So these things used to be all over the place a few months ago and now all i can find for a decent price is the korean crap.

Anybody know where i can get a quality 75rd drum mag for less than $100?



ETA: i checked the parts deal link and the rules as specifically read appear to only mandate that deals are posted there, not requests to find a part.

JG Sales

I got 10 of these last week and they all look great after I cleaned them up.

I got one of the Romanian 75 rd drums from J&G yesterday.  Great deal on a great drum.

there was a discussion on this here recently but now i cant find it.

Im trying to decide whether i want the Romanian old school top load or the slightly more expensive romanian rear load. The rear load appears to be slightly less durable but can be kept loaded and unwound and are easier to load. The top load cant be loaded as quickly and will be under tension if left loaded, but it looks like its more durable.

Opinions?

Tension doesn't really matter much.  Repeated compression/release is what wears out a spring.  Keeping a drum loaded won't lessen its useful life.  I've had mags and drums that were loaded for years and still functioned just fine.

I also like the Chinese pattern "wind-up" drums for quick loading at the range, but I don't find the top load drums to be that difficult or annoying slow.  Plus, they are very durable.

My concern is that is the spring ever do wear out on a top load or something breaks, wont it be impossible to take it apart and work on it?

Of course, if the springs or any parts in the back loader wear or break, im sure that its not exactly easy to find replacement parts...

Sure...that's why you buy spares.  :)  

I have two top-loading drums that I bought in the late 80's that still work perfectly and get used at least once a month.   They are probably 30+ years old and who knows how much use they had before I got them.  I don't really worry about fixing them if they break.

The Romanian top loaders are pretty easy to take apart if you ever need and/or want to get inside one.

Hmm, although the back loaders look much easier to load, they look like they would be less durable due to all the mechanical parts being exposed to human finger fucking during the loading process, that and they look like they could bust open if you dropped them or smacked them against something.

Can you go into a little detail on how the top loaders dissassemble? maybe a cell phone picture of it taken apart?

I wasnt even aware that the top loaders COULD come apart!

Dont bother looking for it.
The Romanian/Russian drum is what you want.
While these may be physically harder to load initially, once you get used to it their not hard to work at all and dont really take any longer to load than the cheap Chinese "Mickey Mouse" style.
The spring tension on the Rus/Rom drums is resettable and I would suggest opening new drums to clean the grease out of them and to familiarize yourself with their function. Setting the spring on them is easy once you run through it and the setting is good for quite some time, Decades even.
Theirs really no comparison on the quality of the two different designs, plus with the Rus/Rom drums you have a real piece of history in your hands VS something that was designed for the American consumer market.
ETA:





Heres a vid explaining the Rus/Rom drum pretty well.






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXc4Y09KAmk





The only flaws in this vid that I can see are that he states the pusher string of rounds is plastic when they are actually either Aluminum or pot metal. about half way through he turns the mag around and you can see the release knob.





Push down the blade in the center of the knob with a bullet tip, turn the knob and its open.





.
 

Pretty much this. Here's a vid if you want something more graphic.

More importantly - the rachet loading drums were ALL made to military specs under a govt.contract.

The RECENTLY imported chinese pattern drums were made on well used tooling that was passed around from place to place and God only
knows if anyone even inspected the finished product.  

If you get the chance - compare a bonafide surplus chicom and russian/romanian drum to one of the newer made ones , you'll see what I mean.

See thats all i needed! 10 sec vid and im fuckin sold! Ordering 2 now

I've owned both and can say with no problems that the Romanian 75rd is the best in terms of durability.

The Chinese is good  for what it does but not on the same level as the Russian on Romanian,,,
The back plate retaining clips and the wind up key have always been the weak point in that design to me...easy to bend, break, lots of exposed parts...

The rear cover on the Romanian is convex shaped which gives it alot of structural strength...and the front if concave which does the same...
Some engineer took the time to make sure it was designed to hold up under alot of stress



One thing I can recommend on the Chinese drums is that once you get it loaded and clip the retainers over the rear cover..put a heavy rubber band
around it - just "in case" it decides to pop open (happened to me) and your picking up rounds that have fallen into foot high grass.

ok so i just ordered 2 romainian top load drum mags from J&G sales as well as two new east european 30 rd steel mags. Will update with pics and reviews as soon as i receive them.