Polymer AR magazines

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herrwalther

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The only magazines I have used in my ARs (and service M4/M16) have been Pmags and Aluminum GI magazines. I stopped by my local gun store where they had 2 barrels of Mission First Tactical mags. One model for 11.99 each and the other for 12.99. I grabbed three of the ones that I liked the stippling on but I have no experience with these mags other than buying them. Any opinions? How do they compare to Pmags?

https://www.missionfirsttactical.com/SCPM556BAG?quantity=1&Color=1
 
They are just fine. I have gotten a dozen or so from Academy when they were 9.99 and haven’t had any failures yet with any. They seem to me to be equal to P-mags.
 
Poly-mags are good to go so long as you buy decent ones. MFT, PMag, Lancers...I like them all. I honestly prefer the Pmags just due to availability and cost, nothing lasts forever.
 
I've got Hex mag, P-mag, and MFT, no problem with any of the so far, but the Hex mags are the newest. I've had P-mag and MFT in rotation for several years now, just bought the Hex mags last year.
 
They're generally fine. I've got 5 to 10 of just about every different brand of polymer mag and most work ok. Lately though when I buy I've been buying the aluminum GI mags. Less worry about long term durability of feed lips, and there's a decent number of guns that certain brands of poly mags don't fit in correctly (they are all tested on AR's so you're fine there, but on other guns it can be a crap-shoot).
 
I've got 2 HexMags in .308, so far so good. They seem a little more rigid than an equivalent PMag, but that is just my overall impression.
 
All aluminum so no worries about feed lip spreading or other plastic failing issues, just dents.

Bill
 
PMags and Hexmags work interestingly in my Remington 7615 but they do work and there has never been a failure as long as I work the slide vigorously which is how I do it.
 
I think with any of them, you have to vet them in all your guns to be sure.

I have a lot of PMags, and really like them, but they don't work in all my AR's. Both my Armalites balk at most of them, but work fine with any of the USGI, Korean, or other GI spec mags.

Got burned a couple of times "jumping on a deal" without checking them out. I learned that a long time ago with 1911 mags, no matter how great the deal is, buy one or two to try, and then if they work, its probably safe to order.

Did just that a couple of months back with some Korean AR mags. One place had them for $6 a pop. Ordered two, and they are great mags! More on the order of an AK mag than an AR mag though. Made of steel and heavy, but very well built. They make the aluminum GI mags look like trash. $6 was an unbelievable price for what I got. Got a few more now too. :)

Ive had great luck with the Korean mags in general. Especially the KCI or KAHN brand. These AR mags simply say "Made in Korea" on them, with no other identifier, and I don't know who made them, but they are right up there too.
 
Unpopular opinion -- I prefer aluminum GI mags.

Everyone loves pmags but when I throw them into an AK it ends up chewing up the corner of the mag. I also think they look weak.

People say that they're higher quality, but I don't think in military service where I literally was shooting government equipment made by the cheapest bidder everyday that I saw a magazine failure / FTF as a result of a mag.

I like aluminum.
 
Tortuga said:
Unpopular opinion -- I prefer aluminum GI mags.

Everyone loves pmags but when I throw them into an AK it ends up chewing up the corner of the mag. I also think they look weak.

People say that they're higher quality, but I don't think in military service where I literally was shooting government equipment made by the cheapest bidder everyday that I saw a magazine failure / FTF as a result of a mag.

I like aluminum.
Click to expand...

At our local shoot and move rifle match various failures with ARs was pretty normal. As people start to use Pmags (and the other poly mags) ARs failing became less and less of a thing. By last year (pre plague) it was literally remarkable to see an AR have a stoppage.

You can break the plastic mags, but when they are broken they are obviously broken, chunks have fallen off, the body is split, and so on. With metal mags the feed lips can be ever so slightly bad and you get these intermittent stoppages that you can never really attribute to the mag, the ammo, or the gun.

That said, I have a generic aluminum AR mag. It's my range range and always gets used whenever I'm shooting a rifle that take it. After a couple of years of getting dropped in the dirt practicing reloads and shooting filthy Russian ammo the follower seized up. One cleaning later it was (and is) still working just fine.

BSW
 
Tortuga said:
Unpopular opinion -- I prefer aluminum GI mags.

Everyone loves pmags but when I throw them into an AK it ends up chewing up the corner of the mag. I also think they look weak.

People say that they're higher quality, but I don't think in military service where I literally was shooting government equipment made by the cheapest bidder everyday that I saw a magazine failure / FTF as a result of a mag.

I like aluminum.
Click to expand...

x2

As long as you get decent quality mags polymer vs metal probably doesn't matter, but I prefer the latter. Generally Surefeed mags are my go-to.
 
Tortuga said:
Unpopular opinion -- I prefer aluminum GI mags.

Everyone loves pmags but when I throw them into an AK it ends up chewing up the corner of the mag. I also think they look weak.

People say that they're higher quality, but I don't think in military service where I literally was shooting government equipment made by the cheapest bidder everyday that I saw a magazine failure / FTF as a result of a mag.

I like aluminum.
Click to expand...

