Promag 10 rounders are going back...

[Dave3006]

I posted earlier that my tests on the new 10 round mags were inconclusive. I think I may have not thought this through well enough. Bottom line, the mags have two problems.

The first one is not that big of a deal. Promag liberally greases the spring in the magazine with a while gummy grease. Before shooting with these mags, I have never had a failure with a factory mag. I shoot about 25 rounds today with the Promags. All of a sudden, I start having failures to extract. I tried my factory mag. Same problem. My chamber is clean and my extractor and spring are good. It is a new gun. I suspect that the grease was getting on the bullets, in the chamber, and in my extractor. This evening, I completely cleaned my extractor and sprayed it with gun scrubber. I bet it works tomorrow when I go to the range.

Second, most importantly, there is so much side to side wobble in the mags that the bolt is catching on the feed lips and the first round is hard to chamber. I only loaded 9 rounds and I know all about not babying the op rod. Most of the time the gun hangs up chambering this first round. It seemed like this problem was getting worse the more I used the mags.

I wish I could say the mags worked.

[Don Monroe]

sorry to har that, dave. we know what we want right? let's just build them ourselves. outside dimensions are static -- it's just the guts of the magazines that don't work, right. where is our ruger armorer? maybe he can help us?

[gutpile]

my magazines from mark gleason worked just great they are tight and no wobble at all, they work just as good as the ruger 5-rounders the magazines have nothing to do with the case getting stuck in the chamber.....

[Drupa]

I always heard that the Promags were about a C+ in the field of aftermarkets. Why did you choose these over others?

[Dave3006]

Gutpile is right. The lube would have nothing to due with my failure to extract problem. I cleaned the bolt and chamber and took it out again today with factory mags. Still have extraction problems. This has nothing to do with the Promags.

[Tom B]

I will range test my new Promag 10rder tomorrow. I will post results.

[DKRichards]

Originally posted by Drupa
I always heard that the Promags were about a C+ in the field of aftermarkets. Why did you choose these over others?

I'll give you my 2 cents on that.......

I have purchased and used a lot of PISTOL magazines through the years. My mag choices were always factory, Mec-Gar, and Promag. I've NEVER had a problem with Mec-Gars, and only 1 bad factory mag, and ProMag seemed to be about 90% good. ProMag does have a lifetime warranty, and I always got a "good mag" when I exchanged a "bad" mag. USA pistol mags were the worst in MY experience, about 50% good.

However, for the Mini 14, they are not many high quality high capacity magazines available. Even 10 round magazines. I wish Mec-Gar would make them, but they do not. The "name brand" magaines that most report work better than the cheapos are PMI (Precision - now out of business), John Masen and Promag. Lately more votes are going to ProMag. I have some on order from Dave's source. I am disappointed to here Dave3006 had so many problems but encouraged that Gutpile (what a moniker!) has had good experience.

Naturally, factory magazines are the best (at least for the Mini 14), but they are awfully rare and expensive.

[DKRichards]

"I wish I could say the mags worked."

Dave3006, do you rmember that song that went "....if it weren't fer bad luck I've a-have no luck at all...."?

I think your luck might be worse than mine, which means it's pretty bad!

It sounds like you have a bad rifle AND a couple of bad magazines. Are you returning all the magazines?

Kinda makes you want to get a bunch of 5 round Ruger magazines and practice quick magazine swaps.