How good are the Croatian  BHO AK mags hitting the market right now? Any thoughts?

I did a short review in another thread about these. They are beautiful in fit and finish and worked well I. A variety of AKs I tried them in. Very solid and well made. I got mine from SGammo and they are different from the previous ones that were being sold.

I bought 8 of them when they first came out.  I had to fit everyone of them so they would fit all my AK's.  Weird thing was that everyone of them required different fitting so they would work and a couple of them don't hold the bolt back but they all feed really good.  No issues there.

SGammo said that the maker addressed that issue. Mine are the updated ones and fit just fine.

I bought 30 of them at one point... they are indeed beautiful mags, but none of my 30 mags fit a variety of AK rifles that I had

I would steer clear of the croatian maple leaf marked mags

Good to know. Since AIM ran out of Polish mags I was looking at the Croatian mags they had. They all have the maple leaf.

I just got 20 of the maple leaf mags from psa. I tried 1 of them in my rifles, it locked in tight in a polish, Bulgarian, Chinese, and Yugo but would not lock into a Hungarian or Romanian rifle. I will try it in one of my rifles this weekend to make sure it functions ok.

Just received these. Tried one in my Arsenal SGL21 and Yugo M70 B1. It fits nicely with minimal wiggling. Appears to be excellent in quality.




Yg

Did you get them from SG Ammo?

Thx.

If the question is for me, no. They were from PSA.

Yg

Yes it was, thx.

General Questions:

1. How's the packaging from other vendors (SGammo, aimsurplus, etc...) beside PSA?

2. Does anyone have pictures to share?

3. Any reviews on these "supposed" to be new magazines?

Yg

I sell literally tons of these and haven't had a single one come back.

I just received 10 of them from SGAmmo last week.  I have two AKs......a preban Chinese T56, and a mid 90s Maddi.

9 of the 10 fit my Chinese perfectly.
None of them fit my Maddi.
But then again, my Maddi only seems to like Chinese mags.  E. German and Polish don't even fit.

They appear well made.  I believe that after fitting they will be excellent mags.

I decided to get one to test it out. Hopefully I can get out this weekend to see how it works.

So I took the one commercial Croatian mag shooting with about 60 rounds of ammo. Loading up I noticed one thing if you load it with the front feed lip at a downward angle; when you press a round in, the 2nd round down (which would be the one below it on the same side of the mag) gets loose and creeps out a half inch and makes the mag jam up.

Here is a pic for reference -



I shot one full mag, one with 15-20 rounds and the last with the rest (10ish). The first 2 mags went okay but then the last had an FTF when I racked the first round and it had another FTF somewhere in the middle of these 10 rounds. I only I can remember doing differently on the last mag was doing sight picture drills where I would come up from the low-ready position, get a sight picture, fire 2 rounds and go back to low ready.

This would kind of make sense in the light of this issue I had with loading the mags. If the bolt is pushing down ever so slightly on the top round, then the 2nd round down could slip out and help cause the FTF. Whatever the case, with these issues I just dont see these Croatian mags as being a good deal at $12 each when there are Hungarian/Romanian/Polish surplus mags (that are rock solid) in the $10-$15 range.

anyone tried these?



http://palmettostatearmory.com/ak47-magazine-7-62x39-steel-30rd-ak4730stl.html



Are these the same batch people were having issues with or are they good?

I've had the first part happen with surplus mags from every country. Never had it slip out and cause a FTF in any surplus mags while shooting though.

The Gibbs Matra Yugo Commerical mags are better quality than the Croatian mags but they cost more: http://www.jgsales.com/-p-90031.html

For the amount they're charging for these above, you'd be better off with the Like New Hungrians from WhatACountry as they're milspec mags and not commerical

Happens to me when I load mags as well. I have Chinese flatbacks, Bulgarian commercial steel, Tapco Smoothsides, one Magpul M3, and two Circle 10 waffle mags that all do this, annoying as fuck but doesn't impede function when firing.

I bought 10 of them from PSA and 8 of 10 would not lock into my WASR and the remaining 2 would lock in with a great deal of force.

I'll be getting rid of them and trying something different.

No sense in getting rid of them unless you can profit off of the sale, as they just require a small amount of filing on the rear lug. Filing is such a inescapable part of AK ownership that I really don't see it as a liability.

The Gibbs and Croatian mags, while excellent in quality, tend to favor Serb rifles.

I bought some from PSA as well.

Both the Croatian and Polish mags fit fine in both my AKs.

I find the Polish mags much easier to load ... the rounds seem to wobble a little more and slide forward in the Croat mags, making them slower to load.

Both seem to function fine for me.

Absolutely agree! I bought (3) Croatian Maple Leaf mags and (3) Magpul mags from SGAmmo.com when I got my new Yugo underfolder recently. The Magpuls went in so easy and locked in tight. Next I tried the Croatians... The first one went in no problem but the next two took a bit of finagling to get them locked in. I saw the problem was that they needed a little wear on the back of the rear lug and it's underside. I let the AK mag release do that for me. After inserting/ejecting them 10 times each; that removed enough of the finish/material that now they lock in every time and they are rock solid in the mag well. I went to the range and put several hundred rounds thru them and they functioned flawlessly. The more I use them the better/easier they are to seat in the mag well. A fine file against the bright spots where the finish is missing on the rear lug would speed up the process considerably in the fitment department. These mags are solid from my experience and I'll be buying more for sure. However, I like the feel and fit of the Magpul's a bit better because I use the magazine as a hold/forward grip for my support hand grip when shooting offhand. But there is nothing wrong with the Maple Leaf Croatian mags that I received from SGAmmo.