Please read the full report.

Well - I was one of many here who bought a lot of D&H mags and noticed when hand cycling ammo - or stripping the first round out of the mag from the right side - they would hang up on the feedramp.  I bought 80 of them from a popular AR15.com source.  Needless to say - I was quite concerned by what others were reporting, and what I saw in my own weapons when tested in my house.  I took them to my dealer - demonstrated the issue - and we agreed I would shoot them FIRST - test them under live fire, before making a judgement call on whether to return them or not.

I got the chance to do that today.  My mags are the black D&H teflons, with magpul followers, and dated 1/06.  I grabbed a random sampling of 10 mags that had not been previously messed with.  I took three different AR's - a bushy 20" with a VLTOR cabine stock and H buffer, a Bushy M4 with VLTOR carbine stock and H buffer, and a stock Bushy A2 20" govt profile with a rifle stock and buffer.

I wanted to do this right - so I brought my pen and notepad, setting out to record every type of malfunction I experienced in detail.  Mags were loaded to full capacity (30 rounds) with Q3131A and Guatemalan M193.  I had 10 "questionable" mags and 300 rounds to go, in 3 different weapons.  I set up a steel plate to ding at 100yds, and sat back with my notepad and pen to my right.  

I never picked the pen up once.

That's right.  ZERO failures of ANY kind.  The mags stripped the first round perfectly from the bolt catch, and subsequently fired, ejected and fed every single round.  Every empty mag locked the carrier to the rear.  These mags functioned 100%.  I was elated.

I was very surprised that my weapon had no problem stripping the first round from the bolt carrier, when I had this problem when testing at home.  I can only surmise that when testing at home, I had the weapon pointed straight up - where the weight of the carrier was also working against it - on the range I had the weapon level and pointed downrange just like I always would.  They worked flawlessly.

I then inspected the chamber, barrel extension, lug area, and bolt face.  I saw no appreciable brass or copper flaking, as some have seen when hand cycling.  I can only assume they dont get scratched as bad when stripped with the velocity of a firing weapon.

I then inspected the pile of 300 rounds of fired brass.  I could not see any seriously deep gouges on the brass that concerned me.  There was a single noticeable scratch from the feedlip on about half the brass.  I assume this would be the first 10-15 rounds stripped when the spring was at the most pressure.... and I can only assume as more rounds fired, the lips also smoothed out.  A burr on aluminum wont take long at all to smooth itself out.

Even if I would have had one or two "fail to strip" from the bolt catch, I could have accepted that, assuming it would smooth out under a little use.  I was hoping to have a couple of these, and continue reloading and firing them, to see if they smoothed out after "x" rounds, but I could not get these mags to fail at all under live fire.


In conclusion - all I can say - is if you have these mags and have concerns: PLEASE take them out and SHOOT them in known good weapons.  What was demonstated by hand cycling did not happen under real use.

I cant say if there might be some lots out there with sharper feedlips than mine - but I can say, I was one who had the EXACT issues noted in many threads here - and under live fire testing (what REALLY matters) the mags performed exactly as expected.

I am not a D&H apologist - I was pretty vocal about my issues and concerns in the other threads.  Now I wish I would have kept my mouth shut, and put them through some real testing before I commented.

Live and learn.  

I am thrilled with these mags, and the service I received from the guys at DSG Arms.

Big +1.

My experience is the same.

Sam

FALARAK

Did you replace the buffer springs in your rifles? You said when you were down at Rustys you did. Were all these stock buffer springs or extra power Wolf springs. I'm glad they worked out for you I had to dremel mine to get them to run 100%

I have a few dated 1/06 that I had to file the feed lips on to get them working as well. No biggie, but if I order more mags, D&H is not going to be a primary choice.

Quoted: Big +1. My experience is the same. Sam

Same here. I thought the whole "hand (thumb) cycling" thing was kind of weird. I noticed no scratched brass when I tried mine out and no failures of any kind.

Quoted: In conclusion - all I can say - is if you have these mags and have concerns: PLEASE take them out and SHOOT them in known good weapons.  What was demonstated by hand cycling did not happen under real use.

Glad that things worked out for you.

My experience has been exactly the opposite of yours.  The problems that I have experienced with these magazines in terms of failures to feed and rounds hanging up on the feed lips have been during 3-Gun matches shooting from a known and proven good rifle that I have had and used without a problem for the past three years.

-Frank

All of the D&H magazines I  have bought have been 100% problem free

My problems were also during live fire.  If my mags just looked a little different or something like that I wouldn't think about returning them.  I had problems of one degree or another with all my 11/05 D&H mags.  I hope no one else has any such problems.  


TS

Here is my range report from today, but take it for what it's worth based on the facts below.