I also like aluminum mags.

There's a famous thread on the net by Battlefield Las Vegas, a shooting range that offers automatic weapons rentals to tourists. Their equipment go through excessive use and abuse until just about every receiver, barrel, mag or optic breaks or fails. So when it came to AR mags, their conclusion was that GI aluminum mags lasted just as long as pmags.
 
Someone gave me an MFT mag to use, abuse, and try out.

I did, and it worked. Still have it and it’s my only one. Generally I default to DH, Okay, NHMTG, or Pmags. Not knocking MFT, just had a long running stash of the others first.
 
Tortuga said:
People say that they're higher quality, but I don't think in military service where I literally was shooting government equipment made by the cheapest bidder everyday that I saw a magazine failure / FTF as a result of a mag.
Click to expand...

Then your unit didn't have you shooting enough. I saw plenty of issued magazines fail. The Army started upgrading followers to deal with the issue. Smart soldiers and crafty supply sergeants with extra funds would buy Pmags. When I was overseas I had 2 Pmags. They were a lot more expensive then than now. I reserved them for my first and last mag with aluminum ones in between. Most of those aluminum ones failed and were replaced. I still have those Gen 1 Pmags and I still use them. I separated from the Army in 2015. I wasn't required to turn in my magazine compliment so I kept them. Last time I loaded them, 4 magazines had failures without even shooting them. Followers got pinched in the body. Finding the MFT mags at the gun store led me to make the thread.
 
herrwalther said:
Then your unit didn't have you shooting enough. I saw plenty of issued magazines fail. The Army started upgrading followers to deal with the issue. Smart soldiers and crafty supply sergeants with extra funds would buy Pmags. When I was overseas I had 2 Pmags. They were a lot more expensive then than now. I reserved them for my first and last mag with aluminum ones in between. Most of those aluminum ones failed and were replaced. I still have those Gen 1 Pmags and I still use them. I separated from the Army in 2015. I wasn't required to turn in my magazine compliment so I kept them. Last time I loaded them, 4 magazines had failures without even shooting them. Followers got pinched in the body. Finding the MFT mags at the gun store led me to make the thread.
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Crazy question, what was your MOS?

The reason I ask was because I was in the infantry so we shot more than literally any other MOS in the army as far as I know. I've never seen an aluminum mag fail (and apparently others in this thread haven't either).

I'm not calling you a liar or saying your experience is wrong. I just wonder if maybe there's an alternative explanation as to why you've seen so many fail and we all didn't.
 
Tortuga said:
Crazy question, what was your MOS?
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11B. It is well documented that failures for aluminum magazines can be traced back to the generation of follower. Blacks and greens are older. Tan later. Enhanced followers by Magpul had a different shape(more square) and color. Most of the Magpul followers were dark brown with a 5.56 designation towards the front of the mag. The followers made a huge difference. The more recent the design the less malfunctions experienced. As a range safety it was more often to see a failure caused by user error than magazine failure as long as the magazine was newer. I understand they are on an even better magazine now but I have not used them.

My CO liked to sign us up as range safeties. Seemed like a boring detail at the time but it got us shooting surplus ammo after the unit we babysat worked through. Our range time was typically 4-6 times a year compared to the Army standard, once. Most of the time when I worked ammo point, I would toss black follower mags in the broken bin, and only grab them when sorely needed. Example we have 500 magazines but have 400 soldiers to qualify. The marksmanship test I was used to was a 20 round mag and 2x10 round magazines for each soldier.
 
I don't mean to keep repeating myself here but I've literally never had an aluminum magazine fail. I've literally used hundreds of different mags in multiple different rifles.

Still, I'm not an expert or anything
 
I prefer aluminum mags. No rusting and stronger than plastic. I have a 30 round Pmag that came with my MP15 Sport and it worked fine but I won't keep it loaded. I have 2 used NHMTG 30 round and 1 new ASC 20 round.
 
I guess that I am old school. I do have quite a few PMags but I never leave them loaded for extended periods of time. I have had the sides swell to the point they won't fit into the magwell.

When I was in all we had were the old stainless followers for the most part. I don't really remember seeing anything else ( I got out in 96). I'm sure some of the magazines we were issued were left over from the Vietnam war. And yes I've seen my share of GI magazines fail. It was usually from them being abused and/or not properly maintained. Usually the only time we would load magazines to full capacity was while on the range and it was usually the 20 rounds magazines.

Back then, it depended on what division you were assigned to and also where you were at in the world on how many times you got to go to the range. I was always assigned to either rapid deployment units or forward deployed units. Even as a 12B Combat Engineer, we spent plenty of time on the shooting ranges. While in Germany in the early 90's even the support troops in the Engineer Battalions went to the range multiple times a year.
 
Tortuga said:
I don't mean to keep repeating myself here but I've literally never had an aluminum magazine fail. I've literally used hundreds of different mags in multiple different rifles.
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And that is a great thing. Truly. I have had that gut wrench feeling seeing a magazine I would have to stake my life on fail. I made the decision years ago after seeing enough magazine failures was to own either a) more mags or b) better mags. Ideally both.
 
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