AR-15 Magazine Followers?

[Steve_P]

Hi all,
I was wondering if someone out there could shed some light on all the different magazine followers that are in use?

For example, I have two preban 30rd mags, one has a green follower, the other has a black.
Also, I have four 10rd mags, three have orange Magpul followers and are stamped USA, the other has a gray Magpul follower and is stamped 5.56.

What is generally considered "THE" follower to use?
Thanks,
Steve

 

[Fsorrent]

The black follower's are the original GI followers. They come standard on most older mags. the green follower's are generally made of a high-impact plastic / teflon / like material and have a anti-tilt feature which reduces the likelihood of jams caused by mags. the orinal black followers are more prone to jams because they do not have a anti-tilt feature.

 

[z0mbi]

What is generally considered "THE" follower to use?
Thanks,
Steve

the AR15.com community pimps the Magpuls, but they are expensive. 44mag.com has some cheaper kits.

I have 9 mags with the green anti-tilt followers, and 7 mags which I'm getting refinished. For the 7 mags I ordered 7 Magpul full rebuild kits. Expensive, but... what baby wants, baby gets.

 

[MassMark]

Here's the deal as I see it from a non-expert point of view, but with 10's of thousands of rounds poured down my old Colt HBAR. I had 30-round mags from Colt, Cooper, Bushmaster, Israel and a few other USGI suppliers I can't remember. All came out of the wrap with original black followers - none had any failures - ever. Then one day a buddy of mine from MD sent me an envelops full of fancy-pants green followers. I added them to all my mags and continued to pour ammunition through my Colt. The last batch of ammo I dumped through it before I sold it, (sniffle sniffle) was exactly 15,000 rounds of Malaysian Mil-Surp. The green followers worked exactly the same as the black ones - no malfunctions. The moral of the story? If your mags work "as is", then leave them that way. If you have problems, change followers. If you have dough to burn, buy Magpul - if not, buy more ammo and have a nice life....

 

[Fsorrent]

mASSMARK,

If you were any more right, your head would explode!!!

 

[swatmedic]

As far as I know, the whole follower issue only applies to 30 round mags. The straight body of the 10 and 20 round mags make the anti-tilt design unnecessary. The last batch of 30 round mags I bought, I did upgrade the springs, and I changed the followers at the same time.

 

[drgrant]

I use nothing but magpuls in anything important, but I do have a bunch of other mags that just have black and green followers in them too, and they work fine. I don't have any evidence to back up my favoring magpuls other than the fact that I just like
them better- they look like what should have been there to begin with. They also will not tilt if you press on them with your finger or some other instrument.

If you have non-USGI mags, you probably will want to stick with whatever it is that they come with... magpuls may not fit in many non-USGI spec AR mags.

-Mike

 

[MassMark]

MASSMARK,

If you were any more right, your head would explode!!!

LOL - it doesn't happen very often. There's a huge market for the unnecessary - always has been - always will be. AR-15 accessories are no different. I'm not saying there isn't a place for improvement with AR-15 magazines, whether they are green, blue, purple, pink, Magpul, whatever followers....I'm just saying if it ain't broke...

 

[icyclefar]

If your mags work "as is", then leave them that way. If you have problems, change followers. If you have dough to burn, buy Magpul - if not, buy more ammo and have a nice life....

Couldn't have said it better!

 

[Steve_P]

Thanks everyone for your input.

 

[LoginName]

LOL - it doesn't happen very often. There's a huge market for the unnecessary - always has been - always will be. AR-15 accessories are no different. I'm not saying there isn't a place for improvement with AR-15 magazines, whether they are green, blue, purple, pink, Magpul, whatever followers....I'm just saying if it ain't broke...

Unless the person is on a day to day-ass is on the line situation, the anti-tilt followers are an unnecessary add-on. But at around $1.50 each (this was a number of years ago), I went ahead and bought and installed some anyhow.

One advantage of having different colored followers is with group shoots and you want to have a way of identifying which mags are yours. It looks a little cleaner than painting your initials on the mag or floorplate or using colored tape.