AR GI 20rnd mag won't hold last round

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wyM1Aguy

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I attended an Appleseed this past weekend and experienced problems with two of my GI mags.

They are an AdventureLine and an Okay with the aluminum followers. In each case the last round in the mag would jam the action. Pulling out the mag and placing one round in it, I saw that the round was halfway out from under the feed lip. As soon as I placed the mag in the rifle the round would pop out. If I tested another "good" mag the round would stay completely under the lip.

Is this a failure of the mag follower? I did not notice any spreading of the feed lips...just that the round was not contained fully underneath.

How do I fix this? New followers? If so, which ones??

Thanks for the help.
 
Mag body is most likely trash. Fix it by salvaging the follower and spring and crushing the body of the mag.

BSW
 
Before trashing the mag body, I would:

1. Inspect the mag next to a known good mag (I suspect you may have already done this). Any deviation is bad and probably irreparable. Save the floorplate, follower and spring, and trash the mag. OR, use it as a training magazine. If it will feed most of the time, use it as a mag to induce failures and practice clearance drills. You can also let it drop to the deck without wincing about damaging a good magazine. just mark it plainly as a training mag so you don't accidental use it "for real".

2. If the mag seems to be dimensionally correct via eyeballing it, try replacing it with a Magpul genIII follower. They're about the best thing going right now. Just be prepared to put the follower in AND still have to write off the mag body as bad (which is ok, since you will now have a training magazine and a very good spare follower).

Mike
 
I would count the rounds and make sure you aren't trying to stuff 21 in them.

rcmodel
 
Quote:
...the last round in the mag would jam the action.
That's why you should only load 18 in them.

If you only loaded TWO in them, the second one would still be the "last round". The practice of loading only 18 stems from the fact that if you disassemble the spring from the follower and reinstall it incorrectly, it will jam on the first rounds because of the incorrect spring reattachment. That's why Uncle Sam tells everybody now that if, when cleaning a mag, the spring and follower separate to return it to the armorer for a replacement rather than to reassemble it yourself. Sounds to me like it's a bad/weak spring. Just my .02 worth :)
 
Hmmm....bad spring....

I think I will test the spring/follower idea by pulling them out of a known "good" mag, and see how a single rounds sits under the feed lips. If it works (it is easy to see the difference in this case), perhaps that is all I need to repair this.

An interesting project for this evening...

Thanks for the informative replies.
 
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