I had 5 brand new in the plastic Magpul mags. I loaded 3 mags with 4 rounds each of M118 for test fire. Inserted 1st mag chambered round using bolt release and fired no problem. 2nd round misfeed, bolt did not pick up second round but instead jammed the bullet in case. Cleared and checked the mag. When I pressed down on the follower it seemed to be getting hung up sometimes. I figured it was a “bad” mag and tried Mag # 2. Same problem, misfeed and ruined round. The follower did not seem to be hanging up. Mag #3 ditto so I gave up on the magpuls and went to Knights mags. No problem with the Knights. I have never had issues like this with the 5.56 magpul mags. Any ideas? I only had M118 with me so I could not try any other Ammo. But at this point it appears the magpuls do not work in my rifle?
Is this real M118LR from LC?
We fired a lot of it thru PMAG-LR’s with no real issues.
I had that issue happen with one of the early prototype mags and M118LR, ran M80 ball, 8087C and a bunch of other stuff fine, but the 118LR just did not like it due to OAL.
Best bet is to talk to Magpul directly, there may be some flash on the front lip that is making it hang up.
I have 20 personal PMAG-LR’s and very happy with them.
The rounds were American Ballistics M118. I will have to compare the OAL to some other rounds. I will also take the mags apart and inspect them. I ordered the mags directly from magpul less than a month ago.
American Ballistics M118 is NOT equivilent to the LC M118LR. http://www.snipershide.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1787384
There are some mixed opinions about the performance of this ammo, some regard this as very poor ammo. You may want to try ammo of known quality - Black Hills, Hornady, Corbon, Remington Match - before making final judgement on the Pmags.
good luck,
al
Contact Magpul, I cannot say this enough.
+1 for that stuff SUCKS. Sounds like it is having some kind of a negative interaction with your PMags, but still.
Thanks Kevin.
For what it’s worth, the PMAG 20LR was designed specifically to function with milspec ammo in KAC/SR25 pattern weapons (M110, SR25 EM, DPMS, etc.). We did our best to cover commercial ammo and some of the newer weapons (LaRue OBR, LWRC REPR, POF, etc.), but there is sometimes just enough deviation from the milspec/KAC to cause issues.
If you have any other ammo (Black Hills, Hornady, Lake City), try running a mag or two through the gun and see what happens. I’d be interested to see if that fixes things.
The snipershide thread was very informative, thanks for posting it. KevinB and NickB thank you for the comments, I will post my results with other ammo as soon as I get back to the range. Hopefully I will get a chace to go back out this weekend.
The problem was with the American Ballistics M118 ammo. I am going to assume it has something to do with how they seat the bullet and/or crimp but I did not bother to try and figure it out.
I measured (Kevin suggested OAL amy be a problem) OAL and fired 3 different types of 7.62 ball, 3 different types of 308, and 2 different types of Match ammo. ALL AMMO TESTED FED 100% IN THE PMAGS. Average OAL of ammo tested
Aussie ball 2.785
South African Ball 2.795
Malysian Ball 2.785
Silver Bear 145 gr 308 2.79
PMC 147 gr 308 2.795
UMC 150 gr 308 2.72
Federal GM BTHP 168gr 2.80
Federal GM BTHP 175gr 2.805
AB M118 2.75???
NickB
I have 75+ 5.56 pmags and I have never had feeding issues or bolt lock back issues. The only problems I have ever had with the 5.56 are they don’t drop free from all my lowers (no problem I use metal mags for those guns) and I broke the feed lips off on one mag in a Viking Tactics class (playing too rough?).
On all 5 of the 7.62 Pmags I recently purchased, if you press down on the follower with your finger, the follower gets stuck in the mag body? In the above test I used 3 ea Pmags. In the beginning of the test all 3 would not lock the bolt back after the last round fired (the KAC mags locked the bolt back 100% of the time with all ammo). After several cycles of firing the bolt started to lock back sometimes with the Pmags. By the end of the test 1 mag locked back 90% of the time and when I gave it the finger press test the follower seemed to move more freely than the others. This leads me to believe I should diassemble the mags and “clean up” the edges/surfaces or wait until they break in? Any suggestions?
No issues with magpul on my Mk 11.
Never used that particular ammo.