Confirming what we already knew: Brownell's and NHMTG good to go, C-Products Defense, not so much...

My Brownells USI 30 round Mags x 20 with ranger plates and MP followers arrived today.  They are uglier than snot.  Welds are good, mag is tight, but it looks like someone sprayed them with a thick coat of dull grey spray paint.  Anyways, I first took 10 random mags out of their bags and loaded them with 30 rounds of M855 each.  Then, I took the other 10 and took off the Ranger Plates.  I then took my 10, new-in-package C-Products Defense Stainless Steel mags, took their baseplates off, and installed Ranger Plates on them. I also had 3 well-used Colt/NHMTG with Ranger Plates that were included in this mini-test. The mags were then tested as follows.

Stage 1: Side impact tests. Each mag was dropped 5 times each on its left and right sides, from a height of 5 feet, shoulder height for the average 5' 8" US adult male, onto the concrete sidewalk in front of my house.  Mags were then inspected for damage, and manually unloaded.  If no significant damage was noted, the mags were then cleared to proceed to Stage 2, described below.  Significant damage was determined to mean any dents that caused the follower to hang up or baseplate disassembly from the drop.  

Stage 2:  Baseplate impact tests.  Side impact tests. Each mag was dropped 5 times each, with baseplate pointing downward, from a height of 5 feet, shoulder height for the average 5' 8" US adult male, onto the concrete sidewalk in front of my house.  Mags were then inspected for damage, and manually unloaded.  If no significant damage was noted, the mags were then cleared to proceed to Stage 3, described below.  Significant damage was determined to mean any dents that caused the follower to hang up, weld failures, or baseplate disassembly from the drop.  

Stage 3:  Feedlip impact tests. Side impact tests. Each mag was dropped 5 times each, with feedlips facing downward, from a height of 5 feet, shoulder height for the average 5' 8" US adult male, onto the concrete sidewalk in front of my house.  Mags were then inspected for damage, and manually unloaded.  If no significant damage was noted, the mags were then cleared to proceed to Stage 2, described below.  Significant damage was determined to mean any dents that caused the follower to hang up or baseplate disassembly from the drop.  

The results were telling.  In stage 1, all 10 of the Brownell's mags passed with flying colors.  During the 100 total drops, 10 each for 10 mags, a total of 26 rounds were sprung from the mags.  Several drops had one round spring loose, some had no rounds come loose, and a few had 2 rounds released.  No failures of the above types were noted.  Magazine bodies did show abrasions from drops, consistent with impacting concrete, but no dents.  The CPD SS mags performed similarly, in total having 30 rounds displaced, and no catastrophic failures or denting.  The NHMTGs also performed well, no dents or failures, and only having 9 rounds sprung from drops.  All 23 mags were cleared for the next stage.

In stage 2, again, all 10 Brownell's passed.  Each drop from each magazine sprung loose one round each, with the final drop on mag 10 losing 3 rounds. No damage to the bodies was sustained, and there were no baseplate failures.  There was no visible damage to the bodies, and the ranger plates looked no worse for the wear. The first and fourth-tenth CPD SS mags performed well, with each losing one round each, with no damage to the bodies or the ranger plates.  However, magazines 3 and 4 had catastrophic failures - the ranger plates blew off, launching the spring and follower, and dumped most of the rounds in the mag; I found one spring about 5 feet from the impact point, but the two followers and the other spring were lost in bushes out front of my house.  The NHMTG mags lost one round each on drops and suffered no failures.  At this point, 21 mags remained: 8 CPD SS, 10 Brownell's and 3 NHMTG.  

During stage 3, the Brownell's mags, with their ugly gray paint job that looks like a 2nd grader did it, performed perfectly.  Each drop caused one round to spring loose.  All Brownell's were inspected, and the feed lips were abraded, and one mag had the feedlips visibly bent. The remaining nine were fine.  The CPD SS mags had no damage to the feedlips, and lost one round each during drops.  The NHMTGs also lost one round each on each drop, but suffered no visible feedlip damage.

In summary, I feel that these mags withstood this punishment, and should be good to go. I am leery that 20% of the tested CPD mags --- given 10 is a small sample --- had baseplate failures.  To me, that indicates poor quality control procedures.  The other 8 mags from CPD will be my plinking/range mags.  The 13 others from Brownells and NHMTG have been loaded to 30 rounds each with MK318 and stored for future use; I did pick one Brownell's to load my HD gun with.    The 13 mags above were also tested for insertion into magwell and tested for ability to drop free when mag release pressed, and no issues were discovered.  

In short, the Brownell's mags, currently going for $127 for 10 with MP follower and Ranger Plates, are an outstanding deal, and should be bought with confidence.  As always, NHMTG is good to go as well.

Thanks for reading, I hope this helped someone somewhere decide on mags.

Nice job but walls of text no matter how detailed tend to not get much attention regardless of the content.

Tl;dr version:

Bought some good mags, bought some shitty mags.  Went outside and threw 'em on the ground.  Good mags are better than the shitty mags.

