I had to waste about a hour one morning sanding early windowed PMAGs so they would drop free from my LMT. Never had to do that with a USGI mag. That being said,I will only buy the newest gen of PMAGs or USGI with Magpul followers.
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I had to waste about a hour one morning sanding early windowed PMAGs so they would drop free from my LMT. Never had to do that with a USGI mag. That being said,I will only buy the newest gen of PMAGs or USGI with Magpul followers.
my pmags are fine and my mod'ed GI mags are fine too...
my GI mags have magpul followers and ranger plates with better springs , so I guess it isn't a fair comparison to call the standard GI Mags.
I do have to raise a brow about how any time somebody has an opinion that is less than favorable about a magpul product how fast they are attacked...
I am not saying this thread specifically , but I have noticed a bunch of members on this board will swear by anything magpul builds just because it's magpul.
not trying to hijack just making an observation.
I think if GI runs fine for you , then run GI , if you prefer any other brand run them... I run what works and ditch the rest. Don't let popular opinion motivate you , let experience motivate you.
Sounds like the overwhelming opinion is that I should hold onto the USGIs.....so be it. :)
In regards to future PMAG purchases......widowed, or not? Any durability issues with the windowed PMAGs?
Understand. If you had said any other brand (BM, Cprods, etc..) I would have said trash them.
I have quite a mix of D&H, DSA, NHMTGs myself, around 60 of them and 100 Pmags. All of the USGI type mags with Magpul followers. If they have quite a bit of use or starting to have feed issues, I'd rebuild them with quality springs and Magpul followers, and drive on.
Keep your GI mags. Benefits that I see to pmags are, they are more resilient that GI mags. GI mags bend and dent. Pmags do not. You can do some cool ass stipple jobs. they come in different colors. proven reliability. dont have to install anti tilt followers. come with covers. hold 30 rounds and go in your rifle easy with the bolt closed, GI mags are sometimes difficult with the bolt closed so much so that it was/is common to load 28 rounds. Don't have to worry "who made them or where/when were they made. That's some reason I favor Pmags off the top of my head. I'm sure I'll think of more later.
USGI's are cheaper for one (although I certainly wouldn't call PMags, 'expensive' by any means) which means you can buy more of them. Magazines are consumables and should be treated as such.
USGI mags are just fine so long as you don't have any with black followers. Magpul followers are better than the green ones certainly but I haven't had too many problems to begin with that could be specifically tied to green followers.
One of the big problems with USGI mags is that people generally don't toss them when they go bad. Get a doublefeed? Crush it and move on. During the AWB people kept their so-called, "high capacity" (read: standard capacity) magazines far after their service life was over. Magazines are so cheap now no there's no reason not to have a bundle.
Some pouches have a hard time with PMags. Since they are slightly wider and because the baseplate is larger than the mag OD, occasionally, with some pouches, two mags will come out when you're only grabbing one. PMags have been out long enough that it isn't the case with all of them but you gotta try them out first.
Some rifles will have a hard time closing an open-bolt on an inserted PMag (bolt release doesn't work, have to use the charging handle). One of my friends stopped using PMags once this started happening. This was with the series 2 PMags IIRC. (I've seen this with three rifles: my buddies LMT, a Colt 6920 and a POF (the latter two were from students in a class)).
You can use the corner of a USGI mag to force back a stuck bolt. Of course, you can't do that with a USGI mag if you have a ranger plate installed.
Won't drop free from all lowers, however, that issue is mostly fixed. If you have some old lowers it may be an issue. My suggestion would be to borrow some PMags and see.
One of the good things about polymer magazines is that when they fail, you can see it (cause they crack or split down the spine). Feed lips on USGI's aren't so obvious when they are out of spec (usually the first sign is a double feed unless you check them all first).