AK Mag Collection Overview & Favorites

hey everybody it's Jay and a little while ago I did a video on my a ar-15 magazine collection for 30 grand mags so today I thought I would do the same for my a Kmag collection now you might see I don't have quite the variety on the table for the a K mags as I did the AR mags and there is one simple fact for that and that is because most of the air correction a came eggs I have our of the metal variety and there are differences between country manufacture for steel ek mags but it wouldn't do much good to have nearly identical steel mags like ten different ones that are all almost imperceptible different imperceptibly different to the naked eye with a few again a few notable exceptions so I am only putting one metal magazine up here this one is actually a Polish steel magazine to be representative of the whole so what do we have on the table here oh the other thing too is I'm going to pick a favorite out of these as well again picking a favorite is not me declaring that it is definitively the best magazine ever but it is the one that I have very arbitrarily picked to be my favorite so let's go ahead and get into this and like with the last video we'll start with the Magpul which again us-made and k magazine all polymer and has also big become somewhat ubiquitous in including with new us-made or even new import guns where they need to have a us-made magazine in for compliance this has kind of become the de-facto default this is a good thing the reason why this is a good thing is because before that I was seeing a lot of Pro mags now you'll notice that there is not a pro mag on the table because I will not buy a pro tank I have heard nothing but bad things about Pro mags I have had Pro mags for pistols before that most notably whenever the next round would come up would just fire the entire magazine out through the top of the feed lips absolute garbage so I won't buy anything Pro mag that's been my experience and what I've read from other people's experience as well yours may vary now Magpul has at least two varieties that I'm aware of the gin so-called gin one which is purely a polymer feed lip and then they have a gin - at least I'm not sure they might be - up to June 3 or June 4 I have no idea because I haven't bought one since I bought these that have metal reinforcements now the polymer Ian for the polymer reinforces the basic polymer ones with no metal reinforcements are known to break the feed lips over time that's something that I hear a lot about a lot of AKM eggs in polymer is that these feed lips will break especially with left loaded I have not I've never actually had a feed lip break on an ache a mag ever Magpul included but the problem seems to be widespread enough that I'm not going to I wouldn't keep this in a go-to rotation so for a cheap range mag I think these are 11 or 12 bucks seemed perfectly fine but it's not something that I would fall back on or try to rely on in any any capacity other than having a fun range day so next up we have sort of the polar opposite of that in terms of polymer AKM eggs this is the legendary according to the internet bulgarian circle tin so-called circle tin because of the circle tin for the purple area and arsenal waffle mag so-called because of its shape or the pattern I should say on the outside which these kind of act like a reinforcement as well as giving you some texture to the magazine if these are dropped a good chance that instead of hitting the body of the mag it's gonna hit this these ridges on top which makes them pretty durable the other thing that makes it pretty durable we have a metal floor plate and internally reinforced steel feed lips which you can't really see but I promise to you it's their steel reinforced now specific sound really reinforced it is a steel locking lug and I believe I'm gonna put it on a magnet yeah the front locking lug steel as well so the reason why these have such at the reputation that they do is because of that reinforcement and just the overall durability of these mags comparing this to something like the Magpul this the bulgarians feels like a tank which is somewhat appropriate because they cost about as much as a tank besides the besides the bakelite which I'll talk about here in a minute this is the most expensive mag that I have on this table I think I paid around 45 bucks for mine but I have one because I feel like I need to because these are sort of the de-facto vests take a mag you can get the problem that I've had with Bulgarian waffles is I have I think three guns in total that I cannot get this to fit in I could go milling out the mag well I could go milling out the magazine release but instead I'd rather just stick with knowing with mags that will work for sure consistently so that's really my only two hang-ups about this magazine is price 45 bucks around depending on time who you're buying it from and all that stuff again same same footnote their qualification on prices prices vary on the internet all the time so it's gonna be different by the time these words come out of my mouth so don't hold me to that but about 45 bucks for nak mag so we also have WBP polymer which I haven't heard much on the internet about except that they seem to be pretty solid and work which is kind of interesting because like the Magpul they do not have any metal reinforcements I've shot a lot of WBP mags I've shot a lot of the two to three radom mags for the archer slash barrel rifle and I've never had a problem with them I've never had a craft feed lip I've never had a significant amount of you know scarring or anything like you'll see on the Magpul they just seem to work pretty well and they're generally also available generally and affordable so I think for an inexpensive polymer range mag I really think the WBP seem to be a pretty good choice and I don't have any issues with fitment because you notice the profile on them it's a little slimmer in the body which also means probably not gonna be as durable I can say pretty confidently I mean the locking lugs are plastic as well there's absolutely no way it's gonna be as durable as well gary you so if you're looking for tank bulgarians decent foreign-made polymer range mag wvp should be just fine they said in my experience so far and again this is all based on my experience that has been the case now you're gonna get into some weird stuff with polymer a k mags because a lot of companies have attempted polymer akm eggs to mixed success now specifically thinking right now about the AC unity mags that have come out which are foreign important but it is they're an Eastern European company and they're coming out with a lot of polymer eggs this is not one of those but they've also known to have quite a few issues that's one area where I think the a are definitely excels over the a K from an aftermarket standpoint well actually pretty much excels from every standpoint as far aftermarket coasts is that we've gotten a really big jump on our polymer mags over whatever country happens to be attempting to make a polymer mag at any given point so one other example of this is this circle 11 made by radome magazine that this one is known to be least according the internet to be pretty brittle and generally