I've been keeping an eye out for surplus mags since I first saw this topic come up, and they definitely seem to be scare these days. I went to a small show last weekend, and I saw only a handful of them, including an Eastern European 40-rounder that I bought for $40 (seemed to be in about the same condition as the ones listed on WhatACountry for that price) and a $30 Hungarian 20-rounder in new condition. I did see a bunch of Croation commercial mags, and a surprising number of AK74 mags, but I'm not interested in either of those at this point.
Yesterday, I stopped by a local shop I hadn't been to for a few months, and he had some Chinese flatback 30-rounders, which I haven't personally seen for sale in a store before. I have one that I got from a friend over a decade ago, and I like the feel of the smooth spine when reloading, so I've been keeping an eye out for more. They didn't have a price on them, so he told me $18. I bought six of them. They're in the best shape of any surplus mags I've seen for sale recently, almost no rust at all, even finish, and no dents. I found a few discussions from about a decade ago about Chinese mags. These have black followers and five are marked "CHINA" on the baseplate while the last one is stamped "MADE IN CHINA." The last one has pretty rough looking feedlips (along the edge). The feedlips look thicker than the European mags I've seen. Glad I found a few of these. I wish I'd been looking for AK gear back when they were $6 each, but I was happy to find them for a good price in today's market.
I thought I'd post a few photos since there don't seem to be many recent discussions about Chinese mags (the "MADE IN CHINA" marked mag is on the right in each photo).
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