I bought a Troy magazine to test. It was new in the wrapper, purchased from SWFA, roughly 2 weeks ago.

The rifle I tested it in has literally NEVER malfunctioned (several thousand rounds suppressed and unsuppressed).

I ran 200 rounds through the Troy, using Perfecta and American Eagle .223 ammunition.

I had 4-5 bolt-over-base malfunctions which resulted in very mangled rounds.

This was suppressed with a Surefire 556-212 on a 16.1" DDM4 middy with a Colt action spring (new as of 500 rounds ago), and an "H" buffer.

It was clear that the BCG was out-running the magazine.

FFWD to the next day, when I grabbed a PMAG and went out and shot. I was loading the PMAG when I got to round 22 or 23, and rounds began popping out of the Gen 3 (M3) PMAG. It was then that I realized that I had grabbed one of my destructive-testing magazines. I also recalled that the Magpul rep on here said "If you can cram it into the mag-well, it's gonna work!" Well, I took his words to task.

Guess what? It worked. Not a single bolt-over-base malfunction (or double-feed or any other) in over 100 rounds. I had to cram the magazine into the mag-well while "pinching the top together" when loaded with 30 rounds, but once in, it worked as an unbroken PMAG would have.

Color me impressed.





*Yes, I know the fix is to use an H2 buffer.

       Edited............Please Keep your comments in the Tech forums polite, respectful and business like........dpmmn  

       Edited..........GD type commentary removed..........dpmmn  

Interesting, thanks for posting OP.

As if we needed another reason to not use and hate Troy products.

A friend of mine had a few malfunctions with the perfecta ammo. All failure to extract, bushmaster patrol with different GI mags. He didn't have any malfunctions with any other ammo.

I haven't used my Troy mags in a while but I will load a bunch up and do some mag dumps in the bump fire AR this weekend. It noticeability speeds up as it gets hot. It would be a good way to see if your idea of the spring not keeping up can be reproduced in another rifle.

The only failure I can blame on the ammo was 1 primer did come loose and wedge between the face of the carrier and the barrel extension, preventing lock-up. This is why serious ammo has staked primers, IMO

Looks like Pmag wins again.

Hi,

An interesting post, I enjoyed it.  I  don't really know practical using a broken magazine is though, one moments distraction and you've got a bunch of rounds out.  Perhaps its time to give your old magazine a well earned retirement.

Best Regards:

Interesting. I have five Troy magazines and they have all proven reliable in both a 16" mid-length and a 20" rifle-length with Herter's 55 gr.; and Prvi 55, 62, and 75 gr.

I ran Troy mags for two days and about 1K rounds back in 2011.  I was using a 14.5" Colt, others were using 10.3" suppressed Colts.  It was June in Texas and we were instructed to bash on the mags as hard as we could.

I don't recall any mag trouble.

Several hundred rounds later on new PMAG, no issue at all. No bolt-over-base. I think the shorter springs and the tilt-prone followers in the Troy are to blame, but I'm no engineer. I just know my weapon failed about 2-4 times out of each 100 rounds with the Troy mags, and has literally never failed (except when I was experimenting to failure increasing buffer weight, but never had a bolt-over-base malf. that destroyed ammo like this) previously in thousands of rounds, or after going back to pmag's.

My Troy mags feed and handle well but they often don't lock my bolt to the rear. Instead the bolt comes forward and catches on the follower, sending the bolt home when you rip the mag out.  This is on a BCM 14.5 mid. No biggie, they're range mags now and I got em for $6/ea from Primary Arms last year. My Pmags give me no trouble but I'm partial to GI mags as well.

I use a painted blue Troy mag for classroom demonstrations with dummy ammo. Works perfectly for that .

I had 3 foliage window 30 round Pmags that I used very hard. One developed a crack at the top rear of the body and as you load it, the top of the magazine would widen a bit. I would pinch the top, load it up and then insert it into the magazine well of various rifles (SR16, colts, LaRue, BCM). Thing fed without issue! I then loaded it to 30 rounds and left it loaded for over a year. Took it to the range and it worked flawlessly despite the crack on the back. The other two foliage magazines developed cracks on the feed lips from aggressive reloads. Had the same results, magazines still worked. At one point I removed about half the feed lip from one side and the damn thing still fed. Experiences like this is why myself and other guys who use their rifles professionally for real world problems use Pmags or GI issue magazines (with either tan followers or Magpul followers.)  

Bottom line is that Magpul magazines work. If you do manage to damage one or get a bad one, thier CS is fantastic and you get replacements with no muss and no fuss. Haters gonna hate , but Magpul is awesome.

I belive that yes, I had a similar bolt lock issue, as well. I just didn't think too much about it.