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Posted: 1/22/2009 6:20:23 PM EDT
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Hello, I was looking for a tutorial on how to rivet a USGI magazine into a California legal 10/20 or 10/30 mag and could
not find to many, so i decided to just do it, and make my own tutorial. So hopefully this will be helpful to others looking to do the same. Enjoy! On a second note, I cannot guarantee this will work with all magazines or followers, so please measure everything before trying this to ensure it will work with your hardware and fit into your lower reciver. On a third note, I am NOT an expert on law and legislature, and i am writing this tutorial for INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY!!! Some say that this method of making legal 10 round mags is not permanent enough to stand up to gun laws in certain states. I cannot and will not be held responsible for misuse of this information or the techniques used in modifying these magazines. Please research your local laws and decide if this method will conform to your local states laws before modifying your magazines. Again, i will not be held responsible for the misuse of this information, and it is just that. FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY!! With that said, lets get started! First, here are all the tools i used to modify these magazines, from left to right Standard rivet's (I used the 1/4") Pointed awl Drinking straw Pen/Sharpie Handheld rivet gun Ball peen hammer You may use whatever you have on hand. 
1. Open your box of 20/30 round magazine rebuild kits. (I would like to hope you ordered your mags in REBUILD KIT form..) 
2. Insert the follower into your magazine body. Be sure to hold it into place with your finger so it stays in place while you insert rounds into your magazine. 
3. Carefully insert 10 rounds of .223 ammunition into the magazine (Dummy rounds would be preferred for safety but i did not have any to use for this tutorial.) Be careful not to let the follower turn sideways, use pressure from your finger inserted into the magazine. Once full, give it a rap on your hand to insure all the rounds are seated properly while holding pressure on the follower. 
4. Insert a device to be used for measuring the distance from the edge of the follower to the bottom of the magazine. I used a drinking straw for this since the marks can be easily removed if you fuged up marking it. be sure to keep pressure on the follower the whole time to ensure the mark is correct. 
5. Transfer the mark you made onto the magazine body. 
6. Remove all the rounds and the follower so you can safely drill into the magazine. 
7. I chose to wrap the magazine in a dish towel and insert into a bench vise to ease in the drilling process. You can skip this step if you don't have access to one. 
8. Then use an awl and ball peen hammer to divot the magazine so your drill bit does not walk around when you start your hole. (you can see some of the finish was chipped of in the process, these magazines were teflon coated. Not a big deal, the rivet will cover this.) 
9. Carefully drill your hole into the magazine. You may wish to have someone spray the bit with WD40 if its dull to ease drilling, but it is not needed. 
10. Nice clean hole! 
11. Now insert the follower and spring back into the magazine, you will need these installed, because once the rivets are in place, you will not be able to insert them. 
12. Do not yet install the floorplate. Having the floorplate installed while the mag installed is illegal and should not be done since you will have a high cap magazine on your hands. You should press the spring and mag on your work bench while you do the next step. This picture illustrates what the floorplate looks like after you complete installation of the rivet. You should not install the floorplate while the magazine capacity is not restricted to 10 rounds or less. 
13. Insert a 1/4" rivet into the hole in the magazine and install with your rivet gun. 
14. Magazine with rivet installed. 
15. Reinsert 10 rounds into the magazine. Take another round and try to insert into the magazine to verify it will now only accept 10 rounds. As you can see, i could not insert the 11th round. If it does, your markings were off, or your rivet folded up in the wrong way. You can drill out the rivet and install another, this may resolve the problem. If not, you may need to install another rivet into the other side of the mag to assist in keeping the follower in place. I installed two rivets anyway just to make sure that if one ever decided to fail, the other will still hold back the follower. 
17. And here are my 10/20 mags. To finish off the magazines, you can color the rivets with a black sharpie. I did not do this since i did not have any around. It looks much nicer when they are colored black to match. 
Well there you have it, hopefully this may help out others trying to make there own 10/20, 10/30 legal magazines. Thanks for reading! |
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Be careful with that. I remember buying a factory Bushmaster in the late 1990s that came with a factory riveted mag. It looked like a standard 20 rounder except for the 4 rivets in it. Later, Bushmaster redesigned their mags to have heavy plastic inserts at their bottoms. I think it may have been because the ATF wanted them to make them more tamper proof and not readily convertable. Your mags could be changed back to full capacity very easily with only a drill.
Other than that piece of advice, they look nice. |
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Quoted:
Like I said, need to look into your own state laws before building. I'm fine with rivets. With MY interpretation of california law, this is legal. I'm not a lawyer, but everyone can interpret the laws as they wish. thanks for the compliment! and the cali agents sure will be the first ones to tell you are wrong even though you think you are right. |
. But thanks for the input!
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lol, thanks! I just knew there was going to be a ton of "thats not legal" or "dont do it that way" threads. I was just waiting for the onrush of posts lol. Thats why i put up all the stuff in red, so poeple can decide for them selfs. there is some lettering in CA law that states that rivets and epoxy is legally defined as permanent in CA. Like i stated, all laws are different in each state, its up to the DIY'er to figure out thier laws and work around them, not mine. I dont have the time :D. I will weld the floorplate on one of these days, just so if there is any issues about re-modifying. but again, thats my problem, not others. they will do as they wish. Thanks again! |
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