One of the aspects of modern firearms is the necessary restriction of box magazines. They can only hold so many rounds, right? Well, while that’s true, we live in and breathe in an industry that often stretches those restrictive limits. Today we are talking all about the next means to stretch the limits of how many rounds your gun can hold. It doesn’t matter if it is a rifle, shotgun, or pistol, as long as it takes a mag, we can make it hold more ammo!
Today we are embracing our drums, our coffin mags, and the designs that go beyond a simple ‘extended magazine’—our deepest magazines. Let’s consider them the Daddy Warbucks of firearm mags. That might lead you to ask one question….
Why?
Well, why the hell not? I understand that flush-fitting pistol mags look nice, and we’ve all accepted 30 rounds as the standard capacity for modern rifles. However, why wouldn’t we want more? For the average everyday joe like you and I, we don’t need a reason. It’s our right. That’s why.
However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t some smart, tactical reasons to look at bigger, higher-capacity magazines. For home defense, I wouldn’t mind having spare ammo. I’m not wearing my web gear, chest rig, or plate carrier if something goes bump at night. I’m in boxers (if the bad guy is lucky) and maybe less.
When I grab my defensive firearm, more ammo is often better than less. Will I likely shoot through 30 rounds of 5.56? No, probably not, but I take the Burt Gummer approach to home defense, and being overprepared is better than the alternative. Also, should the Russkies invade, I plan to return to my support fire roots, and those roots include lots of ammo.
With that in mind, let’s look at the top-tier, mid-tier, and just-for-fun categories of our buckets full of ammo.
The Top Tier Options — Drum Magazines
The first top-tier options come in the form of drums. Specifically the Magpul series of drums. Magpul figured the drum magazine out, and since they slapped them together, the world has been changed. Some of you might be too young to remember buying your first crap drum at a gun show and it being fraught with failures and frustration.
Magpul changed that when they invented their first drum, the D-60. Not only was it reliable, but it wasn’t stupidly expensive. It wasn’t as cheap as a standard mag, but it was cheaper than most crappy drums that plagued the market.
From there, they developed the 7.62 D50, which gave our AR-10-owning brothers something to blast through a paycheck with. Since then, Magpul has set its sights on pistol calibers and various platforms.
They produced a D-50 from the Glock series of handguns and followed that up with a PCC-specific D-50 for guns that used Glock pattern mags. It was PCC-specific because the longer tower of the Glock standard variant could cause some reliability issues in the shallow magwells of rifles.
They rounded out the D-50 9mm series with options for the MP5 and Scorpion pistols and PCCs. These offered subgun aficionados a little more sting for their little guns.
Beyond Drum Magazines
If you want a lot of ammo but drums aren’t your favorite instrument, then you have to turn to quad-stacked magazines. These are typically known as coffin mags for their coffin-like shape. A few companies make them, and in the top-tier field, we have Surefire’s take on the quad stack magazine.
Surefire makes a 60 and 100-round box magazine. They are fairly compact for the ammo they hold due to the design of the magazine. They are wider than most but decently short. Don’t get me wrong, they stand out, but Surefire does a good job mitigating their size.
Like most things Surefire makes, they are designed with a professional end user in mind. They are quite expensive and likely the best coffin mags ever made. However, like all coffin mags, they can have issues.
The main problem with quad-stacked magazines is bullets getting slightly moved inside the mag. If a bullet in column three gets jostled enough to move into column four, you will have a bad time. This typically happens when a partially loaded magazine is dropped or struck suddenly. If you can avoid that, these things tend to run like a top.
The Mid-Tier Territory
If we want to save a little money, we have a few mid-tier options worth mentioning. The first is a specific set of drums from KCI. Their 75-round AK 47 and 50-round AR drum are well-made drums. They wouldn’t be my first choice for Fallujah, but I wouldn’t kick them out of the armory for snoring, either. The AR drum, in particular, impressed me with its transparent design and ratcheting mechanism.
In the same vein of low price but high capacity, we have the Schmeisser AK and AR coffin mags. They give you sixty rounds of ammo in either caliber and are primarily polymer with a nice window to see how much lead is left. They are fun to load up and shoot and seem quite robust. Much like the Surefire’s, be careful not to bump a partially loaded model, or you can expect feeding issues.
On the Fun Side
If you are just looking for a cheap but fun means to shove a ton of ammo in a wide variety of guns, then we arrive at ProMag. ProMag has its issues, and they are never the professional’s choice, but they are cheap. If I wanted a drum for my AR, it probably wouldn’t be a ProMag.
If I wanted a drum for my Sig P365 for whatever reason, then I’ll turn to ProMag. These drums are available in so many oddball guns it’s hard to believe.
In that same vein, SGM Tactical makes some solid drums for a reasonable price. They are a step above ProMag, and their Vepr drum is an absolute blast in a 12-gauge shotgun.
Throwing Lead
Sometimes you just need more bangs than fewer bangs. Drums and big mags provide you with a lot more ammo options than not. Do you need them? Well, when has it ever been about need? It’s your right, and why the heck not? Embrace your inner support gunner and go big.
