The most finely made semi-auto firearm in the world isn’t worth a damn without two crucial components: quality ammunition and magazines. Without these two parts of the equation, any magazine-fed firearm quickly becomes a frustratingly unwieldy, single-shot nightmare.
Thankfully, during the last few decades, magazine development and design have kept pace with the prolific AR15. So America’s favorite black rifle now has a dizzying array of magazines available for it. These range from single-shot to ultra-capacious drum magazines and are constructed from steel, aluminum, and even high-impact polymer.
With so many AR-15 magazine options available, picking the best one for a shooter can seem like a truly daunting affair.
In response, the editorial staff here at Gunmagwarehouse.com, are assembling a few handy guides to make the buying process easier.
Now, since the AR15 market is so vast, it’s important to first determine a shooter’s needs and desires before deciding on anything. A bench rest shooter who needs to keep his rifle as low as possible doesn’t want or need a Magpul D60 drum, just as a three-gunner would not appreciate a flush-fitting five-round magazine. Both magazines are tremendously effective in their given roles, but ill-suited to others.
The first installment of this guide will focus on narrowing down one major aspect of a magazine design—capacity.
Though I already have to stop and add one caveat.
Certain states and even counties within the United States fall under magazine capacity legislation. These stem from a now-expired national law colloquially referred to as, ‘The A… Weapons Ban’ or AWB. In the AWB, magazines capable of holding more than ten cartridges were limited to law enforcement and military use only. Shooters buying used magazines previously owned by police who bought them during the ban will often see ‘LEO’ written on them with a date. LEO is an acronym for Law Enforcement Only. – If you’re living in a state without a ban, this stamp is meaningless.
What about shooters living under such restrictions?
They should take a look at our simple guide to magazine capacity laws.
Everyone else should continue reading.
So you’re all set with legal restrictions, and want to narrow down your search for your first bullet-feeding device.
The first step is to determine your rifle’s focus.
If you own a varminting bench rest rifle tipping the scales at 15 pounds, you’re going to want something fairly streamlined and low profile. Assuming no hunting capacity restrictions, the longest magazines that don’t protrude past the pistol grip of an AR-15 is the 20-round straight magazine.
Note: Some manufacturers build limited capacity mags from full-capacity bodies. These are great for capturing the aesthetics of standard-capacity 30-round mags, but negate the low profile of magazines designed for 20 rounds of ammunition.
These types of magazines will be immediately familiar to anyone who has seen footage of the Vietnam War. US Soldiers in Vietnam armed with the original M16 were issued a few aluminum 20-round magazines. The short length of these magazines allowed infantryman to fire their rifle while prone, or laying down. While these magazines often get a bad rap for being unreliable, they’re actually quite good if properly maintained. Though the biggest issue with them, like all aluminum magazines, is durability—step on an empty aluminum magazine once, and odds are it won’t feed correctly ever again.
What about classic 30-round AR-15 magazines?
These are the jack-of-all-trades of the AR-15 magazine world. Not quite perfect for anything, but more than good enough for everything. The best part about 30-round magazines is compatibility and commonality.
Nearly every AR-15 magazine carrier on the market today is designed for a standard 30-round magazine. These are the most ubiquitous and affordable magazines available for the AR-15 platform. Dozens of manufacturers make them in dozens of colors, but they all adhere to STANAG guidelines.
STANAG, or Standard Agreement NATO, is a set of design guidelines that list every conceivable aspect of the 30-round AR15/M16 magazine’s design. The purpose of the agreement is to ensure magazine compatibility between member armies of NATO in times of crisis.
But I digress, these magazines are great for three-gunners as they strike a great balance among weight, capacity, and size. They’re not so large as to snag on obstacles when running, but still offer shooters a respectable amount of in-rifle ammunition supply that doesn’t ruin the gun’s balance or user’s back.
Higher-Capacity, Non-Drum Ar-15 Magazines
Other common magazines in competitive circles are 40-round or greater variants. Some of these are simply a standard 30-round magazine body with a replacement baseplate that facilitates more ammunition, while others are purpose-built.
Most shooters shy away from these as they seem awkward, but they’re great for extended plinking at the range and especially run-and-gun competitions where shooters aren’t penalized for magazine capacity. Certain shooting sport disciplines like three-gun or steel challenge feature stages with target-rich environments.