Brand new user (me), not new to rifles, but it is my 1st AR (read a lot here though) :)
Brand new Armalite M-15A4CBN

Four separate new mags tested out of 24 bought on EE and have 12 more on way, all below have green followers:
20 rnds Remington UMC loaded in black 30 rnd D&H 12/05 - no problems
30 rnds Winchester WWB loaded in grey 30 rnd D&H 10/05 - no problems
30 rnds LC M855 loaded in grey 30 rnd D&H 10/05 - no problems
30 rnds FAE223 loaded in grey  30 rnd D&H 10/05 - 3 FTF, at approx 4th, 10th, and 14th rnds

I only spent an hour sighting in this new AR and wish I could have experimented more.
I sure am having fun learning!  h
ETA: After the 3rd FTF I gave up and switched to another mag.  Checking it now, it doesn't look or feel any different than the others that worked well.

Quoted: Here is my range report from today, but take it for what it's worth based on the facts below. Brand new user (me), not new to rifles, but it is my 1st AR (read a lot here though) :) Brand new Armalite M-15A4CBN Four separate new mags tested out of 24 bought on EE and have 12 more on way, all below have green followers: 20 rnds Remington UMC loaded in black 30 rnd D&H 12/05 - no problems 30 rnds Winchester WWB loaded in grey 30 rnd D&H 10/05 - no problems 30 rnds LC M855 loaded in grey 30 rnd D&H 10/05 - no problems 30 rnds FAE223 loaded in grey  30 rnd D&H 10/05 - 3 FTF, at approx 4th, 10th, and 14th rnds I only spent an hour sighting in this new AR and wish I could have experimented more. I sure am having fun learning!    It's a blast!  Oh yeah, my best groups were with the M855... ETA: After the 3rd FTF I gave up and switched to another mag.  Checking it now, it doesn't look or feel any different than the others that worked well.

Thanks for the report. As the rifle was new it actually does not sound like you had too many hiccups. Was the bolt/carrier well lubed for its first outing? I usually run my rifles a bit on the dry side once broken in, but will use a bit more lube for the first couple hundred rounds or so.

Kwai, since you only had probs with the FAE223, have you considered the possibility that the ammo is out of spec for your mags?  I have had some feed issues that were directly related to over-long ammo.  And that was regardless of the makeof mag.

Sovereign - Yes, I cleaned and lubed the rifle before going to the range on the advice of the gunsmith I bought it through.  Followed the manual and everything.  The problem happened 3/4 of the way through the hour.

vic - At first I thought it was the FAE ammo, but the symptoms were similar to the mag probs I have read about.  The rounds basically slammed into the metal below the chamber, and didn't even get near the M4 feedramps my ArmaLite has (nice too, no dremel here).  On the last  FTF I released the mag and the rear of the round was still bound in the mag, with the bullet pointing upwards once out of the well.  Like I said, I wish I had more time to experiment today.  And I sure hope it isn't the AE223, I have 1K on hand and another 1K on the way since it is the cheapest brass US mfg I can get now, and has good reviews for plinking at the range.

Every time I released the bolt catch on a new mag the rounds seated fine, it was only on these 3 semi-auto feeds that it failed.  It would have been nice to have everything be perfect on my first day to the range, but I think that this is just helping me understand how the different parts function.

What, you mean sitting around the house finger-fucking magazines and posting about it on the internet isnt a test of their reliability?





Glad to hear your mags are working as expected bro.

I finally got the chance to live fire with my 5 new 12/05 D&H mags.  The lips felt sharp when I got them so each mag I filed the underside of the feedlips just a tad.  Bottom line--all functioned flawlessly.

Quoted: What, you mean sitting around the house finger-fucking magazines and posting about it on the internet isnt a test of their reliability? Glad to hear your mags are working as expected bro.

Well, I do fondle my AR thingies at home, and I enjoy it whether alone or with an audience.  But after today I like to do it best on the range!  

Quoted: FALARAK Did you replace the buffer springs in your rifles? You said when you were down at Rustys you did. Were all these stock buffer springs or extra power Wolf springs. I'm glad they worked out for you I had to dremel mine to get them to run 100%

No - when I was at Rusty's - we replaced it with one of his for a test - then put mine back in.  Mine is the stock one that came with the VLTOR kit.  I did bring a spare new "milspec" one to replace it with if I had problems, but since everything worked, I didnt bother.

Quoted: What, you mean sitting around the house finger-fucking magazines and posting about it on the internet isnt a test of their reliability? Glad to hear your mags are working as expected bro.

I thought for sure my 12/05 D&H 20`s would have some feeding problems!  But at the range no problems at all!

I will use some 200grit to run over the SHARP EDGES!  ( still dont like the neck hitting mag )

100rds out of each mag might help to?

I have several of my D&H mags loaded and ready to test this week. Over the weekend I did sort all of my D&H mags and group them according to when I bought them and the date stamped on them. I know for a fact that there is no problem with the first four D&H mags that I bought either in December or early this year that are dated 11-05. I bought eight more shortly thereafter from Bravo Company and although I'm not sure if I've used all of them there have been zero problems with the ones I've used so far, they are dated 6-05.

The ones I plan to test this week are all from the ten pack that I got from Bravo Company during the big sale. They are all dated 12-05. I thought I had used a couple of these before, but just going by looks I don't think any of them have been used outside of just inserting them in the magwell. There were no problems loading the mags so I'm willing to bet there will be no problems on the range either.

I guess I should mention I am going to test these mags in my old reliable Colt HBAR.