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Looking for some opinions on stamped steel mags


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That explains it. Regardless of the generation, your metal magazines are a big step up in quality from the plastic magazines I had in the past. I sold the three plastic 25 rounders I had. Having 20/25 rounds of 308 hanging out of my guns with nothing but a plastic tab securing them did not instill a lot of confidence in me. The only way I will try out a plastic magazine again is if someone manufactures a design which uses steel reinforcement around the locking tabs and feed lips....much in the same way as my 5.45x39 bulgarian circle 21 magazines. Here is a picture of my rather bland looking 308-1 Saiga with the new csspecs stamped 20 round magazine.

post-14788-0-26445500-1326420017_thumb.jpg

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This is not a Saiga specific update. I'm still working on the final design for the saiga .308   Here is a completed first run stamped vepr .308 magazine. Took about 16+ weeks to get the final design

Here is one in my rifle.  

Metal finishers called that they are ready for pickup tomorrow. Should have them listed by tomorrow evening once we check them over.

Posted Images

I got my mags today. They look great! Nice packaging too. Somehow, I like the smell of that anti-rust paper. tongue.png

 

Test fitting them into my particular rifle, I notice there is more than a small amount of side-to-side wobble that the mag is allowed to move. Are they all like that or is it just the combination of my rifle and these mags? I don't know if it would affect function, I'll have to try them out. I was just a little surprised by how much play there was. It's really quite a lot, to be honest. unsure.png

 

Upon inspection, it looks like the mag catch doesn't actually contact the locking lug at all. Also, to my eye, since the locking lug is slightly narrower than the factory one, along with not being thick enough to make solid contact with the catch, it contributes more to the mag being able to rock side to side quite a bit before the lug gets to the catch and stops it. I also noticed that the ramp profile of the locking lug is a bit different than the factory mag. It's actually steeper, which should help the mag catch "catch," but the tip of it is a bit thinner than the factory one, and it just never gets there.

 

I hope this post doesn't come across like I'm "blindsiding" Csspecs or anything. The development of these has been discussed and shared with others on the forum, as well as input from others being taken and incorporated, so my intent here is to post my feedback in that same spirit of positive collaboration and I am confident that any issues will be worked out just fine.

 

I'd be interested to know if this is just a tolerance stack up issue that my particular rifle has going on.

 

I posted some pics in my album.http://forum.saiga-1...lbum/795-album/

 

gallery_25847_795_5118.jpg

 

Here are some videos showing the side to side wobble:

 

http://youtu.be/jqEp0rSjMUc

 

http://youtu.be/R-SDUFyKB4c

 

That is a lot of movement. The tabs are about .005 thicker than factory. So it should hold firmly.. It does look like your catch may be either short or obstructed.

 

I could make them thicker but they just barely catch in my personal rifle, to the point that I normally file a little off to make them stay put.

 

One thing I am seeing is that it almost looks like your factory mag is a little loose as well. The mag catch could be over ground from the factory. If so Carolina Shooters supply sells the RAM mag catch which is a file to fit part.

 

One other possible option would be slightly filing the stop on the mag catch to allow it to sweep farther.. However I can't recommend doing that since I don't have the rifle in hand.

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The mags do not wobble side to side in my rifle at all. My only complaint is that they are harder to load than the previous version, but that's not a big deal.

 

Well that makes me feel a little better.

 

Loading should smooth up a little with use. I am looking into making a stripper clip guide since the mag should load fine from one.

 

Checking on adding .01-.03 or so to the rear catch thickness to prevent veritas_vincit problem from happening again.

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gallery_25847_795_5118.jpg

 

 

That is a lot of movement. The tabs are about .005 thicker than factory. So it should hold firmly.. It does look like your catch may be either short or obstructed.

 

I could make them thicker but they just barely catch in my personal rifle, to the point that I normally file a little off to make them stay put.

 

One thing I am seeing is that it almost looks like your factory mag is a little loose as well. The mag catch could be over ground from the factory. If so Carolina Shooters supply sells the RAM mag catch which is a file to fit part.

 

One other possible option would be slightly filing the stop on the mag catch to allow it to sweep farther.. However I can't recommend doing that since I don't have the rifle in hand.

 

Cool, thanks for the response. I'll check on the mag catch situation and options. I've been gathering steam to place an order with CSS anyway. It's too bad I may have to mess with the catch, as I prefer to have it riveted rather than bolted on. Not to mention the extra cost for this rifle as I might have planned to put a "tactical" catch on one of the rifles but not necessarily the 308.

