PMAG 20s not extremely reliable?
I did some professional high speed camera testing yesterday. Some very interesting results on different things. I WISH WISH WISH I would have had an A5 to test, maybe next time.
I did test a Switchblock for RPM change. No surprises, it works very well to bring RPM down.
The biggest issue not related to other parts, was the the PMAG 20 failed a few times to bring the rounds up to a level the bolt would catch them. I would have bet you $20 the gun was short stroking, but nope. Clearly visible under highspeed is the bolt would go fully back, come forward, and miss the round completely and go on to close on an empty chamber. This happened on two PMAG 20s, and happened on two lowers. The PMAGs were probably a year old but didn't appear overly dirty, that said, I doubt they had been cleaned.
I had heard the PMAG20 was not as reliable as the 30, but this is the first time I had seen it happen and just by coincidence it was under high speed video.
Has anyone had similar issues with 20s? I really like the 20s, but I'm thinking I may have to pick up some steel or aluminum mags if this is a "thing" others have seen.
Did I just get some bad mags? How often do you guys clean your mags? At how many rounds does anyone expect dirty mag failure?
Problems with 20 rd Pmags
I bought (5) 20 rd pmags last month because I love the 30 rounders and have never had any problems with the 30 rds ones. Well, after 4 trips to the range with the 20 rds pmags and nothing but problems I started doing some reading about them. I wish I would have done this before I bought them. Seems to be several threads just on here about people having problems with them.
My gun runs 100% with the 30 rd pmags but I want the 20rds ones because I can use them prone and on the bench. I used all five of the 20 rds pmags in my Colt, BCM and Noveske and all three guns have problems running these mags.
With the 20 rds ones, the bolt fails to lock back 90% of the time. It will not feed the first round 50%-75%. And about 10%-20% of the time I have a jam where the bolt tries to feed the round in the middle of the case, bending the brass case.
It doesnt matter if I only load the mag with 3 rds, or 20rds, I still have problems.
Is there a solution to fix this problem?
Any other short 20 rd mags that run 100% of the time?
here r some pics of how the bullet tilts when the bolt tries to feed it into the chamber and the bolt bends the brass casing.