Does anyone know if this combo will function reliably? Im thinking that since the L5s have the old green followers which dont have anti-tilt capability they might work with 5.45.
I haven’t tried it myself but have heard of some people who claim it will work. Give it a shot and let us know how it does.
Works fine downloaded.
Mine wont take over 10 rounds. :rolleyes:
Mine takes over 20 using el cheapo mil surplus. Green followers. I’ll post a pic.
Spamcan combloc ammo, and green follower Lancers, check. That’s what I’ve got.
I tried loading to 8. Even that was problematic half the time.
Anything over 8 or 10, (average), and they spread the mag body, it bulges. At that point it’ll rarely take 1 or 2 more, but the mag already won’t feed smoothly. They jam up and when one shell is stripped the next 1 or 2 pop/fall out. Then the jam clears, and the rest pop out or flip around as they spring upwards because there’s no constant pressure against the feed lips.
Never had problems loading/shooting 5.56 with the first 4 Lancers I bought, just 5.45. So I made sure they were clean inside. I wiped the mags out and reassembled - same jam. Then I bought 4 new ones, same green follower, and tried using the new ones with 5.45 from the start. Still a no-go. It happens with all 8 of my Lancers.
While doing a mag function check: It happens when I remove the upper, insert the mag in the magwell and strip the first round.
The only thing I haven’t tried is getting aerosol Teflon spray and douching the inside of the mags. I’ve just taken to buying a handful of C-Products stainless steel 5.45 mags when I go to gunshows and I kept 4 out of the 8 lancers to ‘experiment with’ when I buy a new lower/AR. I gave the other 4 loaded with a couple of different brands of .223/5.56 to my BIL to check out.
I’m happy with my Lancers, really, But I’d have been even happier if they’d have bonused 5.45 use for free.
Mag refers to Lancer magazine in the above.
I can post two facts on this matter:
1- Littlelebowski’s Lancers will absolutely hold and feed 20 rounds of 5.45, and I observed 0 stoppages over several magazines.
2- Mine don’t, with the same observed issues noted by crasher.
You distract him, I’ll swap my mags for his, and I’ll split them with you.
I have 3 green follower Lancers. I got them after reading Littlelebowski’s posts about his Lancers and 5.45. 2 do what you describe, one will load and feed 20 or so rounds of 5.45. I recently purchased 6 Lancers with a black follower. I don’t have a lot of rounds through them yet, but in testing them out at home they all hold 24 or so rounds, and feed them all without getting hung up. Some do exhibit some significant swelling, but not so much that they can’t be inserted into a magwell.
To echo crasher, they all work great with 5.56.
The York, PA gun show is the end of Oct, and another Chantilly, VA gun show Nov 20-21-22. I’ll look for the black follower Lancers. My C-Products mags work fine, (I like them fine, so far), but it’s important to have a fall-back plan and I’m hoping this is it. Having a mag that ‘can/may’ shoot both cals would be sweet.
I’m not the kind of guy that recoils in horror when a Lancer mag swells a bit as I stuff 5.45 rounds in it and I don’t even notice for the most part that it’s slightly harder to slap into my magwell. The Lancers work for me in 5.45 and 5.56 and for me make more sense economically than buying dedicated 5.45 mags though I do have 10 5.45 C Products mags. FailureToStop approaches his shooting techniques and firearms with a scientific, logical approach and that’s why he’s an SME. Me, I don’t notice a lot of things other do and little things will escape me if I can muscle through it.
We need a photo comparison of the different followers that are known to work with 5.45. 20-24 rds seems to be the sweet spot for my Lancer mags using the green followers.
Maybe you guys should try stuffing in 20 rds and letting the mag sit. Also, we could compare spring lengths.
Sure, I’ll load 'em up and let them sit for a bit. It’ll be about a month or so, just had my shoulder work done and my future is weeks of down-time. I bet in the next week or so, I probably unload 2, squirt the inside with Teflon, and reload them.
Thanks for the suggestion, Ll, I’ll let you know what happens.
I don’t have a 5.45 gun so this is all conjecture on my part
But what about slightly reshaping the fake round in the follower to give a less drastic stagger to the rounds?
A lot of the issue comes from the fact that the 5.45 cartridge is tapered while the 5.56 is not. That means that a stack of 5.45 rounds naturally curls into an arc while the 5.56 rounds tend to stay in a linear stack in the mag.
It’s hard for the cartridges to follow an arc in a straight mag. That’s why AK-74’s have that distinctive magazine shape that curves towards the muzzle.
I understand. But changing the shape of the follower to induce less pronounced stagger is a different aspect, the fatness leading to a bulge – which could help solve some of the problems I would guess.
Sorry, I didn’t notice who I was replying to.
I’m not sure what to change the to, but so far I just assumed the bulge was due to a less-stiff mag sidewall construction, and material that didn’t come into play with the 5.56.
I’ll pull some mags apart ans see what the followers look like specifically compared to each other…