Tapco's don't fit very well.  I found the Romanian surplus fit perfect.

I currently have two WASR's, and they like just about anything. To date I have used:

*Surplus blued-steel mags of unknown origin. Several different ones of varying degrees of condition from not too bad to downright nasty. An occasional minor "hiccup", mostly with the worst ones. These tend to be the wobbliest ones.

*Korean gray-parkerized steel. These are my "go-to" mags. I know everybody HATES these mags but in my experience they work great. They lock-up tight with no wobble. They feed ultra reliably. They stand up to all the abuse I can throw at them and they're CHEAP.

*Tapco black polymer "waffle-style" and "slab-sides" (both 20 and 30 rounders). All work well without issue. I know these are looked down upon by many as second or third rate but other than the fact that some of them fit really tight (especially the 20's), I've never really had any major issues with these. I do have to admit that I never buy these. Most, if not all, of these that I have I got from a new rifle purchase or trade or something of that nature. Not saying I wouldn't buy these, they just wouldn't be first on my list.

*Plinker Tactical black polymer. Pure garbage. These were given to me by someone in a trade a while back. I have no idea why I keep these. If the original owner paid more than 50 cents for these he got ripped.

*Promag black polymer. See above.

*Romanian 75-round gray steel. Works well. Hardly ever shoot it. It's a fun piece of equipment but it's heavy and a MONEY-PIT! Looks cool, though.

I live in Colorado so buying any mag online is impossible. No one can/will ship here anymore. I would love to have some of the Russian bakelites and a whole pile of the East-European surplus mags but for now I'll just have to settle for what I can get.

Mine came with two 30 round tapco mags. I never bothered to replace them, they work fine..

all of them. I have had to lightly file on a few to get them to fit though, tapco, euro and even Chinese.

mine loves the Romanian surplus mags, hates the Tapco ones (will require filing on the mag to get to fit).  So far, steel mags lock up nice and tight and around my area I've lucked out and gotten them for a decent price so I'm trying to create a stockpile

I had to file my Tapcos down to fit as well. At the time I wanted some 20 round mags and could only find the Tapcos, once I got my hands on some Hungarian tanker mags the Tapcos went on the shelf. And all the Romy mags my WASR came with fit great, no wobble.

Only had my two for a couple of months:

Romanian and yugo surplus, Tapco 30 and 20 rounders, and even one 20 round ProMag all lock in and run fine.

Have some of the newly made Korean 20 rounders coming soon gonna try. I really do like how 20 rounders handle better in both AK and AR.

- OS

Have not found any yet that it doesn't like.  I have a mixture of different ones and they all worked. (about 20 or so)  After reading all the reviews about the WASR having issues with the magwell, I made sure and checked them all

The only thing I can figure is that the issue has been corrected in the later WASRs???

I have found several good deals on the Tapco for under $10 bucks but just cant pull the trigger on them because I bought all mine (except the 20s) for under $5 or got them for FREE a long time ago...

With Tapco magazines, I've always had to do some filing. Most Com Bloc steel magazines fit just fine. Sometimes the surplus magazines have a burr or something hanging up on the magwell. Easily corrected with a file.

My new Romanian top load drum required me to remove a burr on the rear of my magwell that I missed before. However it made all magazine changes easier.

Metal surplus--my mag well is super tight. No mag wobble with metal surplus.


Tapco, Bulgarian, (both circle 10s and the ones without metal reinforcements), US Palm--none of them will fit.

Okay, so I finally found mags my WASR does not like. :)

But neither did a guy's Yugo either, and I suspect most any other one.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_4_55/155483_Korean__.html

- OS

WASR #1: All mags fit & function perfectly.

WASR #2: All mags fit, but occasional FTF, except for Tapcos. It's 100% with Tapcos.

Korean, Yugo BHO, Magpul, and Tapco all work great on mine. Zero feeding issues.

I did have some fitment issues with Tapco as well initially but the mag opening has been cut a flea hair to small, so based on where it was scraping the Tapco mags, I took a file to it lightly and problem solved.

I just got a US Palm mag in last week to give a try one of these days, it fits tighter and has less wobble over my metal mags. Do not have Tapco mags for my WASR 10 but have run some of their mags in other weapons with no problems, may get a couple of them to try out one day.





