Not sure how many of you are aware of this, but there's a guy on our boards named HiCap who's been making very good and very affordable BIG mags for us...
After stumbling across a post about it, and hearing all the buzz from people who have gotten mags from him, I contacted him about making me a gigantastic magazine for my FAL. See, the thing with FAL's is that the mags are very affordable, but "only" hold 20 rounds. Now that IS a lot of rounds, but I always thought it would be nice to have a bigger mag. I looked at the 30 rounders that DSA sells, but they run around $65+ for inch mags and more for metrics... For that same price I could have 6 or more brand new 20 round magazines, so for the price I had to pass… I never thought that I'd be able to strap in more than 20 rounds to my FAL, but this weekend I tried out the very nice 50 rounder sold to me by HiCap.
First about the mag... I don't know exactly how it's made, but it is very solid and not bad looking considering it's really 3 different mags stuck together. I was worried that the spring would be either too tight or too weak however it was not hard to load, and while I could have probably squeezed in a few extra rounds, I was worried that my FAL would not feed them if I pushed it…
While it was insanely cold this last weekend, I went to the range anyways to try out my new magazine. I had been worried that the first round would be difficult to feed, and without a forward assist of any kind on my FAL, it could have been a pain… Despite being loaded up with so many heavy 7.62x51 rounds, it fed flawlessly! My FAL merrily ate all 50 rounds without a hitch, and I was a very very happy boy!
The only downside with this magazine are things that I expected, and HiCap cannot be blamed for. Firstly, this is a fairly heavy addition to an already heavy rifle. Secondly, it is ridiculously long. It was hard to shoot from a bench with it, but it was actually manageable. While I am VERY pleased with my crazy sized 50 rounder, most reasonable people would likely be satisfied with a more modest sized magazine that HiCap is making. I know he currently is making CETME mags, FAL mags, AK mags, etc. in various sizes.
His prices aren’t unreasonable either. The 50 round magazine was shipped to me for much less than the price of DSA’s 30rnd mag, which is not bad considering he had to use 3 magazines to make it and shipping was included. His products to me seem more a service than a commodity since similarly sized mags from elsewhere are not only more expensive, but not nearly as reliable.
Well, here’s a pic of said 50 rounder in my FAL:
You can see it fits right into my family…. (the AK mag is not one done by HiCap, but I think he’s considering making them soon)
;)
Here’s a link to his website: http://50rounds.com/
Shawn