 

Maybe I'll be able to increase the sweep. Actually another option might be to use a catch from a SA2000M trigger guard leftover from converting it to take double stack mags, or flipping a catch upside down or something.

 

Everybody likes pics, so here's the CSS extended catch, made by RAM.

 

http://store.carolin...TACTICAL/Detail

 

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Brownells pic of that version.

 

http://www.brownells...-MAGAZINE-CATCH

 

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There's a different version that's more of a downward operation. I don't see this one as being good for the "knock it off with the fresh mag" method.

 

http://www.brownells...AGAZINE-RELEASE

 

p_100004600_3.jpg

 

The Power Custom one seems to offer both the downward operation and a tab to knock with the fresh mag. Slightly cheaper too.

 

http://www.brownells...GAZINE-RELEASES

 

p_713000119_1.jpg

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I only opened up one of the new stamped mags I ordered. I inserted the older version magazine in my 308 and then the new stamped version. The new stamped version did have a bit more play than the older one but nothing to concern me. Then I grabbed my other 308-1 saiga out of the gun safe and tried both the new and old version magazines in that rifle. It displayed more play with both magazines. But heck....these are kalashnikovs....they are not made to exacting tolerances. I will testfire the rifles with the new mags and if they function I'll not worry about it. To be fair my 5.45x39 and 7.62x39 kalashnikovs have show various levels of tight and loose fits with the many magazines I have for them. When fully loaded most of the wobble is absent from one of my 308-1 saiga rifles but the other does have more side to side slop in it. I have a Romanian WASR that wobbles so much I used to be scared the magazine would fall out of the gun. However, it has never failed to function.

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When I bought one from Carolina it came with a rivet and ball bearing to flare the rivet with.. My Brothers Saiga-20 was WAY out of whack, almost .08 to short, every type of mag wobbled.. New catch fixed it.

 

I will look into thickening the rear tab some to solve the problem across the board. The rear catch was a size that we have been using for a long time, but we want firm lockup on our product, so we will change if need be. If anyone wants to exchange I could do that, but it will be a few weeks before the next ones are ready.

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In my particular gun the mag locks up pretty tight. There is a very slight wiggle, but it feels pretty snug to me. I took a quick video. I am trying to hold the weapon still while I wiggle it, and if you watch the gun in fullscreen you will see that I didn't do a great job of keeping it still. The actual wiggle is less than it looks because of this. My mag opening must be smaller than veritas_vincit's, or my catch is different, because the fit is much tighter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSe6jWpIkfE&feature=youtu.be

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The catch towers (for lack of a better term) have some variation in them. The amount could be as little as .03 and cause a lot of slop.

 

King of the hill.. I do see that your catch is almost fully thrown, so in theory I can make the rear lug thicker and the only difference you'll see is the catch travel a little less.

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I forgot about the ball bearing trick to replace the rivet.

 

Having taken a closer look at my rifle, I see that my mag catch has a ton of metal on the "back" side of it, at the bottom, where you can file it down to make it stick out more on the "front" and at more of an angle. With no mag in my rifle, my catch only sticks out of the trigger guard housing / mag catch tower a little bit. I will file it down a bit and see if I can't get it to stick out more and grab the lug. I may make and post a how-to vid on doing that as I haven't seen one yet.

 

An apparent drawback of filing too much is that the more material you remove the steeper the angle and further out the catch sits so when you're loading a fresh mag it is somewhat more in the way, but there's a sweet spot somewhere in there. Maybe it's no big deal, but I'd prefer it to stick out forward just enough but not excessively.

 

Note that we're not talking about filing the top, front edge of the catch where it engages the locking lug on the back of the magazine. There are other discussions about doing that to allow milspec mags to fit better into the Saigas, which is a different issue than what I'm dealing with.

 

Regarding making the rear lug thicker, I was thinking that wider might help too. Perhaps the width doesn't have as much to do with it, but I noticed the factory Saiga mag's lug was wider which I thought might help stabilize the mag as long as it's held firmly up against the bottom of the receiver (or whatever that machined piece is called that goes under the mag catch below the receiver sheet metal itself).

 

Here's how much my Saiga 308 mag catch sticks out forward into the magwell area. Two pics of the same thing with different lighting/angles. It doesn't stick out very much.

