So I purchased my Mini a few weeks ago and decided to stock up on magazines. It came with a 30 rounders, but I usually try to collect a few of everything, since things being the way they are who knows when you might not be able to, etc. So I ordered up an assortment of Ruger factory magazines. Four 20 rounders and two 5 rounders good for the bench (from CDNN who seemed to have the best price). But when it came to 10 rounders, seemed like Ruger's own shop was the only game in town, and expensive at that at $35 a piece. Yeesh. But I got 20% off for my warranty registration and I figured I might as well bite the bullet so to speak now and get it over with, so I ordered two 10 rounders from them. When I got all of the shipments in I was kind of surprised. All of the magazines I bought were from Ruger, in their standard commercial clamshell packaging (with the red card) but the 10 rounders were distinctly different.
![]()
The first thing I noticed was the side of the stamped magazine body was different. Particularly, the rear-most portion is thinner. It's not obvious until you try to stick a stripper clip spoon or StripLULA on one of them - there isn't a slot for them to fit into. Excuse these pics, as I was loosing daylight and had to use flash, but you can clearly see the "step" missing on the rear-most portion of the 10 rounder on the right, as opposed to the 20 rounder on the left (which is also how the 5 and 30 rounders I have are).
![]()
Second thing I noticed was that the front portion of the magazine was spot welded very sloppy, which left quite a bit of daylight to be seen there. It has the same floor plate the 20 and 30 round magazines have, but you can see the front portion is very "open." I don't think this has anything to do with function, but it stands out quite a bit next to the other magazines.
![]()
The follower seems to ride pretty rough up and down in the body. No holes near the top like all the others. The 10 rounders also have welded lugs, like the 30 rounder, not the stamped-type lugs the 20 and 5 rounders have.
At the end of the day I don't plan to make any firm judgments until I actually use them to feed live rounds into the rifle, but based on these inspections I could conclude Ruger had someone else manufacture their 10 round magazine bodies, only for them to put their own floor plates on them.
Just interesting things I thought you gentlemen might also find interesting.
The first thing I noticed was the side of the stamped magazine body was different. Particularly, the rear-most portion is thinner. It's not obvious until you try to stick a stripper clip spoon or StripLULA on one of them - there isn't a slot for them to fit into. Excuse these pics, as I was loosing daylight and had to use flash, but you can clearly see the "step" missing on the rear-most portion of the 10 rounder on the right, as opposed to the 20 rounder on the left (which is also how the 5 and 30 rounders I have are).
Second thing I noticed was that the front portion of the magazine was spot welded very sloppy, which left quite a bit of daylight to be seen there. It has the same floor plate the 20 and 30 round magazines have, but you can see the front portion is very "open." I don't think this has anything to do with function, but it stands out quite a bit next to the other magazines.
The follower seems to ride pretty rough up and down in the body. No holes near the top like all the others. The 10 rounders also have welded lugs, like the 30 rounder, not the stamped-type lugs the 20 and 5 rounders have.
At the end of the day I don't plan to make any firm judgments until I actually use them to feed live rounds into the rifle, but based on these inspections I could conclude Ruger had someone else manufacture their 10 round magazine bodies, only for them to put their own floor plates on them.
Just interesting things I thought you gentlemen might also find interesting.
