Big Army says no more polymer mags

[Todd00000]

When you're discussing magazines and the military, or specifically the military's perception of certain magazines, there is a habit / action that is so prevalent and of such importance to the discussion but is rarely mentioned.

There's this disease in the military, where people take off their armor and out of exhaustion, ignorance, and laziness, plop it down on the hard ground. Drop is probably a better word than plop. Often, the brunt of the impact falls directly on the magazine feed lips. Watch any average platoon take their kit off. 90% of them will essentially slam their magazines on the ground feed-lips first without even thinking about it.

Fix this bad habit, and magazine performance will become way less of an issue. All these equipment based solutions are of minimal importance compared to the issue of dumbasses slamming their magazines on the ground day in and day out.

I've said for a while now that there needs to be a substantial and deliberate effort to dedicate a day or two Army wide and go through every single magazine in circulation to identify the ones that need to be replaced. Direct every single soldier (in the fighting units at least) to gather up every magazine in his control. At the company level, put everybody in a loose formation with a pile of magazines in front of each soldier. Explain how to test and inspect the magazines. Do it, and chuck the bad ones. Have the supply sergeant do a 1 for 1 swap for every bad magazine found. Now that the bad magazines are out of circulation, have every soldier number his magazines with stencils and spray paint. Instruct them to keep track of which magazines are performing and to ditch the ones that aren't. Instruct them to stop slamming their body armor on the ground. Enforce all of the above.

The VAST majority of M4 malfunctions are magazine related. Fix this magazine epidemic and suddenly people will stop complaining about the M4's reliability.

Just throwing this out there:

To see if a magazine is good or not as part of a routine preventative maintenance schedule, load 15 rounds and give the magazine a good slap from the bottom. If rounds come out, ditch the magazine. You can also use this gauge:

http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=4...FEED-LIP-GAUGE

Staying proactive will make the gradual / not easily noticeable with the naked eye damage to USGI magazines a non-issue.

Have you submitted your ideas to the AWG? If not I have a POC for you.

[skullworks]

My guess, being a European civvie, is as voiced by others already that the Army block/ban is to prevent people from buying crap magazines and using them in a combat environment.

As to PMAG vs metal mags; in early 2011 the UK MOD ditched the steel HK magazines for their SA80 rifles in Afghanistan in favor of the Magpul EMAG. See article here: Troops in Afghanistan get new lightweight rifle magazines. The difference between the EMAG (Export Magazine) and the PMAG (Polymer Magazine) is that the EMAG was designed to fit a wider range of STANAG magwells than the PMAG. As to structural integrity the PMAG (with it's added material) should at least in theory be sturdier than the EMAG.

As you may know there is a German copy of the PMAG called G-MAG (originally manufactured by Cerberus GmbH but now branded OA-MAG and made by Oberland Defence), which I've heard reports actually outperform the original PMAGs. The G-MAG is a copy of a first-generation PMAG, but with some subtle differences. Where the feedlips of the PMAG will crack, the G-MAG will keep on trucking (one example I've heard is using them in M249 SAW, where the PMAG apparently will crack pretty quick).

[ICANHITHIMMAN]

I've only ever used GI mags.

Because there are no pre-ban pmags.

FML

I was wrong this is correct

I tried some PMAGS but they would not fit in any of my lowers with out sanding. I decided that they were not worth it for me based on that. I think we have all seen personaly owned stuff overseas allowed or not it happens all the time. In 04 we had a NG unit from Nebraska as our force pro, they had two sniper quilified guys but no rifle. So they brought there own upper and we gave them an M16A2 so they could use their upper on it.

[a0cake]

Wile the facts are true it matters not in NY as every mag with a capicty over 10 rounds is a no-go pre ban or not.

Hey man, where are you getting this from? It's not true at all. Or are you just trying to keep all the pre-bans for yourself?

NYS Penal Code 265.00 section 23
23. "Large capacity ammunition feeding device" means a magazine, belt, drum, feed strip, or similar device, manufactured after September thirteenth, nineteen hundred ninety-four, that has a capacity of, or that can be readily restored or converted to accept, more than ten rounds of ammunition; provided, however, that such term does not include an attached tubular device designed to accept, and capable of operating only with, .22 caliber rimfire ammunition."

