Steel/stainless steel mags: Faster wear to aluminum parts of AR15?

[Honest Abe]

Speedy recovery on your case of COVID!!!!!!!

[wanderson]

2nd reply summed it up nicely.
If a steel bcg cycling in an aluminum upper doesn't cause wear issues, no steel mag will cause wear issues inside the magwell.
FWIW I run a mix of steel, aluminum & polymer mags. Most of the steel mags are painted or anodized. None of them seem to show any wear except for a few right around the mag catch cutout.
If there's not enough wear for the aluminum magwell to put a dent in a painted/anodized finish then there's no serious steel to aluminum contact going on.

[shadowspirit]

No OP, that is a completely idiotic assessment that person made.

Only reasons I see not to use them is greater weight, and likely higher price.

Bingo. Put 3 of those suckers in an old Deuce Gear pouch, and WOW! The weight really becomes real.

I'm going to admit to being a polymer mag whore for many years. And they certainly have their place. But these last few years I have been buying only Duramag stainless or aluminum depending on which is on sale. The weight difference is real. Holy crap. 3 or 4 on a chest rig running a CGB stage and you notice it. Then again, step on an aluminum mag that you dropped and step on a steel one. The aluminum one may not fair as well.

I'd imagine the weight difference between typical steel mags and aluminum or polymer makes a difference. OTOH, I'm a bit surprised by what Dutch said. C-Products/Duramag claims their stainless steel mags are a little heavier than their aluminum (or something to that effect) but are substantially stronger than aluminum mags.

I have several steel Korean mags somewhere in the house that I picked up on sale. I haven't tried them yet. It also never occurred to me to load up a few or several and compare the weight to a few or several loaded aluminum mags.

If I grab some more non polymer or aluminum mags, it'll be the stainless Duramag ones. I know C-Products had a bad rep in the past but I've read good things about their latest offerings.

[shadowspirit]

Damn. This is ARFcom subject matter from 2005!

I think that is where I got it from. LOL.

[DoubleW]

I guess another way to look at this is I use steel mags in my HK45 and have noticed zero excessive wear compared to my Glock mag well’s which see polymer on polymer. And I am not gentle on them. So I certainly wouldn’t expect a steel AR mag to cause excessive wear on an AR lower.

[Dutch110]

If I grab some more non polymer or aluminum mags, it'll be the stainless Duramag ones. I know C-Products had a bad rep in the past but I've read good things about their latest offerings.

They are coming out with their aluminum mags with polymer base pads from a post recently on X. They said they will also sell the base pads separately. I think Duramag bought out C-Products IIRC.

[shadowspirit]

They are coming out with their aluminum mags with polymer base pads from a post recently on X. They said they will also sell the base pads separately. I think Duramag bought out C-Products IIRC.

I wonder why polymer for a base pad.

[SteyrAUG]

I wonder why polymer for a base pad.

My guess would be a little more durable when dropping mags on a hard surface.