Rocky Mosasaurus
NES Member
Dear NES community members,
I recently went to the range and had a problem with my USA brand G17 18 round magazines. They have a lip at the front of the base plate that juts out into the mag well. At one time this lip may have been soft and malleable...but over time the lip hardened and it will prevent any operator from successfully inserting and removing their magazine. At the time I stubbornly jammed the magazine into the mag well until it fit snuggly. However, after running a magazine without failure and hitting the magazine release my magazine would not eject properly. I had to remove my slide, a range supervisor came and pulled the frame off the firing line, he lubed up the magazine in their shop on site and popped the magazine out. With USA mini-14 magazines I ran into a problem with feed lips...but this time I knew there was a simple solution and I was determined to conquer my phobia of USA magazines. Below you can see side views and a front view of the problem at hand.
I decided I would cut the base plate lip off, allowing the magazine to fit flush into the mag well. If you are planning on making this modification please be very careful. I will let everyone know the following: I did not use a normal knife: I used a soldering blade to saw through the plastic feed lip. This actually turned out to be a difficult process...the soldering blade was quite small and I did not use a vice to secure the base plate because I had to complete the cut on my front porch so it would not stink up the entire house of plastic. This meant I had to keep switching grips to avoid nicking my fingers with the blade. My soldering knife broke in the process and I had to finish the job with a cheap but sharp karambit knife I ordered online awhile ago. But the result came out great and I filed the remaining plastic down with a metal file.
.
Here you can see the jutting lip of a factory magazine:
Here you can see the flush fit of a modified magazine:
Anyway, I told some people I was going to cut the plastic feed lip off of one of these magazines on a thread regarding preban square notch mags that sold for $180 each. As an aside, I wish the buyer nothing but success with those magazines and I am happy for the seller for making some good cash as a result of their sale. But this thread is for people who may want to save some money and modify their USA brand magazines into decent range magazines. I will follow up and let people know how the magazine functioned at the range within a couple weeks. Thank you all for your time and again please be extremely cautious when carrying out this modification.
Best Regards,
Ben
I recently went to the range and had a problem with my USA brand G17 18 round magazines. They have a lip at the front of the base plate that juts out into the mag well. At one time this lip may have been soft and malleable...but over time the lip hardened and it will prevent any operator from successfully inserting and removing their magazine. At the time I stubbornly jammed the magazine into the mag well until it fit snuggly. However, after running a magazine without failure and hitting the magazine release my magazine would not eject properly. I had to remove my slide, a range supervisor came and pulled the frame off the firing line, he lubed up the magazine in their shop on site and popped the magazine out. With USA mini-14 magazines I ran into a problem with feed lips...but this time I knew there was a simple solution and I was determined to conquer my phobia of USA magazines. Below you can see side views and a front view of the problem at hand.
I decided I would cut the base plate lip off, allowing the magazine to fit flush into the mag well. If you are planning on making this modification please be very careful. I will let everyone know the following: I did not use a normal knife: I used a soldering blade to saw through the plastic feed lip. This actually turned out to be a difficult process...the soldering blade was quite small and I did not use a vice to secure the base plate because I had to complete the cut on my front porch so it would not stink up the entire house of plastic. This meant I had to keep switching grips to avoid nicking my fingers with the blade. My soldering knife broke in the process and I had to finish the job with a cheap but sharp karambit knife I ordered online awhile ago. But the result came out great and I filed the remaining plastic down with a metal file.
.
Here you can see the jutting lip of a factory magazine:
Here you can see the flush fit of a modified magazine:
Anyway, I told some people I was going to cut the plastic feed lip off of one of these magazines on a thread regarding preban square notch mags that sold for $180 each. As an aside, I wish the buyer nothing but success with those magazines and I am happy for the seller for making some good cash as a result of their sale. But this thread is for people who may want to save some money and modify their USA brand magazines into decent range magazines. I will follow up and let people know how the magazine functioned at the range within a couple weeks. Thank you all for your time and again please be extremely cautious when carrying out this modification.
Best Regards,
Ben