I acquired 3 niw Sanchez USGI 30 round magazines, none of which would feed the second to last round out of the mag due to the rearward tilt. I installed brand new green followers into them today which cured the problem with two out of the three.

One of them still fails to feed the second to last round every single time. It tilts the cartridges back just enough that no. 29 stays in the mag. I have taken the mag apart a couple times to ensure proper reassembly, put a little CLP in the body, and looked inside for burrs that it could be sticking on. I can't figure this one out. Is this mag just no good or is there anything else I can try?

Thank you for your help!

drew

What rifle?  What ammo?

Were the rifles in a USGI bag?

[i]Jamming[/i] is non-descriptive.  Failure to do what?

-- Chuck

The Sanchezes were new and were only stored in the wrapper before now.

I described the jamming in the second paragraph. round 29 would not feed as in the bolt would close over it on an empty chamber because the green follower would tilt back just like the black one that I replaced did.

This is my only mag that does this. I have a Bushmaster 20" A3. Ammo is Q3131A. Rifle is stored in my safe.

Hero - if you haven't already done it, try "exercising" the mag. By this I mean, using some object (a wooden ruler works great), cycle the follower up and down in the mag to break it in. Many times you can feel the roughness and then feel it disappear. BTW, I'd clean the CLP out - it is a dirt magnet.

This tip has made several of my problem mags 100% reliable.  Credit goes to Troy on this one!

Thanks gus, I will give it a try and post the results!

GUS!!!!!!

MIRACLE! MIRACLE! MIRACLE!

Breaking in the mag springs did it. I worked at it with a ruler like you said and would stop to see if it was working by manually cycling rounds just to see if the follower would tip. It kept failing and I was about to give up when it worked once. Only once then they stopped feeding again. So I went to work with the ruler some more, and now while manually cycling rounds the mag feeds all the time. I will life fire test it soon, but I think the problem is fixed. I have it fully loaded right now to help keep that spring under tension until I can test it lith live fire.

My hat's off to you Gus, and Troy for telling Gus about it!

Thanks!

drew

I dont have green followers in any of my mags.  All my mags function properly and I have never needed a different color follower to cure somthing that wasnt there.  Atleast for my rifles.

Maybe all of the mags would have worked with the black followers if I had broken in the springs like described earlier, but my first reaction to the mags jamming and closing bolt with chamber empty on round 29 was to install the green follower. This remedied two of the three mags. The third did not get to working properly until today when I followed gus's suggestion on spring break-in.

Actually, what you did was not to break in the spring. Cycling the follower causes all the friction surfaces between the follower and the mag body to wear in. And yes, it works on black followers too. I do it to all new mags that I'm going to use for the first time. I pretty much haven't had a single mag related problem since I started doing it.

The contact points of the mag ribs and the follower burnish each other when repeatedly cycled with a ruler or paint stirrer.  A host of problems can be avoided with this technique.

It is especially useful on the NIB Metric FAL mags from the 60s that have an aged phosphate finish.  If you try to load one just out of the wrapper it's a real fight.  Place three rounds or empty cases in the FAL mag and repeatedly "plunge" with the ruler for 20+ cycles.  Now load the mag and it's a snap.

Noah