I've been a member here for a year now, and am just now getting around to making my first post lol. I'm fairly active on other forums, and am hoping to learn some here as well as contribute some. So this is my first contribution:
While cleaning and refinishing a bunch of used USGI mags I recently bought, I came across 4 that had bad base plate retaining tabs, and figured I would try modifying them into 20 rounders instead of just tossing them. I decided to do this purely out of curiosity and boredom. Unless you are in a ban state and have preban mags that are damage, it's really not practical to do this considering how cheap and plentiful mags are right now. Unless of course you are like me and this is the kind of stuff you like doing in your spare time though.
Started out by getting a rough idea of the needed length by using a straight 20rd mag, drew some guidelines, and got start cutting.
Using a file, I cleaned it all up, evened the sides, and rounded the new tabs. I cut the spring off at the 11th coil, inserted the spring and follower back into the mag, laid the base plate in place and slowly knocked the tabs down.
After assembling the mag, I was only able to load 18 rounds into it, so I disassembled and took around 1/2 inches off of the follower.
Moment of truth!!
Okay, this pic was taken before I made the modification to the follower haha but it is now a 20 round mag. It seats on a closed bolt without having to smack it, and although I haven't tested function while firing, I was able to successfully manually feed through all 20 rounds.
I'll do some live fire testing this weekend and report back.
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