Well, what is the biggest thing that most shooters usually converse about its pretty much ammunition right. Well I've been busy reading and doing research on the new things coming out for weapons. While I'm proud to write about the new magazines being developed and marketed by Surefire. Apparently they've created two new magazines one being a 60 round magazine called the MAG5 – 60 (Figure 1 - 2),

Figure - 1	Figure - 2

and the impressive 100 round magazine called the MAG5 – 100 (Figure 3 - 4).

Figure - 3	Figure - 4

     These magazines are in my expert opinion what high-capacity magazines should be. Now you're probably wondering what I mean by these magazines being the best while look at the practical sense. The average soldier has to carry 210 rounds into combat with him or her. But with these magazines a guy removes the effect of having to carry multiple magazines to something a lot more manageable. Think about ladies and gentlemen our service members have to go to combat with about seven magazines usually more because I'm speaking from experience with my tour's in Iraq and Afghanistan where I would normally have carried twice that because of the amount of ambushes that you would normally be involved in. Now I'm not saying that it's like this everywhere but you have to understand when it comes to defending yourself do you want to be the one that reloads first or not needing to.

     A standard magazine size for an M4 or an AK-47 is about 30 rounds the enemy understands this they know that after 30 shots is going to be a break in the firing which is about enough time for them to pick up moved to a new location and catch you when you're not looking. The average magazine weighs about 1.1 pounds full empty it's about 0.3 pounds this doesn't seem like a lot does it. But like before put it in a practical sense each time you replace an empty magazine with a full one about you eat up about 1 to 3 seconds that the enemy can use against you. With these new magazines from Surefire you remove the need to replace the magazine with constant fire which means a more psychological effect because your enemy will not know whether or not you are ever going to stop shooting which is always a good thing. Now just because I am praising these magazines over the others does not mean I didn't look up the other ones and evaluate them as well. The very first high-capacity magazine that I ended up going straight towards was the Beta C-Mag (Figure 5 -6).

Figure - 5	Figure - 6

    The C-Mag is what we in the military like to call the "snail mag". The reason we call it that was based on the design of the magazine that if you look in the back of a magazine where it's clear you'll notice it's curled like a snail shell. Now this magazine carried 100 rounds, was a drum type magazine, fully loaded it weighed an eye-popping 4.9 pounds which is just too much for any soldier to carry with them into combat. Due to the fact that the rifle would be so bottom heavy you are more likely to shoot from the hip then shot from the sights reducing the accuracy to merely using Kentucky windage to make your shots. But that wasn't the only issue people had to contend with when dealing with the Beta Mags. You also have to grease the spring in order for it to continue to be useful and not jam up win in use. Making this magazine very unreliable especially if it's used in the Middle East. Over the years we've seen the up-and-coming polymer mags otherwise known as P-Mags (Figure 7) take over the market.

     These magazines were designed to replace the standard magazines that soldiers and law enforcement professionals have been using since the early 19th century when we started using aluminum magazines instead of hand loading our ammunition one at a time into our rifles. These magazines look great and they may be light to a point but they still did not deal with the issue of reducing the amount of reloads needed when you're in a firefight. This is why I believe the Surefire magazines outdo any other magazine on the market. They do not add increased weight to the rifle, you can continue to remain on target using your sights, and you're less likely to have to reload. So in my opinion I believe the Surefire high-capacity magazines are the best in the industry so far.

• < Prev
• Next >