Magazine question?

[ms6852]

Was just wondering if anyone here have any practical experience with the high capacity magazine like the 60 round magazine shown on this link. Are they good for plinking and such without creating malfunctions on feeding and extractions?

Thanks for any info you guys have.

http://www.surefire.com/tactical-eq...t=300x250_MAG5-60_Nov2012&utm_campaign=TacRep

 

[Captains1911]

If they ever drop in price I may be able to tell you.

 

[sansone]

I remember somebody here gave a review of that magazine and liked it..
Personally I would rather have (3) 20 rounders

 

[briansmithwins]

Yes, they work. But it's a pretty specialized device. Unless you really need 60 rounds w/o having to reload you'd be much better served by spending the cash on Pmags.

That said, I have one and it works. I pretty much only use it at the local rifle match on stages where I'm shooting more than 30 rounds, not having to reload on the clock is a advantage that saves me 3-4 seconds.

BSW

 

[ms6852]

Thanks, normally I prefer 20 rd magazines than the 30 rounders especially when shooting prone or off the bench, but this one caught my eye for no particular reason.

 

[Justin]

I remember somebody here gave a review of that magazine and liked it.

That would be me.

The original one that I purchased has run, quite literally, flawlessly during an entire season of rifle matches. I ended up picking up two more, one that I've run at one match, and one that I have yet to use.

The second one that I've run has worked well, though it did suffer one odd failure at one of the two matches where I used it.

Not sure how to explain it, but these magazines will have a tendency to turn into a salt shaker if you drop them when partially loaded.

Long story short, I had just finished a stage, and in the process of doing the "unload and show clear" drill, it turned out that the magazine had done the salt shaker bit, but without being dropped. I'm still not exactly sure how that could have happened.

Personally I would rather have (3) 20 rounders

Three twenty rounders would be a lot cheaper, and in 99% of situations would not be a hindrance.

 

[Coal Dragger]

I have two of the Surefire 60 rounders. One still in the package so I can't speak for it, but the other one has not been 100% reliable as it came from the wrapper. When loaded with enough rounds to start into the quad stack the second follower hangs up on the aluminum divider that keeps the four columns divided into two separate groups. Both followers are bisected by this divider when the magazine is fully or near fully loaded. Unfortunately as stamped out this divider has very small "steps" that effectively act as a burr hanging up the coil springs or the followers.

This results in weak spring pressure to lift rounds, and at a certain point no spring pressure at all turning the magazine into a very expensive maraca with rounds loose in the double stack with the remainder stuck in the 4 stack due to the second follower being hung up.

Now given the current climate and huge backorders on magazines I decided to attempt to fix this issue. I first took the magazine apart per the instructions included with the magazine, and discovered that the inside of the magazine body had no obvious burrs, welding slag, or other defects. Likewise the two followers had no obvious areas to cause a hangup. I also discovered that the three springs inside the magazine should deliver enough spring pressure to practically shoot loaded rounds out of the top of the mag, so the weak spring pressure was perplexing.

Then I looked at that little aluminum stamping... and realized that both followers and all the springs telescope down around that aluminum divider. Hmmm.... I wonder if that is causing the issue, so I tested it out and sure enough there were hesitations passing over one area, mostly the coil springs hanging up. So I got out a fine file and very carefully and very patiently went to work filing away the step in the stamped part. Once it was suitably smoothed away I reassembled the magazine per instructions, loaded 60 rounds of ammunition and stripped them out by hand.

Remarkable improvement in performance, no follower hangup and greatly increased and consistent spring pressure on the followers. If anyone has this same problem the fix may not be too hard at all. I am hopeful that with a little bit of hand work this magazine will have gone from 0% reliability with a full load to 100% reliability.

Too bad Surefire seems to be unaware of this. I'll call them on Monday and suggest a change in their manufacturing process to eliminate this problem. Should be an easy fix for them.