REVIEW - Magpul PMag 35 rd for CZ Scorpion Evo 3

[TheChunkNorris]

Walls of text and not one video of a "catastrophic failure"......weird

Dude wrote a book about the mags not working properly yet couldn’t get a name of the person on a phone call?

[Naphtali]

Walls of text and not one video of a "catastrophic failure"......weird

OK I have videos on iCloud's mail drop that perfectly show the bolt hitting and getting stuck on the magazine feed lips. It took 2 videos to show it properly, so I'll describe the videos in text and post the mail drop link for each below.

First to Zombiescometh - thanks for the revision. I'm not in the firearms industry, so sometimes I may not say things as properly as a more knowledgeable person would.


FIRST VIDEO - be warned, it's 267 MB

https://www.icloud.com/attachment/?u...V&sz=280449767

1) I show 2 x Scorpions laid out next to 1 x Factory CZ 30 rd mag and 16 x PMags, as well as the PMag receipt from Brownell's
2) I pick up a Scorpion and clear it
3) I lock the bolt to the rear
4) I insert the factory CZ mag
5) I allow the charging handle to slide forward, and it will not stop prematurely while the bolt fully goes into battery.
6) I repeat moving the charging handle back and forth (while keeping the bolt release depressed and out of the way), and it freely moves. The bolt is clearly NOT hitting the CZ magazine at all.

then...

7) I lock the bolt to the rear and insert one of the PMags
8) I perform the same test as above
9) The charging handle will come forward only ~30% of the way. Looking in the ejection port, you can see the breech face is clearly forward of the bolt catch and is hitting / stuck on the feed lips of the PMag. It will not come forward past the rear of the mag.
10) I simply pull the magazine out and the bolt instantly moves fully into battery, with the magazine out of the way
11) This is process is repeated.


SECOND VIDEO - this one is 183 MB

https://www.icloud.com/attachment/?u...V&sz=192706412

1) The above demonstration of the PMag malfunction is performed on an additional 4 PMags in a row.


WHAT I DO NOT SHOW

1) Of my 16 PMags, I only show the problem with 5 total. It would have taken so long to show all 16 doing the same thing - and the file size would have been enormous - that I figured if you see it happening with 5 of them, you can just trust me that all 16 of them do the same thing.

2) I cannot make a video proving that the PMag will not insert on a closed bolt. I could certainly make a video in which I claim to show this. But people could easily say I was "faking" trying to push it in hard. But trust me that it's impossible. The fact that the bolt gets stuck on the magazine in Videos 1 and 2 above shouldn't make this problem that hard to believe, since it would naturally follow from that problem.

3) As I stated in my original post, if you "slap" the charging handle down and let it come forward full-force, it hits the PMag, drags across it in a clearly slowed fashion, but does make it all the way forward. It's more something that you can feel + see, rather than just see on a video.

4) I decided to test feeding / extraction with live rounds in my home. I "slapped" the charging handle each time to maximize its momentum prior to hitting the feed lips. 4 of 4 rounds tested were chambered, and all extracted properly (when I manually pulled the charging handle back). But the gun is lubed and perfectly clean.

-- My question again is, what happens when the lube level is lower and/or the gun is dirty. Even with a CZ mag in, if you ride the charging handle forward at all (= the bolt doesn't slam forward), the extractor will NOT capture the casing rim. So given that the PMag obviously slows the bolt down by getting hit and dragging across the bolt bottom, and when things move slower with less lube or fouling present, you could potentuially lose just enough of that bolt "slam" that it's like the charging handle is being ridden. Then you get FTEs / FTFs / double-feeds.

-- Or when the gun and feed lips are dirty, maybe the bolt stops being able to clear the PMag at all, and just gets trapped on the mag like in my videos, even during normal cycling. Plus, the top round being stripped is going to further resist the forward movement of the bolt, compared to my empty mag demonstrations.

-- At minimum, even if the gun never malfunctions, you're going to wear the crap out of the feed lips, and they could break just by getting filed down enough by the bolt over time. Or maybe that filing makes things better over time. Or maybe it makes the mags better, but some polymer shaving filed off gets somewhere nasty in your gun and turns it into a Very-hard-to-fix club. I don't want my Scorpions to be guinea pigs for this.


5) I have no video / audio recording of my phone call with Magpul tech support, in which I said my problem with 2 of 2 guns was no freak accident or getting that unlucky, and he responded that none of the 3 total Scorpions they had used during testing had had any problems (and they had fired many thousands of rounds through those 3 Scorpions). My immediate response was something like "Are you joking? How could anyone think that 3 weapons is sufficient to develop a magazine for a weapon for which you don't have the specs? You would have needed 50-100 minimum to do it properly." To which he basically replied with a professional version of "whatever". At no time did he correct me and say "what are you talking about - we didn't use only 3 Scorpions" which is what any rational person would have done if I'd crazily misunderstood him on this.


