Just a follow up - but I switched over to the Vltor A5 buffer system, and preliminary results are showing no malfunctions with new, or old, style Cproduct mags. More testing to come :-)

C'mon Tapco !!!

We need better 5.45 AR mags, you can make this happen.

Put it back in front Do it !!!

Quite frankly if TAPCO thinks that a "next Gen" Mini-14 magazine is more worth their time than selling reliable 5.45 M4 mags, someone in charge of product development has rocks in their head. I bought a dozen c-Products mags. They sucked. Sent them all back, got 12 more. SSDD.

So, I have 4 of them that I have numbered to try and track if any of them is any better than the others. Nope.

When I get home next rotation I am gonna try chopping the anti-tilt spur off of one of them and see if that helps. Swapping out the H1 buffer for an H2 cut down the rate of bolt over base stoppages, but did not eliminate them. I'm thinking H3 buffer with a full auto carrier to maximize weight.

See, although the angle of the rounds may be wrong (and I believe it is) bolt over base means

1) weak mag springs not getting the next round up fast enough
and/or
2) Over gassed system has too much power, lip of bolt face has so much velocity that it's capable of pushing the round down against that weak mag spring so it can skip over the base of the cartridge.

Cut down the power by adding weight, but need stronger mag springs as well. A good follower would help. I don''t think we need new mags, just new followers and springs. I'd be interested to see how retrofitting my S&W upper with a gas piston would affect things. For sure it would run cleaner, keep all that nasty Russian surplus ammo corrosiveness out of most of the gun.....

Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!



The 5.45mm mag on the left is brand new and jams from the right-side feedlip. Center is a good G.I. type 5.56mm magazine. Right is a 5.45mm that I modified the feedlips of, and has been working properly throught several full loads.

Rounds are presented at the wrong angle, and the bolt may jam the tip of the bullet into the top of the barrel extension, especially when loaded with more than 15 rounds. I think the reason the round count matters is because they used the same magazine body curvature as for the 5.56mm round, even though 5.45mm ammo has a tapered case, and 5.56mm is straight. Sometimes the left-side feedlip is not great either, but there always seems to be issues with the right-side feedlip. I've got a couple that I can't seem to entirely fix to feed properly 100%.

The magazine springs are also short, and maybe too weak to work reliably with extended bolt catches like Magpul BAD and Phase 5 EBRV2, and there's really no way to fix that without scavenging AK-74 mags or making your own springs. . . or ditching the extended bolt catch.

I've yet to encounter a C-Products or ASC magazine that doesn't have these problems.

The rib isn't the problem - it's that the QC at CProducts is so piss poor they couldn't catch blatantly mis-shaped feed lips, and never took the time to go on the factory floor to do random samples of lot runs. I can almost guarantee they put out good mags, and something went wrong (such as a bolt loosened) on their dies, and they just kept cranking out mags.

I am in for 25 mags if Tapco comes through.

This thread is over 2 years old and no mags from Tapco. Had I seen this thread I wouldn't have bought my spikes upper.
Can't find a mag for this anywhere, wonder if I can stick a few rounds in a 223 AR mag and use it like that. Otherwise it is a pretty doorstop.
Ak 74 runs like a top with tapco and proMag mags.

Yup, I got a S&W 5.45 upper - and TWO (TWO!) magazines for it. Depressing.