Are these any good?

I haven’t been keeping up with Glock type
mags recently. Just found out they (PSA) make some.

I wouldn’t mind having a larger capacity, but they
must be reliable. Reminds me of those S15 mags
I bought and still in the pkg.

We do this every few weeks and have had several long threads about them.

We really need a pinned thread.  
Here is one of the recent ones.  
PSA 15 round 43X

The bottom line is that most people report very positively.  
Some have had issues as well.
The best way to do it is to buy a few and see if your specific gun runs with them or not.  

I personally have several that I have run almost flawlessly.  
I had one mag that had a few issues when new but it works fine now.
Several other mags with zero issues.

Archived thread

I bought 3 when they first released.  I'm only at a few hundred rounds so far.  No issues.

I bought 2 when they first came out then 2 more recently all 4 have been 100% reliable. I only have a few hundred rounds through them. I have 43x

One of my friends has 15 of them with close to a 1000 rounds through them, no issues. He has 43x MOS.

I took the mags that I have that worked flawlessly in two guns out today with my 43X MOS that has a 407K and TLR 7 sub on it.

I had a much different experience today than I have had in the past. This gun was set up for Shield mags and their gen 2 work perfectly in this gun.  

This gun with the OEM mag catch cannot get through one single mag without failure to feeds.  The nose of the bullet is just not high enough and failed at least 8 or more times per mag.  

I was not expecting that as the same mags work perfect in the wife’s 43X and the green one that I have with either stock or PSA slide.  

I’m thinking PSA is subject to tolerance stacking just the same as Shield but the PSA mags are more forgiving.  

Thankfully I brought two Glock 10 rounders which both ran perfectly as expected.  

So now I get to decide if I keep this one stock or go back to Shield for this particular gun.

I’ve had no issues with them in two G43Xs, 5 mags and maybe 300 rds.  I can’t say the same for the Shield Arms mags, good riddance.

Interesting. Same ammo you've run before in the other guns?

Yup.  Same ammo.
I even gave it a go with some HST.  

Nope.

Well crap. Let know what you figure out.

I just saw this -

@naes

I was really hoping these PSA magazines would function just as well as the factory glock magazines.  Seeing more and more issues popping up on various forums makes me hesitant to buy a $35 magazine that doesn't function correctly.  5 extra rounds would be nice but I'm not sacrificing reliability for an EDC, I'll stick to the factory 10 rounders for now.

Interesting video.
Seems the front lip on the mag may be what is causing the feeding issue.

Still a bit mysterious that the same mags work in the other guns though.

If the loaded mag is in the gun, the bullet tip will run into the feed ramp and begin angling up into the chamber a mile before the case lip can have a chance to impact that lip on the mag.  Classic SOTAR over obsessive fixation on something that's not even in play.

ETA:  In this pic, the barrel is back against the locking block and slightly angled up, to simulate the position it would be in if the the slide is coming forward to strip a round.  I've pushed the cartridge forward into the feed ramp and chamber, and even at at this point (it's a bit hard to see from the angle) the case is not far enough forward yet for the case mouth to have hit the front lip on the mag if it were going going straight forward.  You can see that the round is so far tipped up and into the feed process there's no way the case hits that lip.

I’ve inspected my used black finish PSA Micro Dagger mags.  There is no wear marks showing the cartridge mouth is impacting the top front edge of the mag body in my pistols.   If the mag was locking into the grip in a lower position this could make a difference in how the top cartridge is pushed from the mag to the barrel feed ramp.   The mag locking in lower could also be a factor where the cartridges weren’t consistently being pushed by the bottom rail of the slide under the breach face.

Whether it is tolerance issue with the Glock frame or the PSA mag body.   I suspect it could be the PSA mag body mag catch recess issue as the factory Glock mags seem to always function.

I have only used my PSA Micro Dagger mags with my Glock 48 and my Glock 48 frame with my Glock 43 slide.   No issues with my PSA mags in my Glock 48 frame and two different Glock slides.

I checked where the top cartridge sits in the mag in relation to the fixed ejector on my Glock 48 frame.   My PSA mags put the top cartridge in the same position under the ejector as my factory ten round Glock 48 mags.  Comparing a PSA mag locked into the mag well to a factory ten round Glock mag would show if the PSA mag was locking into the well lower than a factory mag.   If the mag rides much higher the top cartridge would he pressed up against the ejector or even compressed into the mag body..

Ordered four psa mags, took them out today. None would lock the slide back.

No probs with Glock mags. This is on a stock 48

@RussDXT

Watch the above video. You may find the reason in the video.

I received 2 last week. So far I’ve run a hundred or so rounds thru each with zero malfs in my 48. That 15th round is tough to get in.  I’m going to leave both mags fully loaded for a couple of weeks and see how they do.

