P-mags can and do interact with the bolt-hold-open in a TAR-21! There’s been some back and forth over whether or not this is possible. It is. You can see footage here. I realize the movement you see in this video is small, but its seems to explain previous problems.
What I believe happened to my rifle is this:
Shooting with standard p-mags caused my bolt hold open device to partially raise during operation, which in turn caused pre-mature wear on my bolt and bolt hold open.
This wear on the bolt may have been the source of some of the failure to feed jams, and bolt hold open failures I experienced at the start of the spring.
Since modifying my magazines and replacing my bolt, I have not had any further issues with the rifle.
The p-mag, e-mag, 20 rd p-mag all have the same rounded rear face. The new M3 magazine from magpul is specifically designed to address this issue in non AR-15 platforms like the SCAR and TAR-21.
Hopefully this video will help others from running into the same problems.
correct sir! It was the SCAR videos that first got me looking.
I’m curious if the micro tavors will have the same problem. Obviously the 9mm ones wont! But I could see the .223 M-CTAR using the same bolt hold open. Which is too bad, because thats a unit that could really benefit from a 20rd pmag setup to keep it small.
My understanding is that this can be fixed by using a drimmel to remove some plastic from the rear of the mag feed lips. I believe that TV Presspass describes this on his web page.
If it is an issue with the US made rifles, 10 seconds and a dremel fixes it on legacy PMAGs, and of course, the GEN M3 line is GTG. Our Tavor is Israeli, so I can’t help on configuration of the US ones.
The consensus with all the American Tavor owners I have spoken to is that there have been zero issues with the SAR-21 related to P-mags and bolt hold open devices.
Although Gen 2 pmags do not drop free, the Gen 3 units have been fantastic both in my Israeli Tavor and from what I’ve heard from American Tavor owners.