by MarkCO » Fri Oct 26, 2012 10:59 am
Pending getting the black followers that WC is working on, I tried most of the mods mentioned on here using metal and polymer mags.
To me, the easiest is a Lancer magazine with a modified blue follower. Much like the SIG mag mods Jim did above, it needs a bit of trimming. I also put a little crescent rounding on the front of the mag body. A quick pass with the dremel had me to 11 rounds and 100% function. I saw no reason to tweak the feedlips.
Second was modification of the Lancer follower by cutting off the blank and putting a slight dish in the middle. Still had to make a slight crescent in the front of the mag body. Took a bit more time, but it got me to 12 rounds in about 10 minutes.
Third, I clipped one coil off the Lancer spring and ground down the stop post on the front of the locking plate. This got me to 13 rounds, still reliable bolt hold open.
I tried P-Mags like the second iteration of the Lancers with no joy. Just too much work for one more round. I also tried metal 40 round C-Prodcuts mags. While I got to 16 rounds, I had to round the feedlips and then fold them in a tweak them for function. I did also try a custom made metal 55 round .223 mag and got to 24 rounds, but it is a baseprice mag of about $125 and it had to be significiantly modified.
For me, the best overall mag solution ended up being the modified bue followers in the Lancer magazines. This leaves the magazines useful for other calibers if need be and was pretty simple. The feedlips are steel, and not shapr so they don't cut the cases either.