I have been looking forward to the release of the Surefire MAG5-60 quad stack magazines for a while, since the rumors first started circulating. I’ve had a chance to evaluate the mag now for a while, and here’s a few thoughts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y0w3M_F158
Questions and comments are welcome.
My biggest problem with this mag is clearly price. If I have a defective 10-14 dollar GI or pmag I identify it, fix it, or toss it and for less $$ than lunch with my wife, I move on. At 129 per, with very restrictive pricing by surefire, they are nuts. This thing will be a very niche device until they revisit pricing, which they probably won’t. (Have you ever priced a SF knife? Heart stopping for what you are getting). Looks like fun but not for me.
Interesting results that definitely conflicts with most of what I have heard also. As you say, sample of 1 so that is nice to note. For my particular uses I don’t see the 60 or 100 as something that I would use for a duty or deployment use however I can see how it could suit some users needs for practical and fun applications. Like any piece of gear etc, I would need to fully vet things for myself and I really have yet to toy with the mag, but will get to it soon. I appreciate the review.
I was going to pick one up at the gumshoe yesterday but I talked myself out of it after feeling the weight fully loaded.
I picked one up and will start checking it out when I get home next week. I wonder if Military Arms guy considered contacting Surefire and addressing his concerns with them.
You can bet that I will if there is an issue. Didn’t LAV say that they used one in a class and it ran 100%?
Yes he did (LAV I mean) But arguably we have one example now that got positive and one example that got some negative. I haven’t really followed any other reviews past LAV’s initial post on it so I don’t know if things are different with other examples of the mag one way or the other.
This is a product I hoped to see more input on from people running classes with them or maybe some more posts from LAV concerning them showing up in his classes. Maybe some other instructors commenting on their experience with students using them as well.
Defoor, Lamb, Costa. Surely they, or people giving some AAR’s from class will comment.
Wondering if the reassembly was gtg and not causing any issues. Definitely a complex set up for a mag and I could see how it would be finicky if there any issues with reassembly. Just thinking out loud so to speak. 
I’ve been in a holding pattern regarding these magazines. As with most new tech, I expect some teething issues, and I also expect prices to come down as the tech matures and other competitors enter the marketplace.
To be honest, given Surefire’s reputation, I would have thought these magazines would have been 100% out-the-box, but it’s good to note so far, experiences vary.
When prices came down, I was going to pick one up for my HD carbine.
Thanks for the review. Very helpful in gauging the magazines.
I didn’t disassemble the mag throughout my testing and only disassembled it at the very end of my review (last scene I shot before going into post). I did it in one take, so despite the fact it looks complex to do, it really isn’t. Reassembly does seem like it takes 3 hands at times though.
As for reports of problems, I had people from both sides contact me. Some saying they’ve had no issues and others saying they have 3 of the mags which have the same issues mine has.
It seems like luck of the draw as to which one you’ll get, a working one or a problematic one.
I will stick to P-Mags and even USGI contract mags. Surefire seems to promoting volume of fire over accuracy. I think training good and hard with regular magazine changes will be of greater benefit and prove more reliable.
I still want some just not going to pay that price for it when Pmags are 10$.
A few observations:
When the camera goes close up on the ejection port after the malfunction with the AR, the bolt and BCG appear to be bone dry with a decent amount of carbon build up. If I was evaluating a magazine for reliability, I would try to eliminate as many variables and failure points as possible by cleaning and more importantly lubricating the rifle. Although the malfunction in the video DOES appear to be magazine related, the scientific method still demands better execution of the test if you are going to try to draw conclusions from it.
Second, I see only two applications where these magazines would be beneficial…
Open turret gunners. Backup M4’s in the turret with a SF 60 or 100 rd magazine would be nice for obvious reasons. Since most gunners are riding slick for easy in and out, and loose magazines shouldn’t be kept in the turret; doing a magazine change from the turret often involves crouching down and grabbing one from a shelf below. The high capacity SF magazines would minimize this.
Tracer only magazine. With a 7 magazine combat load, keeping one magazine full of only tracers and the rest with no tracers is a good way to go about it. When you have to mark targets, direct aircraft, set right/left limits etc. all you have to do is pop in the tracer mag. When you’re done go back to your standards. However, 30 rounds usually isn’t enough. One 60 round tracer mag makes more sense to me than two 30 round tracer mags because it would be harder to mix up with the non tracers because of the obvious size difference. Carrying one SF 60 rounder full of tracers is a great SOP for leaders or those who routinely communicate with aircraft.
There may be other scenarios where these magazines would be good, but these are two that immediately come to mind.
Thanks for the review…I don’t really need one, but I’ll get some just store away in case anti-gunners want to ban them.
That is not what SF is promoting. What they are promoting is less mag changes.
My mag run runs very well by the way.
C4
Agreed.
Which is fundamentally flawed.
This only legitimate application for this magazine in a real world scenario is for an automatic rifle like the Colt 750 or Colt IAR.
The way surefire presents this magazine in their advertising videos on the internet is embarrassing. Especially for a company that caters to a higher level of end user.
They make is seem this is fit for the average solider to use in a normal combat scenario.
Nobody is going to carry around this big long heavy thing. The average solider is not sophisticated enough to reassemble this thing properly with its series of springs.
Everybody knows I’m right about this, and nobody has the balls to call anyone out on it.
From a Civy stand point, having 60rds in the gun should fix any issue that one would come across. While I am proficient with the art of the mag change, there is something to be said for NOT having to change mags in the middle of a gun fight.
I will be running this mag in the upcoming Vickers HD and CQB classes at Blackwater. Will report back.
C4
Your other basic points may have some merit but this one is total bullshit. Back in the day I was an “average soldier” in a regular line Infantry Battalion before moving on to bigger and better things.
Guess what… myself and every single other “average” soldier in that unit could disassemble, reassemble, functions check and operate every single weapon in the arms room blindfolded, including the heavy weapons (MK19, M2). That’s a regular line unit.
I don’t know what you do for a living that makes you feel so superior to everybody else to the extent that you don’t think an average soldier can disassemble / reassemble a simple magazine.
Sorry if this is seen as a derail, but statements like the above cannot just be accepted unchallenged.
How it appears to you and the actual condition of the bolt/carrier are different. The bolt wasn’t “bone dry” at all, as a matter of fact if you look you’ll see lubricant coming down across the bolt carrier just below the gas key. It had a modest amount of CLP on it, just as the military prescribes, before the shooting began.
You see some carbon, however not an excessive amount, built up on the rifle because we were shooting several hundred rounds through the rifle, 60 rounds at a time. It has a tendency to cause a little carbon to accumulate on the M16.
There may be other scenarios where these magazines would be good, but these are two that immediately come to mind.
The Marines might find them useful, if they worked, in their new IAR’s too.
not worth it…for me atleast