Can someone please let me know if the links work? They do for me, but I did it from my own email on my own computer, so I'm not sure how that works if I'm posting a link on this forum, vs. emailing someone a link sent by Apple.


Also, I've emailed Duane at Magpul the links to these 2 videos, so there should be no doubt at Magpul that this is a problem that the factory mags do not share. Whether they care is a different question. I will pass along whether he responds.


And if anyone who downloads them wants to post them on YouTube or something, you have my permission. I have no idea how to do that.

[Naphtali]

Dude wrote a book about the mags not working properly yet couldn’t get a name of the person on a phone call?

I had no reason to suspect he was doing anything wrong, or was in any way incorrect, during our phone call. I had a problem with Magpul's mags, not with him. The first time I had any reason to suspect there was a problem with him was when Duane at Magpul basically said (3 days after this call) that their people would never say something like that. Except this guy said at least twice that they used 3 Scorpions for testing. And he didn't correct me when I repeated it and criticized it heavily.

To have known during my call that I would need his name for this crazy turn of events that happened 3 days later, I would have needed a crystal ball.

And I made the call after work while driving home, when I try to do other things to maximize my free time during the work week, so I wasn't writing anything down.

[Naphtali]

And as an aside, if you look at both Scorpions in the first Video, you can see they have installed:

1) The Magpul MOE vertical grip - love it
2) The Magpul magazine release - love it
3) The Magpul grip - minor upgrade vs. OEM

As I said, I really like and use a whole bunch of Magpul products on every long gun I own (much more than this on my ARs). I'm not here to slander them. I'm helping Duane put his kids through college, whether he's thought about this or not. Their PMags just have a 100% failure to function properly rate in my Scorpions. People should know and watch out for this. And Magpul should investigate and redesign the PMag where the bolt doesn't hit it (and presumably file it down) with every cycle - just like OEM mags. And allow it to insert reliably on a closed bolt.

[SPQR476]

Duane,

If you could do me a favor, it would be appreciated. One of your technical support people spoke with me this week regarding my purchase of 16 Scorpion PMags that would not fit properly in multiple Scorpions. He took my contact information (including my email address - you are welcome to email me directly about this if you wish). At the end he said I should return all 16 mags to Brownell's, after I offered to let Magpul inspect them (so long as I got a refund somehow. He said he could only give store credit with Magpul, which I don't need).

I'm sure he'd remember, as this would have been a highly unusual conversation for him. If you could ask him whether he told me that Magpul had used only 3 Scorpions to develop the PMag, and I responded by saying (among other things) that you should have used 50-100, that would be appreciated. If Magpul records its calls, you can listen to our 5 minute conversation yourself.

If you could then make a post confirming that this is what I was told by him, that would be great. I'm not saying he was correct - in fact I have no way to verify anything he said. I assumed he was being truthful. But if you confirm my conversation with him, and then correct him if he was in error about this, then you would be doing both me and the community a favor by setting the record straight on several levels.

I don't want to hurt Magpul's reputation unfairly, but if your employees' are giving out bad information that makes Magpul look bad (e.g. using only 3 total Scorpions to develop the PMag), and your customers then pass along that information to the community at large, on the assumption that it is true, in an attempt to be helpful and warn others about a poorly designed / defective product, then your reputation is being unfairly hurt by your employees giving out that bad information

I obviously cannot apologize for information provided to me by Magpul's technical support, even if it is wrong. He said three Scorpions only, so I passed along three Scorpions only. If that's wrong, it's on Magpul.

Regardless of how many Scorpions were used in development, the more relevant problem is that I have 2 of 2 Scorpions that are incompatible with your PMag. The odds are overwhelming that I don't have the only 2 guns in the world like this, meaning it is virtually certain that others are similarly affected, but have not bought your just-released PMag yet.

So, my offer to him still stands with you. I was planning on returning the magazines this weekend, but I'll sit on them another week while I await a potential response from you. If you'd like to examine the magazines, and/or if you have a rep in my area (and you'd give a refund if I hang onto them longer than Brownell's return period), then I would happily allow your rep to inspect the magazines as well as my Scorpions in which they will not fit. A class III dealer with whom I've done much business (and sold me both Scorpions) has the largest gun store in my city, and his store would be a perfect initial setting in which Magpul can investigate this issue directly, should you wish to inspect the firearms alongside the magazines.


EDIT -- Duane, I just noticed your email address at the bottom of your post. I've sent you an email with my personal contact information, if you'd like to figure out a way for Magpul to examine the problem directly.

Well, I may eat some crow here, and if it works out that way, I apologize. I’m told that after initial investigation, it is a possibility that some serial numbers prior to a mold change in the scorpion receiver halves on a certain cavity may not have been included in the data or test samples on either side. We are working with CZ to determine if that’s the case. The numbers were supposedly small enough and the change slight enough that it wasn’t in the sample. That’s what I’m told as the initial possibility, but I will get an accurate answer.

