Beta C-Mags

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by Mahatatain

Tegyrius - sorry, I'm confused. What do you mean?

Thanks.

The follower doesn't push the last few round up to the action for the bolt to snag them and feed them into the chamber.

A top feeding MG like the Bren would mean the rounds are pushed downward and despite the follower, gravity would bring the rounds into position at the breech.

[Mahatatain]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

The follower doesn't push the last few round up to the action for the bolt to snag them and feed them into the chamber.

A top feeding MG like the Bren would mean the rounds are pushed downward and despite the follower, gravity would bring the rounds into position at the breech.

Ah - that makes sense. Thanks for explaining.

[BigEd_3]

No longer have my old email account (and I moved) so I re-registered.

It started a long time ago but with RPD mags.

"The SEALs also would take RPD drums that were captured and cobble together mounts in the field to use them on the Stoner."

Link here:
http://home.comcast.net/~sfischer397/stoner/feed.htm

Armorers in vietnam would also fabricate AK mags that fit M16's. The franken-mag would hold more ammo, and were used by the Point Man. The logic behind a larger magazine capacity would be reaction by a higher than normal volume of fire when spotted or ambushed. The one magazine was used, then use of normal capacity used thereafter.

Pics of the mags are rare, but there are a half dozen pictures floating on the web...

http://img90.imageshack.us/img90/6707/akm1611.jpg

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...fkinw84iIcbaqE

http://s171.photobucket.com/albums/u...RVNofficer.jpg

http://www.hunt101.com/data/500/23482925vy8.jpg

[HorseSoldier]

That hybrid mag set-up is interesting. The only picture I've ever seen of one was in a power point slide for some training the USAF was the proponent agency for. Everyone in the room, myself included, thought it was a staged photo involving an airman who did not know better (though none of us could explain how to get an AK mag into an AR mag well. Now I'm inclined to believe it was one of the VN-era mags shown in the photos.

Learn something new everyday.

[Raellus]

Wow. I've seen literally thousands of photos from Vietnam and don't recall ever seeing one of those mags. Thanks for posting them.

[HorseSoldier]

I wonder how well they worked. If it was a successful idea, I'd think that someone would have made them for the civilian AR market at some point, but the only AK/AR hybrid mags I've seen there were specifically for 7.62x39 caliber ARs (a design with some fairly notorious reliability issues, but as I understand it that is more about trying to get the geometry of 7.62x39 rounds through the AR-15 magwell than the magazines themselves).

[BigEd_3]

I can only speculate on the how successful the franken mags were. The mags MAY have had an influence (but I am leaning more towards doubt) to the US adopting the use of 30 rounds mags later in the war.