[a0cake]

Have you submitted your ideas to the AWG? If not I have a POC for you.

Not formally. I mean, I've discussed it with various AWG and CATC shooting school personnel over the years. They're on the same page. It seems everyone's aware of the widespread mistreatment and mismanagement of magazines, except for the yahoos actually doing it (this includes senior NCO's and Officers...it's happening in their units so either they don't know or don't care).

I just ETS'd recently, but if you want to suggest or reinvigorate the impetus to enforce some of this, feel free to use my suggestion as your own and make the recommendations.

[a0cake]

Whoops. Double.

[a0cake]

I was recently in A'stan and I saw numerous U.S and some NATO personnel using PMAG's.

I personally know U.S military personnel who have carried PMAG's into combat. If it were up to me I would take PMAG's any day over aluminum. The pros and cons are already well known.

That's because they were literally issued out by the thousands. Probably tens of thousands. They were the black ones with the window. There was such an overflow of them that I had a solid 20 of them under my personal control last deployment, as did most.

Merits of PMAG's vs USGI magazines aside, I wish they would make up their minds and stop wasting money. That I was inundated and could literally go swimming in issued PMAG's just a few months ago, and now they're banned, is insane to me from just a decision making point of view. I'd like to see that chain of events.

PS. After being flooded with these PMAG's, one of our sister units banned them at unit level. Apparently they were falling out of the M4's randomly. I had serious doubts when I first heard that and chalked it up to improperly adjusted magazine catches or people accidentally hitting the release and blaming it on the magazines. Then it happened to me. On a related note: it was at almost 10,000 FT elevation and cold as Hillary Clinton's lady parts. Probably related. Or, it could have just been a bad run of PMAG's, just like there can be a bad run of anything, including USGI magaznes. Who knows?

[Todd00000]

Not formally. I mean, I've discussed it with various AWG and CATC shooting school personnel over the years. They're on the same page. It seems everyone's aware of the widespread mistreatment and mismanagement of magazines, except for the yahoos actually doing it (this includes senior NCO's and Officers...it's happening in their units so either they don't know or don't care).

I just ETS'd recently, but if you want to suggest or reinvigorate the impetus to enforce some of this, feel free to use my suggestion as your own and make the recommendations.

WILCO. I'm going to check CALL tomorrow and hit my AWG POC up. When I was a LT and first became aware that magazines could go bad I would wait at the ammo shed on qualification days and anyone that was re-firing due to double feeds I'd make them throw away the mags; but now we have tools and TTPs.

[Iraqgunz]

a0cake,

I agree with your post, unfortunately I think the idea will slip away. Another thing to consider is this.

Original magazines were DESIGNED to be used and discarded. Obviously that practice stopped as soon as some bean conting General did the math and realized how much money was being spent or wasted (depending on how you look at it).

So now we institute a regimen that says that all magazines MUST BE checked at xxxx interval. Any magazines found to have faults will be discarded. What will happen is that someone will look at cost and say WE CAN'T DO THAT (look at the money going to waste or why can't we use them for training) and the magazines then end right back up in the Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marines' kit.

The one possible solution would be to have a magazine hit team on hand with 5lb. hammer that served instant death to damaged magazines and was led by a 3 star General that could over rule some moron who wants to keep the mags.

[Todd00000]

a0cake,

I agree with your post, unfortunately I think the idea will slip away. Another thing to consider is this.

Original magazines were DESIGNED to be used and discarded. Obviously that practice stopped as soon as some bean conting General did the math and realized how much money was being spent or wasted (depending on how you look at it).

So now we institute a regimen that says that all magazines MUST BE checked at xxxx interval. Any magazines found to have faults will be discarded. What will happen is that someone will look at cost and say WE CAN'T DO THAT (look at the money going to waste or why can't we use them for training) and the magazines then end right back up in the Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marines' kit.

The one possible solution would be to have a magazine hit team on hand with 5lb. hammer that served instant death to damaged magazines and was led by a 3 star General that could over rule some moron who wants to keep the mags.

It has to become part of our PMCS culture.