You can never have too many magazines, right? And those magazines can never hold too many rounds. So when the Glock 44 came out with only two tiny 10-round magazines, we all scratched our heads and wondered what they were thinking. How could a company that stuffed 15 rounds of 9mm into the same size grip as the G19 (both are built on essentially the same frame) only give us 10 rounds of .22LR to plink with?
Is there no justice in this world? Do we truly live in a world gone mad? Was Nemo right, and it’s all an illusion, a bad dream? How else could you explain this clear miscarriage of ballistic justice?
As with many things in the gun world, however, leave it to the aftermarket suppliers to fill the void left by a manufacturer. In this case, it was magazine veteran ProMag that stepped up and handed a magazine that meant business: an 18-rounder that looks and acts like the Glock OEM mags but with the extra rounds we craved from the start.
The two magazines are so much alike that from a distance, they look identical. Both are black, shaped similarly, and feature open sides with an exposed spring and follower assist. To the “unchurched,” they appear to be interchangeable, indistinguishable from one another. But looker closer, and you’ll see some differences—some good, some bad. Let’s look at them all.
Similarities
Aside from the obvious aesthetic similarities, what other features do the Glock 44 magazines and the ProMags share?
First off is the cutout sides. Many .22LR pistols have see-through magazine sides, to the point where it’s almost industry standard dating back decades to the old Beretta and Smith & Wesson .22LR pistols, among others. Today they are ubiquitous with the caliber. Most modern .22LR pistols have them. The windows not only help count how many rounds are loaded but also serve as a quality check to be sure the rounds are stacked straight, a common problem with smaller caliber cartridges. Kudos to ProMag for continuing the tradition.
Second is the follower assist. Don’t you wish more magazines had this little gizmo? Think how much easier it would be to stuff the last few rounds into a 9mm mag if we could use our other hand to pull the follower down from the sides. But, alas, aside from a few select guns, mostly .380s and a few 9mms, those helpful feature is relegated to .22LRs.
Differences
As similar as the ProMag version is to the Glock version, there are some differences that not only protect both manufacturers from patent infringement issues but also are advantages and disadvantages of each.
The most obvious difference is capacity. Glock OEM magazines hold 10 rounds, while the ProMag version holds 18. (There is even a 25-round extended version, but I haven’t tested that one, so I can’t comment on its quality or performance.) As mentioned above, ever since the Glock 44 was introduced, we were all puzzled, wondering why they only had 10 rounds in the magazines. And why, now that enough people have voiced similar concerns, has Glock still not brought out larger capacity mags despite aftermarket introductions to fill the void? You’d think they would want to capitalize on the demand, but apparently not, at least not yet. Maybe they will one day, but that one day isn’t today.
Aside from capacity, two other differences stand out in the ProMag version. First is the follower assist. Where Glock has a nice chunky follower assist, with plenty of real estate for your finger and thumb to grab ahold, making loading the gun super simple (the whole point of the gadget, after all), ProMag opted for a tiny, practically unusable button that easily slips out from under fingers, making loading the magazine almost as challenging as loading a conventional bullet holder. It helps for the first 10 rounds, but after that, the added spring tension, coupled with tiny buttons, makes loading the last eight rounds difficult. I love the idea of 18 rounds of .22LR but fail to see the wisdom in such an inadequate follower assist that doesn’t help load the extra rounds. If ProMag was worried about getting sued by Glock if it made the buttons any bigger, they should have worked harder at a better solution.
The second big difference is the baseplate. The ProMag baseplate is a quarter inch thicker, which I assume is to accommodate the extra spring needed to hold 18 rounds instead of 10. This is completely understandable and, frankly, a genius design to hold eight more rounds with a nominal cosmetic change in the baseplate. The difference is so subtle that it’s nearly impossible to tell the two magazines apart unless they are side by side. The added thickness makes the ProMag version stick out a little at the bottom of the grip but does not affect the gun’s function. The grip feels the same regardless of the magazine, whether original Glock or ProMag.
One potential issue with the ProMag magazine and Glock is one I’ve encountered with other aftermarket Glock magazines: you can’t add an extended baseplate. I know this is an issue with Magpul magazines, but I don’t know if ProMag has solved this problem. Something in the fitting of aftermarket Glock magazines won’t accommodate aftermarket extended baseplates. In all fairness to ProMag and this particular magazine, I have not seen many aftermarket extenders for .22LR, so maybe it will never be a real-life issue. But it’s something to be aware of.
Performance Testing
Of course, these cosmetic features and loading issues don’t mean diddly squat if the magazines don’t work right. So, I put them to the test with around 500 rounds downrange. My 14-year-old son and I spent an afternoon running the Glock and ProMag magazines through my Glock 44 at the range where I work. He’s been shooting since he was nine, so I knew he would be a good research assistant, especially since he and his two sisters love to shoot .22LR whenever they get the chance.
Before I write any reviews, I check other people’s experiences with the products, including online reviews and videos. One issue that came up over and over with the ProMag magazines as a whole, and this one in particular, was stoppages and failures to feed. It was a trend among many of the reviewers. So I naturally expected to experience the same thing. But I didn’t want to bias my results, so I made sure to give this magazine as scientific a test as possible.
In all fairness, failures in .22LR guns are often not the gun’s fault. This caliber is notorious for failing to fire, misfires, and not playing well with any gun it’s feeding through, whether pistol or rifle, no matter what kind of action, but especially semi-auto. It’s dirty ammunition that tends to be finicky—one of many reasons it is not a good choice for personal defense. Failures are common with .22LR. The challenge is figuring out if the failure is the ammo or the gun.
We loaded up and shot the first two magazines: one Glock and one ProMag. Results? Identical performance with no issues. We did it again with the same result. Finally, on the third ProMag run, it jammed about halfway through. Clearing was easy, and the rest of the magazine ran fine.
Throughout the afternoon, we experienced several more issues, but each time it was hard to tell if the magazine was acting up or the ammo was just doing what .22LR does. I didn’t keep an exact tally, but it seemed that the Glock OEM and ProMag magazines messed up nearly the same amount, which leads me to believe it was more the ammo’s fault than anything the magazines did wrong.
Conclusions
From a shooting performance perspective, the ProMag magazines performed as well as the Glock OEM magazines, with no significant reliability issues that I didn’t experience with both. However, I do wish ProMag had built a better loading system. The spring didn’t get any lighter from repeated loading, making the small follower assist buttons a real issue. But for $15.99 per magazine, I’m not complaining.
