Questions about M855A1

[3ACR_Scout]

3. What is the opinion on this forum of the enhanced performance magazine? Is it really more reliable like the Army says, or complete crap like the Marines say? Or is it no better or worse than previous USGI pattern mags?

I would call them no better or really worse than the previous tan follower mag, but just optimized for M855A1 by adjusting the feed angle to present the round slightly higher as it enters the chamber. I don’t recall anyone experiencing any issues with them in my last unit, but Army testing are Aberdeen apparently showed them to be a little less reliable than the tan follower mag. I would caveat that by saying that the vast, vast majority of EPMs currently in service were made by Center, and I’ve never thought their quality control was as good as Okay, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see an occasional issue related to how the mag was assembled and finished, not because of the design itself.

4. Re the EPMs, is OKAY still making them, or is Center Industries now the only supplier? I can only find Center Industries EPMs for sale, and would obviously prefer OKAY.

Center was the original manufacturer of the EPM and until recently held the sole contract to produce them for the military. As I alluded to above, I haven’t been too impressed with the quality of Center’s EPM (mostly just subjective visual observation), and I learned recently that Okay is now producing EPMs (within the last year). I haven’t seen any myself, but an Okay rep asked me if I had seen any of theirs in circulation, and I heard from a member on another forum that he has seen them in a Marine Corps unit. I’d like to get hold of one to see how the compare to the Center version, but I’m not in a line unit anymore.

5. Despite being fugly as hell, is it correct to say that the Surefeed E2 is basically a civilian version of the EPM? Better than the EPM? Or am I comparing apples and oranges?

The Okay E2 is not a civilian version of the EPM. From my email conversation with an Okay rep, the E2 is designed to allow the rounds to strip off the top with less resistance (friction) to allow for more reliable feeding. This is done with a combination of the follower design and the cut back feed lips. However, he said that an unintended result of the design is that the cut back feedlips allow the rounds to angle upward sooner (at a point where the full feedlips of a standard GI mag would still be holding the round in a horizontal position). This may allow M855A1 to feed up the ramp with less resistance, but that was not the intent of the E2 design, because it was designed for civilian use, and Okay doesn’t expect civilians to have regular access to M855A1.