The encounter with CS is what made me discount your posts—there is no one on the phone in CS that would be the “most knowledgeable person about the scorpion program” and if someone said that, and gave you the answers they did, I will get to the bottom of it. I will look for your email.

I can assure you there were more than 3 scorpions. That’s a ludicrous assertion for someone on our team to make, and why I doubted your claims. I can assure you that we had representation from every generation and variant that we could lay hands on, and as I said, CZ also tested.






Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Naphtali]

Well, I may eat some crow here, and if it works out that way, I apologize. I’m told that after initial investigation, it is a possibility that some serial numbers prior to a mold change in the scorpion receiver halves on a certain cavity may not have been included in the data or test samples on either side. We are working with CZ to determine if that’s the case. The numbers were supposedly small enough and the change slight enough that it wasn’t in the sample. That’s what I’m told as the initial possibility, but I will get an accurate answer.

The encounter with CS is what made me discount your posts—there is no one on the phone in CS that would be the “most knowledgeable person about the scorpion program” and if someone said that, and gave you the answers they did, I will get to the bottom of it. I will look for your email.

I can assure you there were more than 3 scorpions. That’s a ludicrous assertion for someone on our team to make, and why I doubted your claims. I can assure you that we had representation from every generation and variant that we could lay hands on, and as I said, CZ also tested.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Duane - I received an error message (below) from GMail when using the email address in your post ( info@magpulcore.com ), and I've double-checked that it's entered correctly / no typos. I can't put my actual email address on a public forum, but I made a GMail account just for this one event - if you email me at:

m4discussion@GMail.com

then I can reply with my actual contact info. I've posted a lot of info since, so you may have what you need already from me.


Separately, I don't know what to say other than the conversation was what it was... after his greeting, I said "Could I speak with whoever is there who is most knowledgeable about a problem I'm having with your new Scorpion PMags" and he replied "That would be me". All other discussion was also as I described. I'm stupified why someone would counter my issue by saying your "3 Scorpions" worked perfectly with thousands of rounds / many magazines, when (A) that number is apparently very false, and (B) the correct number would have been a far more effective response anyway.

Also my next post below will be pics of the feed lips being filed down by the bolt, and an update on how that is affecting the function.


-----------------------------------------------------

Mail Delivery Subsystem <mailer-daemon@googlemail.com>

10:03 PM (26 minutes ago)

to me


Delivery incomplete

There was a temporary problem delivering your message to info@magpulcore.com. Gmail will retry for 47 more hours. You'll be notified if the delivery fails permanently.


The response from the remote server was:

451 Could not load DRD for domain (magpulcore.com) rcpt (info@magpulcore.com)

[Naphtali]

See pic below in reference to the info in this post.

IMG_1391b.jpg

I've manually cycled 2 magazines over and over with snap caps to see whether the magazines will function better with wear. Loaded 30 snap caps, emptied the mags by manually cycling one round at a time, and then checked the function. The pic was taken at ~130 total cycles on one of the mags. The data is:

1) Somewhere between 70 to 100 cycles, both magazines became possible to insert with the bolt closed. It's about as difficult now as loading a fully-loaded AR PMag into a rifle on a closed bolt.

2) Somewhere between 100 to 130 cycles, it became impossible to trap the bolt on both mags, on its way forward. It's still rubbing on the bolt / you can feel the friction on the mag with forward travel, but you can't make the bolt completely stop on the mag any more.



A few notes:

-- Virtually all the wear is on the right feed lip only, and it's primarily at the rear.

-- I can't see any thinning there with the naked eye (looking at it from the side), so I'd estimate the feed lip there has lost less than 5% of its original thickness

[Naphtali]

This might be my final update / summary post in this thread unless anyone has any specific questions. I'm also curious if the video links worked for others, and if so, if anyone knows how to post vids directly in the forum (or if they have to be YouTube links or something). The links expire after 30 days.


Magpul contacted me outside this forum to discuss the issues further and for additional information. They seem to be genuinely eager to investigate in cooperation with CZ. I want to thank them / Duane for being courteous throughout, and seeming to really care about the quality of their products.


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Regarding the technical support telephone call that seems to have been impossible, yet happened, here is the only theory that makes sense, based on additional info from Magpul.

Magpul says the following 3 things, and I have no doubt they are true:

1) They used a very large number of Scorpions in development of the magazine
2) Duane thinks there were 3 Scorpions, which were from different eras / different configurations, that were used in the Endurance phase of testing (mags were tested to 7,000 rds each in these 3 Scorpions)
3) The tech support person would have known all of the above

Because #2 above fit the leading theory even before we knew #2 was true, I'll suggest this is the only reasonable explanation (the crux of which is speculation by NON-Magpul people outside the forum):

-- Early in the call, I said that my Scorpions having the same problem to different degrees meant that more must be similarly affected.

