M16 magazines

[Byron Quick]

I recently had the opportunity to examine a large number of M16 magazines used by the US Army as range magazines. A few Colts, many Okays, a few DSL's, and a number that had no markings.

They had apparently been used a great deal with minimal or no cleaning. Many of the green followers had so much powder residue on them as to appear to be completely black.

I examined the feed lips closely. With a magnifying glass. I found no cracks and no evidence of failure of any kind. All I could see was evidence of heavy use with little maintenance.

I've read a good deal about cracked and spread feed lips on M16 magazines. Have these problems been addressed with USGI magazines and solved?

These were all 30 round magazines and were being replaced. Not because they were malfunctioning but because new ones were coming in and they had no way to store all of them.

 

[Coal Dragger]

Do you still have them? If so, are you willing to ship some to me?

 

[Javelin]

In the past 5 years I have never noticed any cracking. Though we were still using mags from the 1980s and until we deployed to Iraq did I ever see a NIB Army issued magazine.

 

[mack7.62]

Feel lip spreading and crack development are usually due to mags being kept loaded for extended periods of time or being dropped on the feed lips not use. Most peacetime mags do not spend that much time loaded with the exception of mags used for guarding extra sensitive areas such as Nato (Nuke or Chemical) sites in Europe. I remember having to inspect close to a hundred loaded 20 round mags (18 rounds each) every guard change to make sure no rounds were missing. Then counting and ispecting the seals on the loaded ammo cans of 5.56 and M60 ammo. We only had one M60 but we had a lot more 7.62 than 5.56. Anyway I have run some pretty rough M16 mags that still worked fine but if I was going to load some up for long term storage I would use the Pmag with the dust cover installed, it pushes down on the top round to relieve pressure on the feel lip.

 

[Byron Quick]

Do you still have them? If so, are you willing to ship some to me?

Coal Dragger, no, I don't have them. I just had the chance to examine about eighty of them and was interested about their condition.