National Magazine .22LR Marlin 15 Rd. Magazines vs. Marlin 795.

So I am planning on attending an appleseed tomorrow, so earlier this week I decided rather than pay fifteen dollars for a ten round factory magazine I would rather pay 15 dollars for a fifteen round magazine. Now I knew before I got them that the 15 rounders had a bad rap, but since I didn't find any specific descriptions of why they didn't work I decided I would chance it.

Here is what the guinea pig reports:

As they come from the factory, these magazines do not work in a marlin 795. Not even a wee little bit. If you look at this picture you can see why. (sorry about the cell phone pic I couldn't find the charger for my camera )



The 15 rd. magazines have neither the space cut out in them for the last shot bolt hold open lever nor the space for the lever that disconnects the trigger and sear when the magazine is removed. On the left magazine, I cut out these spaces, and it now functions fine except for the last shot bolt hold open, which does not work because the follower of the 15 rd. magazine does not have the little tab to engage it. So all in all, I would say these aren't really very good magazines, and would recommend getting factory ones for the same price unless you really really want a 15 rd. magazine enough to spend some time with a a hacksaw and some sandpaper to get a magazine that only mostly works. Plus, there is a rumor going around that there will soon be honest to goodness higher capacity magazines for the 795.


P.S.
I'll try to post more pics later once I get my camera going and will explain what I did and which parts of it were right and which weren't

What I did:

The first thing I did was to cut out a space for the last shot bolt hold open lever with a hacksaw. Even though these magazines won't cause it to operate, a space for the last shot bolt hold open lever still needs to be made in order to insert the magazine.


The one problem I had was that the outer part of the magazine was rough after I broke the edge of the metal I had just cut. If you cut out this area it needs to be sanded down or cut/broken more carefully so that the magazine will fit in the magwell.

On the other side I needed to cut the magazine down a little farther so that the lever would work properly. This was not too difficult, it just needs to be cut to the right length.


After doing all the cutting, the magazines still needed extensive sanding because they were to big to fit in the magwell. I used 60 grit sandpaper and sanded away on the for at least fifteen minutes on the most oversized magazine while checking periodically for fit in the magwell and evenness compared to the factory mag. During this process it is much easier to check you progress if you disassemble your rifle and use the assembly containing the magazine well for reference, rather than trying to use the assembled rifle.

After all the sanding and cutting, the magazines fit in the rifle, but one would not allow proper cycling of the action due to the feed lips being too high. To fix this they need to be bent and or filed down. As you can see, they stick up higher than the factory feed lips.

And here



After all this work, I was able to use one of the magazines, and cycled through eleven rounds just fine (not counting bolt hold open), but I could barely manage to fit fourteen rounds in a magazine both before and after my mods.

@Idempotent, I don't know of any magazine chargers, but you should be ok at appleseed without them.