My year with Pmags.
In the fall of 2007, I was involved in a program that purchaed 50 black pmags from Brownells for a 2007-2008 patrol rifle program. All of them arrived in short order and I found they were all post-recall manufacture. The rifle program was to involve about 400 shooters, each shooting just fewer than 500 rounds during the two day class. Course of fire was simple, adhering to the lowest common shooter theory. No full auto fire, no string of fire longer that 7 rounds rapid fire (NSR). Classes consisted of 12-16 shooters, in two relays. Each shooter was given three pmags at the start of the course. Pretty straight forward stuff, load/unload/reload/stoppages etc, we did nothing that would surprise you.
By the end of the first class, 50% of the pmags were broken. All of them had split where the feed lips meet to form a V on the spine. I called Magpul and they over nighted me 50 new pmags and a prepaid return label for all 50 of the ones I had, broken or not. They asked me a bunch of questions about the who, what, when, where and how the mags had been used. This was very cool and I was pleased with the way it was handled. I was back on track and had one course of 26 in the books, 25 to go.
During the next few courses, I was constantly checking mags, and was finding a few more that were split each day. After several weeks, maybe 3-4 courses, about 50% of the pmags were broken. The split was very easy to see if the mag had more that 3-4 rounds in it, if not, just pushing my thumbs against the feed lips would cause it to show. I called Magpul back and the same overnight exchange was made and a few more questions answered about how they were being used. They told me that there had been some changes made to material flowed into the mould, the new mags should be good to go.
After about another months worth of classes, I had a pile of split mags set aside. Not 50% like before, more like 25% out of the third batch of 50 (batch #2 straight from Magpul). This time they replaced just the damaged mags, they no longer wanted the undamaged mags back. This process was repeated one more time at the end of the training cycle. After two month off from PR training, we started again with the 2008-2009 training cycle, which was a one day refresher course. After the first two month of training, we again had to replace about 20-25% of the pmags (just the mag bodies this time). The 08-09 cycle is still in process at this time, with the Pmags.
The split was easy to spot, either a mag split right away or not at all. I started numbering the mags and tracking them when magpul sent me the first batch overnight. We found that a split mag could still be used, up to the point that it started to double feed rounds. Once the split started, the mags would not drop free, loaded or not. Its good to know that the split is easy to spot, and they tend to split right away if they are going to.
I am not here to condemn a $15.00 product, it is what it is. I am just sharing some info that lead me to the decision, once again, that there is no magic bullet, or magazine.
This thread requires some photos:
