly I'll use it for the M77 and will make sure I load it correctly. It's a perfect rig for elk camp leaning on a tree or plinking in the desert. I never intended it for use in a self defense role.
After 70 shots of 240 grain .44 mag @ 50 yards the 1X2 finally gave out having been chewed down by the fragments of the impacting bullets. All shots standing.
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