When it comes to magazines, we all want something a little more affordable and sometimes a little fun. Well, the KCI Glock Happy Stick might be the solution to your need for affordable and fun magazines. Let’s be real here. What use do the majority of us have for a 30+ round handgun magazine? It is less-than-ideal for concealed carry, and not meant for duty use. With pistol caliber carbines, it’s a different story, but for handguns, I’m happy with my God Given right to want and not need. But do they work?
I’ll be the first to tell you that when it comes to duty or self-defense magazines, I don’t mind tossing out the extra funds. However, when it comes to just having fun, and buying mags for training or the range, I want to save money. Not every magazine has to be built to go to war. Sometimes I want to shoot–to turn money into noise.
This is where the KCI Glock Magazine comes in. KCI is a Korean firm that makes a variety of magazines for the AR 15, the AK 47, and the Glock. Their Glock magazines have recently captured my attention, and their low price makes them a tempting option. Is the magazine worth its low cost?
The Breakdown
KCI makes a variety of Glock magazines, but if I’m buying budget magazines, I might as well try the most fun looking one out there. The KCI Glock Happy Stick packs 33 rounds in what appears to be a magazine identical to Glock OEM options. Seriously, it iss hard to tell the difference. The polymer magazines look and feel well made and are polymer with metal inserts. There is even a round for round count thanks to witness holes.
Looking deeply at the magazine reveals some pretty solid construction points. Nothing crazy, but the magazines are well made. There doesn’t appear to be any corner-cutting or rough construction. They have pretty big baseplates that make it easy to draw the magazines from a magazine carrier and gives you a comfortable grip.
Loading and Firing the KCI Glock Magazine
Holy crap are these things hard to load. After the first 25 rounds, its a pain to load the last 8 rounds. Online advice said to leave them loaded overnight. However, I found leaving them loaded for a week was a better idea. After that, it became bearable to shove those last eight rounds in.
Now the tension was up when I hit the range. Will a $13 magazine function reliably enough not to be a pain in the ass? Am I out the cost of a six pack of good beer? All this and more in the next paragraph.
The KCI Glock happy stick was surprisingly reliable. The first 132 rounds were flawless. It wasn’t until the fifth magazine that I met my first failure. There was a failure to feed with a Glock 17. The empty brass ejected, but it didn’t pick up the next round. Happily, this was the first and last failure I’ve had. I’m seven magazines in with one failure, and I can accept that. Its hard to be frustrated with a 13 dollar magazine that’s only failed once.
The gun functions in and out of both a Glock handgun and one of my favorite PCC’s: the Kel Tec Sub 2k. It runs in both guns, and the KCI Glock magazine is well worth the meager investment.
Final Shots
These are well-made magazines and, for the price, they are surprisingly reliable. These are a perfect alternative to Glock OEM magazines for training, for combat drills, and just having fun without risking breaking an expensive magazine. The KCI Glock magazines have served me well, will they last as long as factory magazines? We’ll find out, but for now, they are a great go to in my training and fun gun rotation.
