Of the 24 Brownells Mags I ordered, 22 look like this. They all function and shoot fine, but I’m worried about structural integrity. Issue, or not? click to enlarge photo
Me: “What is happening is the front seam is not lying flat.
At the curved portion of the mag, it doesn’t sit flush against the mag body”
Brownell’s Rep: “Ok, that is very common right at the bend in the mag body It wont’ effect structure at all. What happens is when they’re getting plug welded right at that seam, the outer piece of metal shrinks just a hair, and leaves that tiny gap.”
I just checked several of my Brownells “pre-contract” commercial and current .mil issue magazines (no current commercial though).
A few of them have this. If the issue ones with this passed Uncle’s inspection criteria, I’d not worry.
Yeah I have bought my fair share of Brownells mags and while they will not win a beauty contest, I have yet to experience an issue with them. Just run the crap out of them, if you do enter a beauty contest hexmags or Magpul will fit the bill. I usually order the BCM aluminum mags when they have the 10 pack for sale.
I learned a long time ago not to select M16 mags by look alone. The one time I selected a magazine out of a batch of them based solely on cosmetics, was the time I got a bad mag. It was a 1980’s Cooper Industries 30 rounder, nice welds and a perfect finish, but it would not feed more than 1 or 2 rounds before it would tie up the gun with a double feed. Found out later it was from a lot that the Government had rejected for being out of spec.
Agree with above. Thanks for the input, guys
Just took all 28 outside, fully loaded with m193, and dropped them each from shoulder height, 10 times each. Zero issues, zero visible damage. They should be good to go.
So long as they drop free (empty, full, bolt open and closed) and don’t spit rounds out when you smack the bottom, they should be good to go. Looks be damned.
I damaged a Brownells magazine during a fight as it was seated in the magwell of my patrol carbine, slung across my chest.
I kneed a suspect, with the magazine between us, so hard that it crushed the magazine and left me two scars on my right thigh that healed up nicely… Through my uniform pants.
I actually still have the mag and, despite having the walls crushed against the round stack, it still works most of the time for range use… And I’m confident it would have likely worked then should I have needed it.
I kneed that guy so hard, it would have exploded a polymer mag. That knee stroke put the guy in the hospital.
Brownells mags are good to go. I always get the magpul follower.
Wouldn’t a quality polymer mag actually do better under those circumstance since it would flex? I doubt a Pmag would explode since they do better than aluminum mags when run over by cars.
Brownells look fugly, but damn they’re tough. Took all 28 last night, loaded with 28 rounds of M193 each, and dropped from 6 feet high, 10 times each. Zero baseplate failures or feed-lip bending.
Then I took 3 random mags and laid them in my driveway. They actually survived being run over 3x, then backed over 3x, then driven over again, stopping with front tire on mag, and turning the wheel several times to grind into pavement. None of them died, all they fit and dropped free after the test.
Polymer will allow more flex. The fact that the aluminum mag held its shape was due to it being stiffer. It forced the entire gun to rotate. I strongly doubt any polymer mag could have been struck like that and survived in one piece. And I use all gen 3 pmag s and lancer AWM mags now.
