The 2 surplus steel mags i threw away today say otherwise.

The Tapcos are no slouch they are gtg in my experience

What was wrong with them?

Bent and rusting on the inner body wall.Follower was hanging up badly halfway down.Rounds would hang in the curve of the mag wedged between the mag body

Pulled most of the bent area out but it was right in the curve of the mag.Used as range mags and deemed them trash after working on them too many times.

They were just out of serviceable life.Kept the floorplates and mag springs.Romanian mags.

I still have these in an unopened box

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12 bucks a mag right now @SG also

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https://www.sgammo.com/product/surplus-ammo-sale/30-round-ak-47-mag-new-condition-croatian-steel-magazines-bolt-hold-open-f

ETA: 194 in stock as of now

@Shiff

RUN from those croat mags. $12 isn't worth it when you for just a few bucks more you can get the new steel bulgys or surplus.

agreed, I bought 40+ of the croat mags and they were terrible, returned them all

I remember $2.00 New Chinese mags

I bought 5 of each of the following from CDNN and tried seating them in a few rifles today:

Steel Bulgarian 30rd
Bulgarian with Steel Insert 30rd
AC Unity poly mags with Steel 30rd

I tried some of each in the following:

1) Old Ass Saiga Legion AK-47
2) Definitive Arms DAK-47

3) DDI AK (unfired)
4) WBP Lynx Pistol (unfired)

The Steel Bulgarian fit everything, no problems.
The Bulgarian with Steel Insert fit everything, no problems.
The AC Unity were fine in the fired rifles, pretty tight in the DAK-47, and none would lock in place in the WBP

FEG stopped production of magazines in 2005.

We have everything including the original drawing, blueprints and all of the gauges and stamping machines and the whole 9 yards on making the 20 rds. again but they want a min. 50k to make it economically beneficial to FEG.

It's not getting cheaper to make anymore.

my best suggestion and this is coming from a FEG Brand Ambassador and a huge fan of the Steel magazines that are Hungarian made but just go buy the PMAGs, the 2nd or whatever.

They are well made and they fit and function fine in all 6 of my FEG made AKs including the milled one.

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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I have had my Croatian magazines for a while now and I take them to the gun range every time I go and I have not had any issues with the floor plate falling off or loose or anything. Bring them home and reload for my next trip. I did buy 5 some Romanian Military surplus magazines for less than $20 dollars and they cleaned up very nice and function fine but they were pricey compared to the Croatian or Bulgarian magazines that I paid less for.

I ended up putting a socket into each mag body and flexing the body so the floor plate lips would be wider and fixed them all. I have about 40 other surplus mag but I got these for super cheap and now they are great.

5.45 Tula mags are starting to trickle in.

$30 from AIM - hard to beat, used to be unobtainable for the most part.

I know almost nothing about AK-74s, but I'm interested in learning more about them and hopefully picking one up eventually (especially with the new options on the horizon). Since I missed out on the $30 plum mags at AIM, I looked at some surplus magazines at a show today. One dealer had a box each of German bakelites (new in the wrapper - I didn't ask the price), Tula plum mags ($65), and Izhmash black polymer mags ($35). I've only found a few discussions in the archives about the black mags, but from what I gather, they are later / current issue Russian magazines. It looks like they were more expensive a while back when they first appeared, but now the plum mags are more popular and rare (hence the price difference). I decided to pick up one of the black Izhmash mags while I learn a little more about them. I suspect that $35 is a little high for them, based on the dealer's other prices, but I couldn't find many on the web that were in stock, and most seemed higher than that. I tried the Surefire test I read about in the archives, and this one is completely opaque - no light shining through at all. It seems to be in decent shape with almost no residue inside. The follower just had some grease on it and no marks or gouges, but the top of the mag looks pretty rough, so I'm guessing it's used.

It seems like a lot of AK74 and Bakelite mags have shown up recently, as if someone managed to bring in a large shipment from somewhere. I found an old post that mentioned that goods that sit in a third country for 5 years count towards that country for import purposes, regardless of their country of origin. Maybe these were all sitting in Bulgaria or somewhere else in Europe, since they can't be brought in from Russia.

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SHK Metal AK Mags New $5.99 Each

Good Croat mags with BHO $9.95

https://www.apexgunparts.com/ak47-magazine-30rd-croatian-bho-7-62x39-new-vci-packaged.html

'And we all know that there are literally millions of surplus steel AK mags in closets, garages and safes all over this country.'

Yep, that's me. I was just going through the boxes tonight. The only AK I have now is an AMD65 and I have plenty of Hungarian 20s for it, so I decided I'm going to sell all my better 30s. Not a huge lot, maybe 10 mags but good ones - like, 3 EG, 1 Hungarian, 4 Bul waffles, 2 Pol steel-lined poly. I'll list them on the EE in a day or so.

Funny (or sad) reading this thread started barely a year ago. $11 for a combloc surplus mag sounds pretty good about now. I did manage to pick up a pair of (10) waffles for $15 from a dusty box in the corner of the LGS this weekend. That’s quite the steal even pre-panic prices.

every time I went to a gun show and didn't see anything I found to buy, I bought a few E. German 5.45 bakelite mags at 5 bucks a pop.........just so the trip to the show wasn't a wasted trip and I walked out with something to show for it.

now, those cheap mags are selling for some big bucks 50-70 bucks

I thought of this thread today while perusing the web for surplus 74 mags. I’m regretting that I didn’t grab some more at the show I mentioned ten months ago above, since those black Izhmash mags seem to have basically doubled in price if you can find them online. It looks like any type of surplus 74 mag is going to be $50+ each going forward. I haven’t been to a show since March, so I’m not sure what’s available locally these days, but I’m guessing everything is sold out or expensive. There do still seem to be some surplus steel 47 mags available in the $25 range online, but a lot of places are sold out.