ROFL

I believe that is dry film lube on top of the finish that gives the brownells their ugly gray paint job.  It is a good thing.

I was comparing my Brownell's to the NHMTGs...it looks like all 20 of the brownells have a gap in the front seam, looks to be about 1/32", can easily slide a piece of paper in and out.  The NHMTGs don't have that gap.  

Is that an issue with the mags???

They drop free and function right?

I very highly doubt it.  I've used Centers for years and they're ugly too.  Brownells mags are good mags since they started making 'em themselves.  If you just bought 'em, (made after August '14) then you have the latest revision which are some the most reliable AR mags ever made.

They're stamped 9-13

Brownells makes 'em.  

Still good mags.  

It's been reported that the Manufacturer of Brownells mags is a company by the name of Co-Line.

It seems it's a similar situation to the sales of Colt mags to the U.S. Military, they have a contract but they don't manufacture the magazines.

As you said awhile back pursuit, maybe I shoiod just use ok/Nhmtg

Whatever you can find the cheapest...

Okay Industries
Colt
NHMTG

Their all the same. Install a Magpul Gen III Follower and a Magpul Ranger L Floorplate and you should have a damn dependable magazine.

Here's what I mean:


NHMTG:  Notice no-gap welding.



Brownells:  Notice the gap along most of the front seam weld:



Don't know if it's an issue or not, but I know I don't like it!  22 of 24 mags had this issue.

It's a box with a spring and follower inside and a baseplate. Don't overthink it.

Seriously, Brownells mags are fine and Brownells guarantees their stuff.

As long as you don't send them back with BFG All Terrain treads on them they'll take care of you.

is that weld going to be an issue??

Hi,

This is a detailed test, but it missed one important variable,  base plate width.  Aluminum magazine base plates width run 0.775" to 0.785", Stainless Steel magazine base plates run 0.825".  The base plates for aluminum USGI magazines are up to 0.05" narrower which makes a big difference.  The difference is due to weaker aluminum needs to be much thicker than the isonited stainless steel, put a Brownell USGI pIate on a Unimag or CPD body and it'lll  be loose and barely stay on,  hit it the wrong way and it'll lauch the smaller plate and spring like a missile. The reason is that the smaller plate will move under stress and knocked  the right way and the narrow plate will not have support from one or more tabs on the base of the magazine.

The Magpul Ranger plates are set up for USGI Aluminum magazines, like the example above though they are far too narrow for Isonited magazines like the Unimag and CPD Inc. SS magazines.  The original Magpul polymer loop carriers do a better job protecting the bottom of both Aluminum and SS magazines.   The test did prove if you put the wrong plate on the bottom of the magazine it will fail, the plate CPD Inc. originally put on would've passed.  Magpul makes a great polymer loop magazine carrier that works well with both stainless steel and aluminum mags. IMHO changing out a component from the manufacturer and substituting one not designed for use with it and then blaming the manufacturer when the switched part not designed for it fails isn't right.

Regards:

The welds on my Center Industries mags look like that. Interested to hear if this is an issue.

The factory Baseplate also popped off of several cpd ss mags when dropped on the deck. Without ranger plates

Hello,

This wasn't mentioned in your test narrative/procedure  I'm confused  what else was left out?  It's hard to make objective comments when the story changes.

Regards

Picatinny Pete-

How are you connected to CPD?  Just curious...

If he is, he wouldn't be the first guy to show up here and shill their products.

Every time someone criticizes CPD he always defends them.  Curious.

Hmm,

Cute bit of Sophistry there completely changing the topic without answering the question,  and the type of question being asked akin to "have you beaten your wife lately?"   Seriously, I didn't challenge or doubt your report about the Ranger Plates popping off, just stated the incompatibility the CPD Inc magazine. with Ranger plates, and offered  the original Magpul alternative.  I've done tests with Ranger plates designed for Aluminum magagines in the past on stainless magazines and have experienced the plate popping phenomema, because of the size disconnect on the plates.    If your post a report  and then start adding information about extra tests after the fact you should be expecting questions.   Not answering a question and changing the topic as the original poster, not good.

A CPD Inc.shill?  Seriously if I was one I wouldn't recommended a Magpul product the original Magpul,  or post on a variety of different topics.  I just happen to think stainless steel  magazines offer advantages over Aluminum.  Properly made a stainless steel magazine can beat the performance of a aluminum magazine, it's an opinion honed by thousands of rounds.  Are USGI Alunimum magazines junk? No today's USGI  aluminum magazines are very good and I trusted my life to them and would still do so today, but there are better magazines today. I typically don't question a persons choice of magazines as each persons needs are different.  Brownell's are fine with me, but steel is better properly done. So when was the drop test without the Ranger plates done as you said that all of the magazines passed the side drop test?

Regards:

The U.S. Military has put MILLIONS of rounds through the standard U.S. G.I. STANAG magazine, a member here 87GN did extensive torture testing of magazines.

His conclusion was steel is NOT the best choice for a combat magazine, other tests have came to the same conclusion.

No doubt.