It seems every time I turn around there is a new manufacturer of AR-type weapons as well as magazines. Magazines are incredibly important and can render the nicest weapon almost useless if it won’t feed correctly. A $750 paperweight is not really needed….is it? Maybe it’s just me.
Here are my favorite magazines:
1. Lancer L5 Advanced Warfighter 30-round Magazines – Surprised? I love the Lancer. They are extremely reliable and the metal feed lips are reassuring. When pulling from a chest rig or a belt they are easy to grab. The translucent ones provide feedback as to how many rounds are left. Click HERE for more information.
2. Magpul PMAG 30-round Magazine – Generation 2 or 3 I don’t care. These things work and have proven super reliable and the absolute best bang for the buck. By far I have more PMAG’s than any other mag. This is primarily due to their price. Click HERE for more information.
3. Brownells USGI Aluminum 30-round Magazine – excellent quality control and superb reliability. Advantage of these aluminum magazines is they will fit just fine where some polymer magazines are a tight fit. Click HERE for more information.
4. D&H Aluminum 30-rd. Magazines – These magazines are traditionally less expensive than others and work great. I have over 10 of them and have no issues. D&H magazines are aluminum and have proven to be reliable – at least for me.
5. Hexmag 30-round Magazine – Newer on the market the Hexmag is an excellent magazine. I have experienced a couple of issues with these being snug in certain lowers. For the most part these are right on par with PMAG’s. Click HERE for more information.
There you have it. Only 5? Yes – those are the ones that made the cut.
Now I know what your thinking – Which ones didn’t make the cut? I’ll mention a couple.
The SureFire 60-round aluminum magazine is terrible. I have performed limited testing and while function was ALMOST perfect – loading it was horrible. I hated the thing. ProMag polymer 30-rounders look very similar to PMAG’s and functioned fantastic. The problem is out of 3 AR’s I tested them in they would not cleanly exit the magazine well. Seems that the magazine catch was catching on a logo or something on the side of the magazine. I filed the edges down to fix it. Still – that is ridiculous.
Keep your powder dry!
Rourke
