450 Magazine Options

Talk about the AR15 style rifles chambered in 450 Bushmaster.

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450 Magazine Options

Postby DeanRM » Fri May 20, 2011 9:25 am

I am just heading up Cabela's to pick up my upper that has been on backorder since February. What is the best option for magazines?

I have heard:

- Sig 556 (30rd) - does this work without modification and how many rounds does it hold?
- 30rd GI mag - run a 1/2" ball endmill down the follower? Is the green follower the best and do you need to moify the feed lips or spring?
- What about the Bushmaster followers that they sell, can you just put one of those in a 20rd or 30rd GI mag?
- Magpul?

Thanks!
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Re: 450 Magazine Options

Postby Hoot » Fri May 20, 2011 10:47 pm

DeanRM wrote:I am just heading up Cabela's to pick up my upper that has been on backorder since February. What is the best option for magazines?

I have heard:

- Sig 556 (30rd) - does this work without modification and how many rounds does it hold?
- 30rd GI mag - run a 1/2" ball endmill down the follower? Is the green follower the best and do you need to moify the feed lips or spring?
- What about the Bushmaster followers that they sell, can you just put one of those in a 20rd or 30rd GI mag?
- Magpul?

Thanks!
Dean


I'm a big fan of just putting the bushmaster follower in a stainless steel 20-rounder. You have to relieve the top of the front of the mag a small amount. Kind of a semi-circle drop in the top of the front edge. Quick Dremel job does it. There's a thread around here with pictures. Also, you have to place the mag, lips down on a flat firm surface and press down on it evenly to squeeze the lips a little closer together. It sounds iffy, but it's really not. Bushmaster uppers comes with one factory magazine. Use it as a guide. I modded one AR Stoner SS 20-rounder as a back up magazine for mine using one of those bushmaster followers. It runs as reliably as the actual bushmaster one and it doesn't have that ridiculous tab in it that restricts the magazine capacity. Again, there's a thread around that deals with that as well.

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Re: 450 Magazine Options

Postby Jim in Houston » Sun May 22, 2011 3:31 pm

Hoot wrote:
DeanRM wrote:I'm a big fan of just putting the bushmaster follower in a stainless steel 20-rounder. You have to relieve the top of the front of the mag a small amount. Kind of a semi-circle drop in the top of the front edge. Quick Dremel job does it. There's a thread around here with pictures. Also, you have to place the mag, lips down on a flat firm surface and press down on it evenly to squeeze the lips a little closer together. It sounds iffy, but it's really not.


I could not find any photos on the board, but I did find this description of the magazine modification referenced in the quote in the PMag Thread (I searched for dremel, but 3/8 " radius works better):

    "You'll still need to drop the front of the GI mag about 3/16 inch with a 3/8 radius, using either a Dremel tool or a rat-tail file and you'll need to tonk slightly down the front half of the feed lips."

If you can remember where you saw the photo, that would be appreciated.

Also, are the Sig 556 mags being referenced the polymer ones, which are selling for about $50 a pair?
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Re: 450 Magazine Options

Postby Hoot » Sun May 22, 2011 6:40 pm

Jim, pull up a comfortable chair, a beverage and read This Thread from beginning to end. The whole point of modding the lips is some times, they are too wide and what you're doing by mashing them evenly down upon a hard, flat surface, is bending them together an equal amount until the cartridges don't spew out the top or one jump up as the one before it is being chambered. that's all. It's really not that tough and from my experience, the gun is pretty forgiving of it not being perfect. That thread has useful images throughout. Not all deal with your specific challenge, the they are synergistic toward understanding what all is going on in the magazine.

With the wave of soon to be new owners, I wish Eric would sticky it, or someone with too much time on their hands possibly edit it a magazine FAQ, then have Eric sticky it.

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Re: 450 Magazine Options

Postby commander faschisto » Fri Jun 03, 2011 11:52 pm

Hoot, you weren't kiddin' about the length of that magazine discussion thread! I'll probably have to go back again and read the last half of it over, this time with a little less "beverage" involved. Great information though, for us newbies to the .450, at least what I can remember of it...

NEWS ITEM: My relatively new Bushie 450b 20" (which I'm having thoughts about that I would never tell my mother...) came with yet another version of the BFI factory mag. This one has a black single-shot-style follower, but its not sitting on top of another follower, it is the follower. Seems to work very nicely; mag body made of SS; no change to number of cartridges. I'm not sure if that's the one currently for sale from Bushmaster (website still shows blue snap-in follower), but it is out there somewhere/somehow for those who might be interested. :mrgreen:

(Note to Bushmaster: you need to do some serious scrubbing of your website for accuracy, currency, and photos!)
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Re: 450 Magazine Options

Postby Jim in Houston » Sat Jun 04, 2011 5:54 am

The mags supplied by Bushmaster have only the black follower in the SS mag. The blue follower is an add-on, which can be snapped on top of the regular 5.56 follower in a standard 20 or 30 round mag for the AR15.

This blue follower is sold as a single shot follower for use in competition shooting, where it is desired to load one round at at time. I just came back from the range and did not have much success with two mags I modified with the blue follower. One jammed on round 4 (although to be fair, when I reloaded this same round to fire it again, it failed to eject, so it may not have been the mag); the other follower jammed up in the second mag after inserting five rounds and was basically unusable.

Thanks to another member of this group, who met me at the range, I got a chance to try the Sig polymer mag, and they worked fine with twelve rounds loaded. However, he had replaced the Sig mag follower with black Bushmaster followers, which he needed to "shave" down to account for the thicker walls on the Sig mag. This requires complete disassembly / reassembly of the Sig mag. Before I do that (and after I have gotten a few Sig mags), I am going to shoot them with the Sig followers, thinking that the last round may not feed (the one on top of the 5.56 contour on the follower), and then try the blue followers.
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Re: 450 Magazine Options

Postby commander faschisto » Sat Jun 04, 2011 9:36 am

Excellent info...thanks. BTW, I have a few extra pairs of new Sig mags I picked up from the stores around here for those who don't have reasonable access to retail places...$38.00 incl. mailing box. (We've got four Academys around Oklahoma City now, and they've been stocking Sigs). Anyone interested, PM me.
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Re: 450 Magazine Options

Postby Texas Sheepdawg » Sat Jun 04, 2011 10:53 am

commander faschisto wrote:Excellent info...thanks. BTW, I have a few extra pairs of new Sig mags I picked up from the stores around here for those who don't have reasonable access to retail places...$38.00 incl. mailing box. (We've got four Academys around Oklahoma City now, and they've been stocking Sigs). Anyone interested, PM me.

Check your PM and then shoot me an email.
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Re: 450 Magazine Options

Postby elkbow » Sun Jun 05, 2011 8:46 pm

I think I'm going to experiment with the Lancer L5 Magazines. I just recently setup my 450 and haven't shot it yet, however I have a 458 SOCOM and the Lancer Mags have been flawless with no modifications other than the 1/4 moon on the front of the mags. Understandably the 450 is a different cat, however I plan to modify the Lancer mags to get to work hopefully. I really like the new Lancer L5 AWM mags, I use them in my 223's, 6.8's, 7.62x39, and 458. Only thing I don't use them in is my .308 which I use PMAGs.
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Re: 450 Magazine Options

Postby Jim in Houston » Mon Jun 06, 2011 7:06 am

Academy has the Sig mags for $29.99 for a two-pack, and they are available over the internet (at least in Texas).
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