Elite Tactical Systems AR-15 Polymer Magazines?

[ETSGroup]

You know....the perception of the mags being somewhat flexible equating to them somehow being too weak was something we knew would be an issue with our material. From everything I have seen and know about AR mags from all of our testing, the mag need only be strong enough to hold the rounds in place when fully loaded. If the mag can keep the rounds in when hitting it on the bottom then it's rigid enough, being more rigid than that gains you nothing. But when you feel aluminum and a glass re-enforced nylon mag (like a Pmag) they are extremely stiff, and that feels strong. But when dealing with materials it's important to remember that there are several different mechanical attributes that are important.

In the case of the AR mag, the 4 attributes that are most critical are tensile strength (is it rigid enough to have the feedlips hold in the rounds when fully loaded), creep resistance so the lips don't spread over time when loaded (even metal creeps, most people don't know that, but it's usually at such a low rate that in this application it can't even be measured), ductility - the ability of the material to absorb energy without deforming or breaking (typically the more rigid a material is, the more brittle it is), fatigue - when a material is exposed to repeated stress cycles (every time a round is stripped off and the next round pops up to the feedlip the mag experiences a cycle of stress). Fatigue is why really old aluminum GI mags will spread, typically it's not creep with the aluminum but it's fatigue from literally thousands of feeding cycles over its life. New GI mags are a lot better due to their manufacture processes. Our material was exposed to 1000psi (far more than the feedlip will ever see from spring tension) and it took 100,000,000 cycles to fail. The creep rate of our material was measured at 1000psi for for 100,000 hours at room temperature and the amount of creep was less than .01%.

So to sum all this up, when you all are judging the mechanical characteristics of your AR mags remember that "stiffness" is only one part of the equation and as long as it hold the rounds in, that really is all that matters.

[plouffedaddy]

I don't know if plouffedaddy posted his review yet but here is the youtube link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs3XT6S5GbI.

I've never heard of these and I looked up the company name here with no results. The drop test in the video with a fully loaded mag on the feed lips looked promising. I didn't see much if any damage from the drops. The only features I didn't like were the much larger baseplate and the raised ribs. So has anybody here heard of them, use them, or have any info?

Embedded it so folks don't have to leave the thread.

[TacticalMark]

Are there any retailers stocking these? I'd be interested to try a few.

[rjacobs]

How are the internal side rib's compared to a GI mag, P-Mag or Lancer AWM? I ask because the 300BLK guys have been looking for a mag that would allow us to load longer OAL's where the internal rib of the magazine is usually the limiter due to feeding issues when trying to load long. The round doesnt ride out of the mag right and it generally hits in between the feed ramps.

[Zim]

There's a list of retailers on the ETS website. I found a store about an hour away from me that carries them, so I'm going to go pick some up to try out here in the next couple weeks.

[ETSGroup]

How are the internal side rib's compared to a GI mag, P-Mag or Lancer AWM? I ask because the 300BLK guys have been looking for a mag that would allow us to load longer OAL's where the internal rib of the magazine is usually the limiter due to feeding issues when trying to load long. The round doesnt ride out of the mag right and it generally hits in between the feed ramps.

We have tested our mags with lots of different .300 rounds. The only one we have found to be a problem thus far is Lehigh's controlled fracture round, it's too long OAL. Other than that there hasn't been any problems we are aware of.

[Dave_M]

Another mag to buy in my never-ending, 'own an example of everything' AR mag quest

[markm]

I watched the instructional vid on their site. The product looks interesting.

[JBecker 72]

I wouldn't mind picking up 4 or 5 of the coupling versions to try out.

[rjacobs]

We have tested our mags with lots of different .300 rounds. The only one we have found to be a problem thus far is Lehigh's controlled fracture round, it's too long OAL. Other than that there hasn't been any problems we are aware of.

Well what we are looking for is a mag with either no internal rib or a very small one so we can load rounds out longer. The problem with the .223 mags is that we have to end up loading short, basically where the OGIVE measure .250 it touches the rib, this is the same measurement as the case mouth on .223. The case mouth rides on that rib for .223, the bullet rides the rib for 300BLK. We would like to be able to seat stuff like 208g AMAX or 220g SMK's out to mag length, but its not possible. Im seating 208g AMAX's to 2.120 which is DANG short for that bullet. They run great and have decent accuracy, but the jump to the lands is REALLLLLY long. A few guys are shaving down ribs on Pmags or cutting them out completely on GI mags and can load long with no feeding issues.