Mostly run the Euro steel surplus mags in mine, they wobble like crazy but have never failed to feed.





 

I don't know how people identify the origin country of mags as there doesn't seem to be any markings on them that I am aware of.

Mine has worked well with everything I've tried so far.  

my favorites were some I ordered from Aim surplus advertised as European steel surplus IIRC

they were in good condition and didn't have the spline on the back

Mine loves them all, I have not found it picky (yet).

Every magazine I own fit. Even the Tapcos and the chinese no rib ones. The also all functioned correctly. They don't fit as tightly as they did in my Serb M70 . The M70 wouldn't even take the Tapcos.

Mind you, I don't own many AK magazines but I own quite a few variants.

Anyone try the AK PMAGs with a WASR? How do they work?

My WASR runs will with European mil surp mags of all sorts. Some are a bit wobbly but they work

Yes, and they work just fine! Fit is good no wobble in mine. Feeding is perfect.

Tapco's will not fit my WASR.
Bulgarian steel works great. Ordered a few of the Magpul AK magazines from Shooters Plus the other day and so far they are working good. Just wish they would re-enforce the locking tab.

Out of about 6 WASR's I have owned the one I have now probably has the best mag well opening. It will take anything. I run avg com-blocks most of the time but I do like the Bulgarian waffle mags.

Uhm why file on the mags when you can simply open up the magwell opening? From what ive seen its not the mag catches that are te problem but the fact the receiver hole is too tight and rubs te sides of the thicker poly mags. My vote file once and fix em all. My wasrs eat tapcos just file along with all the combloc n china steel ones.

The loaded kind!

What about Hungarian Military Surplus Steel Magazines ?
 

I haven't done extensive shooting with them but they have all fit and functioned perfectly in my WASR.

75 round drums from SG work great

My WASR is one of the new production CUGIR ones. So far, it likes European surplus steel 30s, Magpul 30s, Tapco 20s and 30s, Thermold 30s, and Hungarian tanker 20s. The Thermold magazines are the easiest to insert without missing the front lug, and they wobble the most. The Tapco magazines are the hardest to insert, and are the only ones that require a bit of extra force to get them to catch the magazine release when inserting. The Magpul magazines and the steel magazines including the tanker mags wobble the least.

If I were using the WASR  in a competition, I'd prefer theThermolds, as they are super easy to seat, and are the lightest of the magazines I've tried. For theoretical serious social purposes, I think I'd prefer the steel magazines and the Magpul about equally. The Magpul provides the best grip if you are in a shooting position where you need to grip the magazine, if that matters to you.

I haven't found a 7.62  magazine that doesn't feed this WASR flawlessly yet.

I just ordered a few of the Korean steel magazines. I'll try to remember to post my experience with them here after I use them.

I finally tried the 3 Korean steel magazines I bought. I can only describe them as "project" magazines. None of them fit into the WASR easily. One of them doesn't fit at all. To consider them usable, I'll need to spend some time carefully fitting their rear lugs with abrasives. The "finish" on them is not very good, and they are inadequately spot welded on the back rib and rear lug. Someday I may take the time to TIG weld them and refinish them to make them good to go. As they arrived, though, if I ordered more I wouldn't count on any of them being usable from the factory.

Just picked up a '72 10/63 (I'll post pics on the pic thread). Mine came with (1) Tapco, seats well and no wobble, (2) Korean with a little wobble, and two (haven't figured out the manufacturer yet) that have a little wobble. Going out this weekend to test. Had one that absolutely would not go into the mag well, the mag itself was too wide (Chinese). Hope the Korean one's function well, have acces to some for $6.99 a pop.

I like the old metal ribbed ones.

i bought my WASR in 2004 a week after the ban dropped . in the begining it only ran metal mags of any type , no poly of any kind fit . my buddy a machinest took his file and cleaned up the mag well .now i run magpul 30s , circle 10 bulgy 30s , unknown euro 30s with ridge , some chicom flatback 30s , all super reliable.  fast forward 10 years and 8,000 to 9,000 rounds later its still going strong . btw only 3 yes 3 FTF in that time . those were all ammo related problems anyways . this thing is a tank !


   dagg . . . .