Hi all, not a for sale thread, not a value thread;

I was at the local fun show right before the AWB Klinton Ban, so around Fall of 1994, People were buying anything and everything that they knew would be in short supply or barter trade items. I picked up about a half dozen of these mags and some ammo but no AK at the time.  

I can see they are Chinese (based upon limited research on-line) but my question are these decent mags?  I got the impression before the AW-Ban China was producing mags that were more commercial than chi-com military.  

Any thoughts or opinions on these or what they are, have some mags, have some steel case ammo, thinking about picking up an AK.  Kind of bored of AR's at the present time, looking to do something different.

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A couple more pics,

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you know what sucks.  the year before that you could buy AK mags all day long for 3/$10.

Look likes standard Norinco /  ChiCom 30 rounds that will out last you.  Only bad chicom AK mag I ever had actually had a very visible dent in the side which was so deep that it hung up the follower.  The rest of the pre-ban ones were always GTG.  Same thing with the east german metal stuff which came in right around that time.  These old ones are nothing like the recent garbage bulgy commercial (non Circle 10) imports which are definitely out of spec and not worth buying IMHO.

Look to be standard Chinese mags. I have a few that are identical. Some of mine are stamped "Poly Tech" on the base plate, some not. Personally I think they are excellent AK mags and fit in my AK nice and solid, less slop compared to other Mil-issue mags and function is 100%. Most AK collectors regard Chinese mags as desirable. They are rare now days but back in the 90's they were most common.  

Those are either made by Polytech or Norinco (I have not seen any other manufacturer). Hold onto them, shoot and enjoy.

Edit: I'm with you OP. I recently got back into AK's after realizing I had some Chinese mags and Chinese ammo sitting around.

Thanks for the comments, greatly appreciated.

Any other input is welcome.

I posted photos here a little over a year ago of some Chinese mags that I found at a local shop in PA. It's interesting to see that the design appears to be unchanged from over 25 years ago. Only real difference seems to be the Made in China markings on the baseplate. I'm not really familiar with what, if any, restrictions have been put on importing magazines from China, but my understanding is that as part of its state-owned manufacturing industry, Chinese military factories are exporting these for commercial sale, so I assume the ones I found are newer production, and not pre-ban mags that have been sitting around somewhere since the '90s.

Thank you for posting that thread.

I've been into AKs since the mid 80's and have never heard (or seen evidence of) that there were military-grade and commercial-grade Chinese AK mags. I don't think the "China" marked floorplates were an indicator of lesser quality in any way.

I'm not a fan of the Chinese flat-back mags for esthetic reasons, but they are solid and reliable. If all I had were those I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

I'm not sure if you somehow inferred that from what I posted, but that's not what I was saying. I was saying that I had heard that the Chinese military has marketed the same magazines that are produced for the military, in government-owned factories, to the commercial market. Similar to how Okay produced magazines under the NHMTG brand name for commercial sales. except that the factory or factories that produce Chinese AK mags are probably at least partially state-owned. That's one of the ways that the Chinese government generates revenue, through joint ownership of manufacturing. In essence, rather than selling surplus Chinese military magazines (ones that were owned by the military at some point), they are selling military spec magazines directly to the commercial market.

I think this is 100% correct.

"I got the impression before the AW-Ban China was producing mags that were more commercial than chi-com military."  

This statement is why I assumed you felt there was a distinction between the magazines marked "made in China" and the regular, unmarked magazines other than the markings.

I think everyone agrees that Chinese AK mags are all made at government factories to mil-spec. Why some are marked and some are unmarked is the real question. Perhaps some import laws went into effect that required it?

In my experience, the marked ones are less common and started appearing after the unmarked ones were being imported.