Had the same issue with a stock 48.  Ordered 2 mags, 1 would barely lock slide back and when a fresh mag would be inserted the slide would drop(sometimes loading a rd and sometimes skipping over top rd).  The other mag wouldn't lock back at all.  Josiah was great to work with and sent 2 more mags, same deal, 1 would barely lock back and the other failed.  Tried my factory 10s, they worked perfectly.  Swapped my steel shield mag release back in and the 6 shield mags(gen1 w/ g17 springs and gen2) ran flawlessly and locked back with slide stop fully seated up to slide notch.  I like how the psa mags fit the frame better, but the shield arms mags work better in MY gun

Watched that video.  For a 13yr gunsmith, his terminology was a bit rough.  "Pusher thing" is called a stripper rail.  Thar ramp on front of mag is called a helper ramp, wilson 9mm etm mags have it too.  It's there to help get a nosediving round up to the barrel feed ramp.   Dman is correct, on a normal feeding rd, that helper ramp isn't in play and has no bearing on bullet or case mouth.  The reason shield and psa mags drag on bottom of slide when pushed up like you tea cup and saucer shooting() is to allow a higher top rd height.   Id be leary of grinding that down as lip width is now changed.
The drag on slide stop is interesting and might cause some failure to lock back, maybe.

"10 rounds 'for sure' beats 15 rounds of "maybe" every single time!"

Just a follow up. I loaded both mags to full capacity and let them sit for about 12 days.  Yesterday ran another hundred rounds + thru each mag and still not a single issue. Each mag has 200 plus thru them. About half fmj and the other half jhp.

I’m going to put them in my carry rotation.

I bought a couple of PSA mags that I haven't touched in months.  Went to use them this week and I can't load more than 5 rounds of 115gr FMJ in them.  Any reported issues like this?

They are very hard to load. I 3D printed a modified S&W Shield magazine loader to get the last few rounds into mine.

Load them up and let them sit for a while. Just add a few rounds after a day and the springs will get easier.

Will do.  For the first time in my life, I ordered a mag loader.  Holy crap these springs must be crazy.

UPDATE:  That was the ticket.  The Uplula made quick work of them.

Have 10 PSA mags. 43X MOS with EPS Carry Mounted and Sico threaded barrel. Everything else OEM. Have had the mags for about a year.

In the beginning the mags, seemed promising, however once trying a variety of ammo to include flat nose, problems became apparent. I sidelined the mags for a while and recently this thread got me to look into the cause more.

Palmetto thought of a really creative solution with the polymer front, however the execution definitely needs some work. Even if they increased the price $5-$10 per mag, it would be a worthy cause to update the mags and step-up QC.

I took 4 of my mags, took them a part and checked the mag bodies for slide stop drag. None of the 4 mags exhibited that.

Moved on to the feed geometry. The PSA mags are similar to Glock, but not exact. The PSA mags do in fact have a higher front wall for reasons I don't understand. When you push rounds forward out of the mag, the casing lip does in fact hang up and get stuck. So I took 2 mags and knocked down the front to the same Glock height. I also cleaned up the flashing at the top of all 4 mags a little bit. Cycling rounds, this made in immediate difference. The two Glock height PSA mags cycled smooth while the original 2 PSA mags hung up quite a bit (especially like with 8 or 9 rounds left) or they chambered but you could feel the case rim causing a violent chamber, stepped chambering. It is a stark difference.

Hit the range today with 2 "Glock spec front" PSA mags & 2 original PSA mags, 250rds of Federal 147gr including a few suppressed mags no booster (Fly 9), I had 1 failure to chamber on a "glock spec" mag unsuppressed and 1 of the original PSA mags refused to lock slide back reliably. I used the "glock spec" PSA mags more as I could feel how much smoother the gun cycled with them.

After coming home and inspecting the mags including the failure to lock back original front PSA mag, they all have rough flashing inside of them and the failure to lock back mag the follower won't go all the way up due to flashing at the top. Once I clean that up, the follower will go fully up and solve the failure to lock back. The other three mags were checked and fully engage the slide stop on empty. I believe the likely failure to fully feed was likely caused by the follower getting hung up in the mag and not presenting the round at the right time. Fully cleaning up the flashing should fix that. My plan now is to knock down my other mags front to OEM Glock dimension and work up to fine sanding on the flashing inside of them to get them very smooth.

In short I believe the mags need the front portion knocked down to OEM Glock height and the inside of the mags smooth. I know some are of the opinion that the front height is fine, however I am convinced it is not, you can see yourself by pushing the rounds out manually, and can feel it in use. The slide may generally have enough velocity and force to chamber the round, however if tolerances get stacked, I can easily see that itself inducing malfunctions. There's a reason the OEM Glock geometry is what it is, why PSA would not copy that aspect and introduce variables is beyond me.

A reliable 15rd mag in the 43X should simply be a matter of smooth feeding up, and the round being presented the same way as an OEM mag.

Great post.  Thank you.  

Had one to try in a G48, and had no luck.  It was an early version, so perhaps there are other generations out there now.  It appeared the follower was dragging, and material was being shaved from the interior of the mag body.  I tried to clean that up some with sanding.  It would function fine several times, but then I started getting a fail to extract a couple times a mag.  I found that interesting, as it was not fail to feeds.  OEM mags work fine.  Ended up trashing it, and not going down that path again.

Well, that certainly disappoints me.  I didn't find Shield mags to be reliable and had hopes for the PSA