 

gallery_25847_795_7276.jpggallery_25847_795_4212.jpg

 

Compared to my Hungarian SA85M.

gallery_25847_795_8657.jpg

 

Look at how much extra metal there is on the back side of my Saiga 308 mag catch.

gallery_25847_795_110002.jpg

 

There's much less metal remaining on the back side of the SA85M mag catch. You can compare the stamping feature which looks to me like they are dimensionally very similar if not the same to see how much more material has been removed on the FEG factory assembled SA85M.

 

I am not sure if the pivot holes are in the exact same spot, so using the crease from the stamping as a comparison maybe isn't that precise, but in any case the Saiga doesn't protrude forward as much as the SA85M does, so there's some adjustment necessary.

 

gallery_25847_795_49212.jpg

Edited by veritas_vincit
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Received mine today as well. They have, in every way, the appearance of having been produced by a military arsenal. They are a little loose in the mag well, but nowhere near as bad as the one in veritas' video. About the same amount of looseness that my FBMG/Uinta magazines have, or that my factory mag would have if it was longer (it still wobbles, it just isn't as apparent due to the length). I'll probably tweak with my mag well/catch at some point to try to tighten it up a little. It's way too cold here to go to the range and test these right now, however.

 

Packing was excellent. They were shipped wrapped in anti-corrosion paper, in heat sealed bags, wrapped in more paper, inside a box, inside a flat rate mailing envelope. Can't get much better than that.

Edited by Netpackrat
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OK, after handling the magazine for a few hours I have found a couple things which could be improved.

 

 

1: The floorplate corners are sharp. It would add a few steps, but they would be better if chamferred like the mag body tabs.

 

2: The narrow end of the floorplate is not "captured." I could easily. See myself bending that floorplate tab .

 

Overall I think the mag is great. Just offering my opinion on what it would take to make them 100% GTG.

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The floor plates are pretty similar to an AK floorplate in both respects.

 

I have a large vibratory tumbler coming in to smooth corners... But if it distorts the parts I can't use it. Just grinding back the corners tends to make them more open, which can make them really sharp.

 

The end of the floor plate was a small concern of mine, they are roughly equal to AK milsurp floor plates for bending (roughly the same amount of force to bend them). I have four possible solutions (one is kind of a joke)..

One is to do a two part stamp that will put a step on the front of the floor plate and a corresponding out stamped bump on the front of the magazine.

Two is to weld a small clip onto the front of the magazine that will retain the floor plate.

Three is duck tape! 021.gif Or thinner tape like black electrical to prevent the front from snagging when doing field drills.

Four is to stick a rubber magpul on the bottom to work like a protective cap.

 

I'll work on these and get back (I figure most here know how to use tape so I won't post that).

 

We did test bending the front of the floor plate in normal use, and found them to be roughly on par with AK mags... We did manage to bend both ours and the surplus AK, but I was just going to keep going until it bent so that was expected.

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Placing an order for 4 of them.

 

Worse case if they don't lock up nicely in my rifle, I can pull out the mig and add a little meat to the tab then hand file it. Doesn't seem like a huge issue to me, as almost all steel mags for larger caliber AK pattern rifles have to be fitted to the individual rifle. I would have suggested not making them "drop-in" fit, and opted for making them oversized, since you can pick up a set of diamond files from harbor freight that are perfect for this kind of work for only like $2. And it takes a total of about 15 minutes to fit a few of them, I know because I had to do this with the lot of PSL magazines I bought.

 

*order placed

I'd really like to thank you for getting this product made and putting it out there, it could very well be a life saver in the near future.

Edited by Tombs
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Here is one idea for the floor plate front clip.. It does not involve changing dies, it does make the front pretty much impossible to bend without using tools. Its just a 3/8 disk, in production we will have it cover the floorplate a little less.

 

post-2952-0-09063000-1326863797_thumb.jpg

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I need to order some of the new ones as soon as the old bank account will allow me too.

 

As far as the end of the bottom floorplate and putting one of those rubber magpul things on it, would a standard 7.62 nato version fit? I don't have an AR10 or mags handy to compare physical size but I figure it'd be pretty close.

 

While I'm at it, what kinda pouches are everyone using for these mags? No local gun stores around here seem to have anything my 5.56 mag pouches and I don't wanna order something then it not work out and have to go thru returning it.

