Mornin folks,

I was just surfing some waves on the google when I just so happened to stumble on the U.S. patent for FN Herstal's P90 magazines; the weird ones that stack perpendicular to the barrel but feed straight.

That patent ran out TODAY. I think this is very exciting. We could be seeing whole new firearms come out of the woodwork. I remember being shown an AR upper that would accept these magazines and eject out the traditional magazine well. I gander someone already has a 5.56 variant designed and waiting for this day to come.

I saw where ruger is going to produce a 5.7 pistol now. Perhaps that will bring the round out of obscurity. Also spurring on more companies to produce loads.
As ammo is so darn expensive and only a few choices available.

I would not have expected Ruger, but man that's a nice looking gun.

I have a feeling KelTec will be the one to put the first rifle on the shelf. They seem to like taking on strange projects.

Not sure what was proprietary about them.

I have 2 Pro-mag magazines for my PS90 and they have never functioned as well as the factory mags. I suspect the springs may be weaker but otherwise they appear to be the same as FN mags in function.

I may have to take a closer look at them.

That's a good point. My assumption is the only thing proprietary is the design. With the promag, I feel like it might just be too small a fish to fry for FN, or they got permission to make the magazine. FN designs firearms. Going big on a lawsuit to get royalties over a magazine for their gun probably isn't worth the initial call to the lawyer.

An entire firearm design might be something else. Maybe allow a model to become popular before "noticing" and getting the best bang for the buck. It didn't happen, but it's a win to have the patent either way.

What I found really funny was the proposition 65 warning on FN's sales page for a 50 round magazine... I guess they have high hopes in politics.

https://fnestore.com/ps90p90-magazine-50-rnd