Mini-14 aftermarket mags

[1990SHADOWBOATS]

has any one here tried to rebuild a mini-14 mag "20 or 30 rd" with a aftermarket body and a
new follower from ruger and a spring from wolff?

 

[benEzra]

The problem with aftermarket mini-14 mags, in my experience, is poorly shaped feed lips, poor placement of the hole for the forward locating pin, and lousy heat treatment, not so much the follower and spring. Now that Ruger is selling factory 20- and 30-round mags, you'd probably be much better off buying factory Ruger mags, or a bunch of aftermarket mags and throwing away the ones that don't work.

 

[wally]

Mini-14 after market mags are pretty much all junk. The feed lips you can usually fix, at least on a metal magazine, but what they get wrong that I've never been able to fix are the "kickers" at the front sides of the mag that use the case shoulder to push the rounds up and into the chamber since the mini is designed not to have a feed ramp, the mags become critical.

Now that they are easy to get, stick with the genuine Ruger 20 and 30 round mags. I'm anxiously awaiting the Ruger 20 rounders for the Mini-30!

--wally.

 

[carbine85]

Keep you eye open for Ruger Sales. They put them on sale for $29.95 once in a while, if not you will pay $39.95 for a 20 rounder.

 

[jem375]

Yeah, I was out at the range on Sunday and the new ones I bought just didn't work very good and the ones that were given to me when I bought the rifle are junk also... Also will have to get some Ruger factory mags even though they cost too much...

 

[wally]

Keep you eye open for Ruger Sales.

For most magazines, CDNN sets the price to beat. Go there first, if you can beat their price you've found a deal.

Magazines that work are always cheaper in the long run than ones that don't, although I found out the hardway that 3 or 4 failures per 100 rounds is considered "works" by some folks when I tried the ProMag polymer 30 round Mini-30 mags

--wally.

 

[shootr]

What Wally said. They have new Rugers on sale for $29.95 and another blue steel one for $14.99. The guys at CDNN say they have no problems with the $14.99 ones, so I ordered two for my BIL.

FWIW, I'm leery of most aftermarket mags, some are great, others aren't. But - the folks at CDNN will tell you straight up which ones work and which have problems.

 

[Rshooter]

CDNN carries some decent after market magazines. I have had luck with their products. Once again though the Ruger mags are the best.

 

[ThomasT]

I have 9 of the metal Pro-Mags and they work perfectly. They look just like the Ruger factory mags. And they are hardened metal. I checked.

 

[wally]

I have 9 of the metal Pro-Mags and they work perfectly. They look just like the Ruger factory mags.

What capacity?

I do have a bunch of the 10 round ProMags for my Mini-30 and so far they have all worked, but I want 20 or 30 rounders for it.

--wally.

 

[ThomasT]

Hey Wally I forgot to mention those are the 20 rounders. About half of them I had to remove a little bit of metal off the latch tab on the back. That let me make a perfectly tight fit. Thats also how I found out they were tempered steel. Those suckers were hard to file.

The ones that snapped in with no fitting are a little bit loser but still work just fine. I wish I could find a couple of 10 rounders. I keep forgetting to order them when I make a midway order.

 

[stchman]

Ruger Mini-14 aftermarket mags generally blow.

I have (2) 40 rounders that work but not that well. I sent some after market mags back to CTD (all 8 of them sucked).

I don't understand, the mag companies can duplicate AR mags without fail, but a Mini mag (which is very similar) leaves them clueless.

 

[jem375]

I have 9 mini-14 mags and only 2 of them work the way they should and click in without any trouble. I just ordered 2 Ruger 20 rounders from Midway for $29.95, so hopefullly they will work ok..

 

[sandkicker]

I just received delivery of some Ruger Factory 10 rnd Mini 14 mags. Not cheap, however... the Triple Ks I got would not even fit in the gun. A side by side comparison is "educational" to say the least.

 

[ThomasT]

Sandkiker Triple K can't make magazines that work in a S&W model 39 either.

I was looking through a Midway flyer last night and CZ 5 round 22 mags were $25 IIRC. The 10 rounders were $30. Twenty round Springfields were $32-33 for an M1A. I believe that Browning mags for their bolt guns are around $50. So why complain about the price of a good mag if thats what it takes to make your gun work.

I have seen plenty of complaints for after market AR mags also.

 

[sandkicker]

Re: "So why complain about the price of a good mag "... not really complaining, more of a grumble. If it does not work 100%, no matter what the price, you paid too much.

What really got me about the Triple Ks... If I was trying to make a part that had to work with one made by another manufacturer, I might try to take some different mfg techniques on how its made, HOWEVER!!!!! I'd make sure I got the critical DIMENSIONS correct... for example, the distance from the mag latch surface to the top of the magazine, and the width of the mag at the latch point. Also, I'd make sure that when loaded that the tip of the bullet was in the same plane regardless of whether it was an odd numbered round in the mag or an even numbered one... most likely a follower design error.

 

[wally]

I have (2) 40 rounders that work but not that well.

To me magazines are pretty much binary in function -- either they feed all the rounds every time or they don't.

I'll accept an occasional failure to lock back on the last shot but other than that, I mark the failures, clean the mag, maybe replace the spring or tweak the feed lips to match a known good mag and it that fails to fix it, it ends up down range and becomes a target!

Only thing worse than Triple-K is National.

I didn't know Pro-Mag makes a 20 round Mini-30 mag. Perhaps Mini-30 and Mini-14 mags are being confused. Received an Email from Ruger announcing the Mini-30 20 round mag for "only" $39.95

--wally.


--wally.