Which AR-15 5.56 magazines are best?

[Failure2Stop]

While I am no PMag fanboy, I have had a tan windowed PMag I bought a few months after PMags were released and accidentally used last month, which had it stored fully filled for like 4 years without the cover (which was really included to comfort those of us that were highly suspicious of plastic mags initially).
I can't say that every PMag would perform the same, or that none would stretch, but I wouldn't think that they are any less suitable for 5 year storage than any other magazine.
Really, I don't see a need to have hundreds of pre-filled magazines stuffed in a box in a closet.
Go shoot that ammo. Should the apocalypse come, if you are all by your lonesome and you burn through 7 magazines without the opportunity to refill a few magazines from your ammo storage, one of two things has happened:
1) You bit off way more than you can chew and all those spare mags would just be a nice convenience to those that overrun you
2) If you had trained with 9/10ths of that ammo you probably wouldn't suck as bad, and wouldn't have burned through 7 mags in the first place, otherwise, see #1

[rob_s]

Just to be clear, some of us store AND shoot!

I rotate through most of my stored ammo, but the can with the XM193-filled mags could easily sit unused for a year while the Wolf mags get rotated through almost monthly.

[Byron]

I have never experienced it myself but I'm pretty low-tech when it comes to AR magazines.

OK - thanks. Based on the certainty of your previous statement ("...I don't like plastic mags as the feed lips will stretch..."), I thought it was something you had experienced.

Regarding PMAGs, here are some relevant posts from NickB @ Magpul:

PMAG feedlips do not creep. We have had magazines loaded with 30 rounds without snap cover for over two years now - no creep whatsoever. As markm pointed out, no good deed goes unpunished - the snap cover is simply protection from dirt/debris intrusion and added insurance that they won't get damaged during storage from impact.

Source

If your PMAG feedlips spread/creep, give me a call and I'll replace them all with new ones. As far as I'm concerned, that's a small price to pay for evidence of the first creeping PMAG feedlips to date.

Source

That second quote is from 2009, so I thought maybe some evidence of creep had come out since then. I have yet to see any, though.

If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that the original statement in their 2007 literature about preventing creep was simply an overly-cautious strategy for what was then a relatively new product. Since then, the evidence seems to indicate this hasn't actually ever been an issue.

[agent-smith]

I've had great luck with Pmags.

FWIW, Brownells has their magazines (20rd and 30rd) for $9.99:

http://www.brownells.com/.aspx/pid=2...OUND-MAGAZINES

They don't have the whiz-bang Magpul follower, but the Magpul followers are only around $2/each.

[billt]

I like the Mag-Pul P-Mags as well. I have several of the 30 rounders with both windows, and non windows. But I prefer the 20 rounders at the range because they don't have any interference when shooting from the bench.

[Failure2Stop]

Just had a guy in class that had HORRIBLE performance with ALL of his Brownells mags.
Also had some issues with PMags in his gun (DPMS lower).

[Byron]

Just had a guy in class that had HORRIBLE performance with ALL of his Brownells mags.
Also had some issues with PMags in his gun (DPMS lower).

Interesting. Were you able to isolate the mags as the issue, or was it possibly the gun and/or the ammo? Did his gun run fine with other mags?

[Chuck Haggard]

Just had a guy in class that had HORRIBLE performance with ALL of his Brownells mags.
Also had some issues with PMags in his gun (DPMS lower).

I detect that the issue may not be with the mags.



My non-scientifical study of the P-Mags by leaving a dozen of them loaded with ball/range ammo for over three years (maybe over five now, the older I get the worse my time-lines seem to get) in the trunk of my take-home car shows me that feed lip spread is not an issue regardless of the weather conditions.

I wanted to get a feel of whether there was an issue or not with the P-Mags after having such poor performance from other plastic magazines over the years, so the first few P-Mags I bought were loaded and thrown in the trunk after being test fired for reliability. After being used as range mags for several months without any issues popping up I started using them as my primary mags.

My trunk mags have yet to fail me, and I do nothing to baby them. They get used in training but then get reloaded before leaving the range and thrown right back into the trunk.

[Failure2Stop]

Interesting. Were you able to isolate the mags as the issue, or was it possibly the gun and/or the ammo? Did his gun run fine with other mags?

Unable to pin the mags as the sole culprit.
Gave him 4 of my "known good" PMags, but he still had problems after a few hundred rounds.
My suspicion is that either his mag-catch or the mag-catch cutout are out of spec.
However, I do think that the initial mags at play also had issues as the mag was catching the bullet tip during feeding.

[rob_s]

Slight variation on the question: What's the minimum number of mags anyone should have? Assume the baseline shooter is someone who will attend 1 or more classes annually and get to the range once a month or more.

I tell everyone that buys an AR to purchase 11 magazines. This allows you to arrive at class with 10 loaded and one empty. 10 loaded magazines in 280-300 rounds and will get you through AT LEAST lunch on TD1 without having to jam magazines. I would submit that if the class goes over that number of rounds by any serious count on the first day in it's entirety, it is probably not a beginner/intro class anyway. I carry 10 mags in this which I helped design with USGG. I have two of these, one that carries 10 mags with Wolf WPA/Brown Bear and one that carries 10 mags with XM193. I carry one or the other (or both) of these purses to the range any time I take my AR.

I arrive at classes where I'm feeding my own guns my own ammo from my own magazines with 24 loaded magazines in an ammo can. 20 of those magazines contain either XM193 or WPA Wolf/Brown Bear and 4 contain whatever my "go to load" is at the time (currently 75 grain Black Hills). I use the 75 grain for zeroing and/or any distance/precision shooting in the course and the other for everything else. At 560 rounds of blasting ammo that has gotten me through TD1 without jamming mags at all but one course.

In all cases I load magazines in the morning at the hotel/lodging before subsequent training days.