SA Friday
07-12-2016, 10:20
So we regularly buy and test stuff at Bowers, especially things like AR and Glock mags. These are fairly new to the market, and we picked up one of each to play with and figure out if it's something we want to carry at the shop.
This is the AR mag we tested:
http://www.etsgroup.us/ETS-Group-AR15-Magazine-30-Round-p/ar15-30.htm
This is the Glock mag we tested:
http://www.etsgroup.us/ETS-Group-Translucent-Glock-17-mag-p/glk-17.htm
The gist was they both held together better than we expected. The clear smoked polymer feels like it would fail upon initial review, but took quite a bit of intentional abuse without cracking. The AR top cover is jankey as hell with very fragile tabs n the back. The Glock mag floorplate liked to spread out over the locking tabs when reassembled and pop out of the tracks. The clear plastic is really the best and only selling point of the mags. Instant visual ID how many round are in it is nice, but not so nice to overcome it's biggest shortfall. The spring in both are awful. After fully loading the mags only one time, it was clearly obvious the springs were not as strong. Seeing a spring take a set almost instantly is concerning. For that reason and the simple fact there are just as cheap products already available on the market, we don't recommend these mags.
This is the AR mag we tested:
http://www.etsgroup.us/ETS-Group-AR15-Magazine-30-Round-p/ar15-30.htm
This is the Glock mag we tested:
http://www.etsgroup.us/ETS-Group-Translucent-Glock-17-mag-p/glk-17.htm
The gist was they both held together better than we expected. The clear smoked polymer feels like it would fail upon initial review, but took quite a bit of intentional abuse without cracking. The AR top cover is jankey as hell with very fragile tabs n the back. The Glock mag floorplate liked to spread out over the locking tabs when reassembled and pop out of the tracks. The clear plastic is really the best and only selling point of the mags. Instant visual ID how many round are in it is nice, but not so nice to overcome it's biggest shortfall. The spring in both are awful. After fully loading the mags only one time, it was clearly obvious the springs were not as strong. Seeing a spring take a set almost instantly is concerning. For that reason and the simple fact there are just as cheap products already available on the market, we don't recommend these mags.