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Mike, what is the liquid inside and all over the mag? Some kind of preservant, obviously, but I am curious. Don't you run the risk of deactivating primers or getting too much oil inside the chamber if the insides are not cleaned out?

 

Clean them out then?

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Mike, what is the liquid inside and all over the mag? Some kind of preservant, obviously, but I am curious. Don't you run the risk of deactivating primers or getting too much oil inside the chamber if the insides are not cleaned out?

 

Clean them out then?

 

Thanks, I already did. If that is necessary, though, people ought to be made aware of it.

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Mike, what is the liquid inside and all over the mag? Some kind of preservant, obviously, but I am curious. Don't you run the risk of deactivating primers or getting too much oil inside the chamber if the insides are not cleaned out?

 

Yeah its a anti rust oil. Its pretty much eds red with some slight alterations.. It will evaporate in about 24-36 hours once out of the bags depending on temp.. Should not cause chamber build ups but could deactivate primers, its not a strong solvent so most sealants should be fine.

 

They should be kept lightly oiled especially for the first couple months. Like all blued metal parts, they can and will rust if left totally oil free..

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Mike, what is the liquid inside and all over the mag? Some kind of preservant, obviously, but I am curious. Don't you run the risk of deactivating primers or getting too much oil inside the chamber if the insides are not cleaned out?

 

Yeah its a anti rust oil. Its pretty much eds red with some slight alterations.. It with evaporate in about 24-36 hours once out of the bags depending on temp.. Should not cause chamber build ups but could deactivate primers, its not a strong solvent so most sealants should be fine.

 

They should be kept lightly oiled especially for the first couple months. Like all blued metal parts, they can and will rust if left totally oil free..

 

Thanks for the info.

 

My typical routine is to occasionally rub the exterior of steel mags with CLP, but leave the insides dry.

 

By the way, I had four of the mags sitting out for a week unloaded and the oil on the insides was not anywhere close to evaporated. Probably on the outside of the mag it would, but it might be a good idea for people to disassemble the mags and wipe them out on the inside (not bone dry, but removing any little puddles).

 

Also, I noticed that my German DAG rounds load with more difficulty than Brown Bear, and seem to have a slightly different geometry that becomes noticeable in the way the top rounds sit. (They seem to be more tapered?). No feeding problems yet though.

 

Anyhow, thanks again for this excellent product.

Edited by Jim Digriz
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Just woke up and grabbed the package in the mail.

 

Thanks a lot man these things are friggin amazing. So far they're the first magazines that have an oversized rear lug in my rifle. I'll need to even up my mag catch a couple thousandths, but even as is they function flawlessly and lock up like a bank vault. Zero side to side, front to back play, and they sit the highest of all my mags in my magwell. That spring is some serious stuff in there, reminds me of the spring I got in some checkmate 1911 mags awhile back.

 

But anyway 100% worth every penny.

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e1129552-1.jpg

 

Zero play or wobble for my magazines once locked in. When the magazine locks in there is no "click" the way my surefire magazines sound, the mag catch simply slides on and holds tight. I do have to slightly file the mag catch edge down and/or smooth the magazine rear lug as the mag catch "bites" hard against the magazine making the removal of the magazine a little more difficult than it should be. The magazines do drop free, install tight and no wobble, so far so good for me.

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I agree with Tombs about slightly oversizing the lug and end users maybe having to do a bit of filing for a perfect fit. With the wide variance in tolerances on the guns it would be impossible for you to make one mag to fit them all without any problems. My factory mag seems to have zero play, an older 10 rounder from you has almost none, and my 3 Uintas wobble front to back, side to side, and up and down. They have enough slop that they will not feed reliably unless I push them up while firing. To me at least, it seems their ramp angle is just wrong. If the specs on your new ones (specifically on the 15 rounders, for me) match your older 10 round ones then I should be good to go. Otherwise I'll have to look into extending the mag release lever. I'd rather not do that because then it might be too tight for the factory mag and my 10 rounder.

 

Here's an off the wall question. Since weight seems to be such a concern what would be the feasibility of using titanium to build some? Obviously, the price would go up, but is it mechanically doable using the same equipment you currently have? Just a thought.

 

Finally, I'll add my compliments to those you've received already. With the somewhat limited number of Saiga 308s around, I seriously doubt making mags for them is the best way to become rich. I appreciate the time and effort you have put into giving 308 aficionados viable, quality choices in magazines.

 

Thanks,

Tim

Edited by TacticoolTim
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