AR15 Magazines

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Texpatriate

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A guy here locally is selling some 30 rd. AR mags for a pretty good price (assuming they are in decent condition). I haven't seen them yet, but e-mailed him to ask what kind they are. All I have is P-Mags, so I am ingnorant of any of the other brands, except I know that the green G.I. followers are good.

Anyway, he responded saying that the mags are stamped with "AR-15 Mags" (sic) on the bottom and are otherwise unmarked, so he doesn't know what kind they are. He says 2 are gray and 3 are black. Anything I should watch out for (good or bad) when I get to examine them myself?
 
i wouldn't pay more than $7/mag for unmarked, used mags

take one of the caps from your pmags and use the thing on the end as a gauge to see if the magazine lips have spread
 
I always want to know who the manufacturer is. Without knowing that, I'd be very cautious. My first AR was not too reliable, but I looking back most of my problems were cheap ammo and cheap magazines.

I just received some Brownels mags that I ordered a while back. They aren't cheap, but I got them. The guy from Brownels was on Gun Talk a couple weeks ago and said they expected to fill all their magazine backorders and start building inventory again within a few weeks. You might get them sooner than I did. The 20 rounds I have used were good.
 
I would not buy any no-name magazines.

Poor quality mags can turn a good rifle into a jam-o-matic, so if you already dropped the cash on an AR-15, spend a little extra and get quality mags.

Stick to USGI (Okay Ind., NHMTG, Colt, etc.), PMag, Lancer L5, Bravo Company, or any other well-regarded mag. Okay Industries and Lancer L5 are my favorites. USGI mags with MagPul enhanced followers are probably the best value in mags today.

C-Products: I've heard both good and bad, but for the most part, buy them if the price is right. I have a couple of the C-Products stainless steel 20-rounders. They have very thin flimsy bodies and they won't lock on a closed bolt. That said, they seem to function fine but they wouldn't be my 1st choice.
 
What are the mag bodies made out of? I had some mags that said ar-15 on the base plates but they were steel aftermarket mags. They worked but the quality was less than the typical aluminum body milspec mags you see. If that sounds like them I would pass. Mark
 
Well, one of them turned out to be a Colt magazine with no date code stamped on it, and another was an adventure line, which from my understanding were an Air Force contract and have not been produced since the early 70's making both of them pre-ban. At the very least I figured I could trade them to some poor sucker behind enemy lines. The other 3 have no external date code stamped on them, but I haven't taken them apart to check the inside yet. So I went ahead and bought the lot of them if for no other reason than to possibly trade or sell them to somebody in a ban state. That adventure line one is in outright excellent shape considering that it is definitely older than I am!
 
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