Didn't know where to post this. Buddy of mine just picked up two M1 carbines and is humping to find some mags. All he can find are Korean made. Are they any good. Thanks in advance.

Are you referring to 30 round mags?

Korean and Tainwanese mags seem to get mixed reviews, with most being poitive.  Copes has Korean mags for $15 per, and there are Taiwanese mags on gunbroker for $11.50 shipped from WCS, INC.  Local shop had both kinds, and I honestly couldn't tell any difference in them at all except the Korean mags were clean in a ziploc and the Taiwan mags were greased and wrapped in brown paper.

Given that USGI 30's are impossible to find, what are his other options?

If he's getting 15 rounders I would think USGI would be easy to find and I would go that route.

The carbine I had my eye on sold, but I had reasearched mags before I pulled the trigger on the rifle.

I have a couple of the Korean 30rd mags and they have worked fine.  Hear the 15 rd mags are good also.  The last I saw, 15 rd GI mags in the wrap were not easy to find anymore and were going for $40 each, but that was before things went crazy.

I bought a half-dozen of the 15-round KCI  M1 carbine magazines a year or two ago; when they hit the market and were crazy cheap - something like $4-$6 apiece. They seem well-made but functionally they're not as good as the GI ones I have, and the GI ones are all probably 40-60 years old, stored mostly NIW for most of that time. The six KCI's that I have all tend to nose-dive or (on rare occasions) just fail to get the round up to the bolt quick enough, so the bolt just slams home empty. Happens with the KCI's in both my guns (both are GI surplus, not commercial guns), and it never happens with any of my old gi magazines; so I have to leave the blame with the KCI's. Their springs are noticeably weaker than the other mags, and it could well be that just replacing the springs with new ones could solve the problem. I just never bothered with doing so. For plinking and range use, mine are 'just barely' ok; but I'd absolutely not trust them for serious use.

Never tried their 30-rounders.

I bought 12 of the 30 rnd korean mags. I haven't opened all of them but the 3 I have opened and used work great. Only problem I had was when I dropped a fully loaded one on it's end. It spilled the rounds and was jammed up with a bent floorplate but nothing that didn't fix easy enough.By the way, tell your buddy that if he is going to use the 30 rounders that he needs to put in an M2 mag catch.

Bought 8 of the 15 rounders a few years ago. Ran brass and Wolf steel (only 2 boxes for function check) through them.
Functioned fine for me.