Shooters racing the clock to engage these targets will often go too fast and miss several, costing them precious seconds. Miss enough, and you’ll be forced to perform a magazine change in the middle of the stage, and waste even more time. For these instances, less isn’t more. More is more, so competitors want as much ammo as they can carry. So when 40 or 45-round mags aren’t enough, they turn to drums.
Drum Magazines
Drum magazines are named for their resemblance to the percussion instrument with the same moniker. These ultra-capacious magazines use a giant clock spring to wind ammunition around an outward spiraling cylinder.
These mags hold anywhere from 50 to 120 rounds of ammunition and can feature either a single, or pair of drums like the Beta Company drums. Drums are great for three things. Plinking, certain competitions, and photographs; nothing makes a gun look meaner than a giant drum hanging off it.
Almost like an instrument of freedom.
Whichever capacity a shooter determines is best for them, it’s important to practice with it regularly. Rapidly slamming home a 30-round Magpul PMAG is worlds apart from trying to quickly change BETA C drums. Stay tuned for our AR-15 Magazine Guide — Part Two, coming next month as part of our giant magazine-buying guide for the AR-15.
I practise & shoot almost exclusively with 20 rounders. They are by far my favorite for all the right reasons. Lightweight, easy to handle, easy to carry. But most especially they shoot well from the prone position.
GunMagWarehouse is one of a small handful of sources who 1) Have what we want, most of the time, 2) Offer it all at reasonable prices, most of the time 3) Doesnt advertize or include Internet search terms to beguile shoppers with products they dont have [Google “OD or Foliage Green Magpul PMAG” and find all the liars who havent had ’em for weeks and will NEVER have them going forward], 4) Fair shipping, and most of all 5) World class customer service. Regarding magazines, and ammo, I’m brand loyal to Magpul (and already mourning the loss of the aforementioned colors) for mags, and Federal for ammo. In the USAF I used plenty of GI plain-jane metal mags without issues – because we dilligently maintained them. Like anything else, wise consumers buy the best quality they can afford, and dilligently take good care of their stuff. Yes, magazines (also) need maintenance. For the mag and ammo hoarders out there, fine, understood, but do yourself a favor and 1) Standardize by brand and model, 2) Practice with [EXACTLY] what you’ll carry into the woods, and 3) Engrave IDs on your mags so you can inventory and track their maintenance. If youre thinking that more is better (zombie hoards only exist on stupid TV shows and movies), I’d suggest we circle back to the quality argument (for ammo too). Here’s the deal: Ten friends of mine and I were in a totally out-of-left-field, all-night fire-fight with a couple hundred trained and equipped bad guys on their own turf. Each of my team started the night with 240 rounds of ball and tracer, and a half-dozen 40mm grenades (supporting the two M203s). I had 11 rounds (and no grenades) left when the gladiator crew showed up to extract us and clea up the scene. By the grace of God, better technology, superior training and cohesiveness, and of course fire discipline, we held the bad guys off, and all had a hot breakfast and shower the next day. None of the bad guys did. Though my carbine had auto select, I only used it momentarily early on to get their heads down when they were getting balsy. You can only fight with what you can carry, so dont get goofy thinking that youre going to carry 30 loaded magazines off into the wilderness. Six is a lot. Eight is a well-controlled all-night fire-fight among friends. All the toys in the world wont matter if they dont work when you need ’em. Magpul mags couldnt be easier to (un)load, pull apart and clean and dry lube. Federal ammo is similarly consistently reliable if you maintain it. Of the zillions of Federal (.223 & 5.56) rounds ran through my Sig PM400 SWAT (w/ 11″ barrel, Sig brace [wish it was green], Robar SPT, Magpul BUIS behind the post, NP3 coating inside, hi-temp Cerakote [Ranger green] outside), outdoors, rain or shine, in all 4 seasons (northern Indiana), Ive never experienced any failure of equipment or ammo. Hey! If youre not having fun, it’s work, and who wants that?
Not a lot of information here. A new person might pick up some clues as to what to look for and if an individual didn’t know that magazine bans had been enacted this might help. But not much information. No talk about coffin magazines, no talk about drum magazine, wind up vs spring, no talk about springs, etc…. I’ll look forward to the next installment, but it’s not looking very promising. Whatever………………………………………………………… Traaxx