-- The rep responded that they had extensively tested their mags in 3 Scorpions during development (as a sort of a rebuttal that if there were a problem, the endurance testing would have found it - though he did not explain this)

-- Because that's all he said, I understood him to mean that they had used only 3 Scorpions period

-- I immediately pounced on the guy, maybe more than I should have, saying basically it was negligent to have used only 3 Scorpions in development, for a variety of reasons

-- For whatever reason, he did not correct my obvious misunderstanding of his earlier statement. Maybe he was in a hurry / didn't feel like debating / felt insulted / was annoyed at a layperson telling Magpul how to do its job

-- He just moved on to taking contact info and "You can return your mags to Brownell's."

[Wake27]

Yeah that definitely makes more sense. Glad they're working with you on it.

[Naphtali]

I received an extremely nice and thorough communication from Duane at Magpul this afternoon with technical information that I wanted to post here.

First though, he was able to listen to the original technical support telephone call. I think his assessment of myself and the technician was very fair and honest. There were honest misunderstandings on both sides, where no one was trying to do anything wrong. It's clear that maintaining Magpul's excellent customer service is a top priority for him.

My grade of Magpul's response here is an A+. I think very few companies (especially large companies) would care to this extent. One thing that I can't prove to forum skeptics, but will say b/c it's true, is this - they have not in any way asked / enticed me to say anything about them or speak nicely on their behalf. This is just an honest review of how they've responded to my issue.

Here is the purely technical portion of the feedback from him, which may be valuable to the community. As this is relevant below, my Scorpions have the Magpul magazine catch installed. Also the bottom-line from my perspective is this - my Scorpion in the video (with the major issues) may be either out of spec, or an extremely rare perfect storm of extremes of tolerances.


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Thanks for reaching out. The early revision was a theory from the initial CZ contact that ended up not panning out. They sent over all the remaining TDP information and tolerancing for everything from the earliest Euro guns to current production, and there was nothing there that would be a smoking gun. We and they are continuing to look, From their end, they’re assuming tolerance stacking in a weird way that could be a mashup of carrier, mag catch axle location, receiver shelf, and mag catch, etc. They’re continuing to investigate, but they haven’t been able to replicate with guns on hand. We are continuing on our end as well, of course, but also cannot replicate.


Our magazines are indeed taller from mag catch to feed lips, and that is intentional. It aids in presentation height and also allows more material in the feed lips. Our mag catch is also .005” taller than the factory mag catch. This is also intentional, to improve feeding stability with factory mags and optimize it with ours, and it does so. The combination of these geometry changes significantly improves the total reliability numbers in large volume testing. I understand you haven’t had stoppages with your guns at all, but when the numbers get extremely high they do occur across significant sample sizes of platforms and voluminous round counts. We always seek to maximize the mean rounds between stoppages as best we can.


In the numerous samples (plus even more guns used in just fitment) used in testing on our end alone, from all eras and serial number ranges as well as configurations, there has been no issue with insertion and function even with the combination of the higher mag catch and the changed mag dimensions. We do have a sample that is within a few hundred guns of the serial number in the video, and the issue isn’t present in that one, either. There is also no issue and plenty of clearance in the TDP dimensions, even with including worst case tolerancing. But…you are quite obviously seeing a real issue, as evidenced by the videos. On the two guns with minor contact, that will not be an issue if it is not hanging the carrier up. The decreased resistance to the feed stroke due to the improved, more straight-in geometry will offset any minor drag. We did validate this during magazine bias testing, as even with factory mags, it is possible to get carrier contact by biasing the magazines, so we tested those scenarios. None interfered to the extent your one EVO did, though. All 3 could probably be corrected quickly, per below.


If it is indeed a tolerance stacking issue at the limits of the spectrum that slipped through, it’s being exacerbated by the mag catch height for sure. Other fitment issue calls we have had so far appear to have dealt with gear head works mag catches, which are around .010” or more higher than the factory catch, or with loading 36 rounds, but we’re keeping an eye out for more. In the guns you have, a file stroke off the top of the mag catch should get you back to factory mag catch height, and solve the clearance issues, but I understand if that’s not a solution you are interested in pursuing. You could swap out the factory mag catches just to confirm to see if this change would indeed correct the issue for you.


For a point of reference on numbers, we exceed the typical sample sizes used for all military reliability, compatibility, and endurance testing protocols, and test in accordance with TOP 03-02-045 and NATO D14, without exception, so any commentary otherwise is from someone who is incorrect, or is stating it incorrectly, in any case.


Thanks for your understanding, and we will continue to investigate. If you don’t mind, someone from engineering or product management may reach out at some point with additional questions.