not incredibly reliable which is interesting because it's radon you would think radon would be really solid but from everything that I've read these typically are not the best magazines as far as having a go to magazine and as you can see there's nowhere on this because I have not shot this MEC I have this mag actually Misha gave me a couple of them as a gift because they have circle 11 on them and I'm a polish collector so and they're also not very common but like I said a lot of countries have made have attempted a polymer a k mag to a lot of mixed success this is purportedly one of those so it's always best if you're looking into getting an aka mag to do your little research first check the internet for the specific brand and poke around in the forums and stuff to see what the actual general impression is because like right now you can find those acned mags out there I think for 10 dollars or less and they're everywhere but the reputation so far or the reception has been very mixed as far as durability and reliability and such so polymer mags are always gonna be a iffy and if you proposal for a case whereas with a ours most all polymer mags are gonna work fine as long as they aren't made by Pro mag but aka mags mm not so much so I mentioned the most expensive mag on the table these the prices on these very wildly I might have paid I think $40 $30 for mine when I bought it I've seen them go for over a hundred dollars it just depends on the import wave and what the availability is this is an original Russian bakelite mag made of bakelite and it is also metal reinforced I'm putting on a magnet over there I could remember I was pretty sure it was but I wanted to double check before I said so for sure or not and somebody well actually be in the commets has a metal reinforced locking lug on the back and on the front so really high-quality Russian magazine Rob's key uses these in a lot of this tests I know and they seem to hold up really well I do not use mine it has every daring huge bags and the reason is is because they're not making any more of them and to again the prices are crazy on them so I do use them if we're doing videos and stuff where I'm from shooting a gun where a bakelite mag would be you know appropriate but these to me are more of a collector's item than a real functional range magazine which they're like I said very high quality when you can find them so way up there as far as quality now I mentioned earlier that I only have one metal magazine one steel magazine for a neikei but I have by far more Steel IQ mags than any other and the reason is is because for one pretty much every country that's ever made in a Kay has made steel magazines and most of those have ended up if not all of those have ended up on the Americans surplus market at some time or another the one of the key benefits of these is you don't have to worry about metal reinforced locking lub lugs because the whole thing is metal anyway the floor plates metal the followers metal everything about this is steel these are built like a tank one disadvantage is a lot of times with a polymer mag if you take a dent to the side it's just gonna ding if it doesn't break it's gonna pop right back out like you're gonna have a little bit of shock absorption with a metal mag if you take a nice solid hit to the body it's gonna ding it enough that it can impact your follower function but good news because it's an aka usually that can just be fixed with the hammer um I have a couple Romanian you know if I've got one handy here and a couple of these Romanian so-called lanyard loop because he can I try to plan it out on the camera that's not gonna help because these little lanyard loops that were welded on and you can see this oh boy I've seen better days compared to the polish but they're cool-looking and unique and this one maybe another one had a dent so bad in it that the follower did not function but what I did was took the the spring and the floor plate off took the follower and pushed it down to about where it stopped just kind of let it fall free and then took a long punch and hammered it through flipped around the other way stuck it back in the body and then hammered it through again which effectively swage the body out enough that it works fine now got all the rest and scraped off of it because it was completely coated and rust and gotta lubricate it inside works great that is one of the advantages of a metal magazine they're both steel ek mag is if you do happen to ding it you can probably knock that ding out but you're also gonna be down on that mag until you get that fixed whereas with a polymer mag if you hit it hard enough to break the body of the mag if there's a chance that you're gonna be down on that too so yeah so generally my day-to-day go-to range mag for aks and this is because of the availability because of the reliability I think in general and if you're aware of some post them in the comments but I think if you're buying a metal steel magazine from a country that has made aks and issued a case you're probably gonna be just fine as provided that the mag is not just totally borked from a rust and dinged up standpoint or if the spring is not broken or something you're probably gonna have a perfect go to magazine by just buying a steel surplus or foreign made a came egg particularly Eastern European I don't have any Asian made ones so I can't speak to to those so yes these these pretty much are my go-to these are the ones that I have the most of because they're also generally pretty cheap again depending on the country depending on the time frame depending on import waves and stuff a lot of times you can find pretty cheap imported AKM eggs I have some of the I have some various bolt hold-open ones that work just fine that are newly manufactured Bulgaria is still exporting newly manufactured ones so plenty of options pretty ubiquitous easy to find typically I have no idea what they're like right now as I'm recording this but usually you can find them for not very much so it's easy to buy a bunch of them and then you don't really have to worry about the reliability standpoint on them so finally let's talk about another us-made mag this one I actually do quite like this is an X Tech I think that they have a specific yeah mag 47 these came out of the old u.s. palm mags which I believe also had a pretty good reputation and these have a very good reputation as well they do have like a cheapo practice version I think that they call it that does not have steel reinforced feed lips but this one has internally steel reinforced feed lips all around the top and steel locking lug and you can see here a steel locking lug which is a real big improvement over a lot of these other cheaper polymer mags that we've discussed the other thing too is military arm Channel did a torture test on this comparing it to an AC unity and I cannot think say so you need without thinking of assassin's creed unity what a weird naming convention that they literally it's like if somebody came out with ameri-ghen just called it a pac-man magazine because it's just the same it's the same name here's our doom 64 magazine actually that even sounds better than AC anyway AC ad but the they compared these these extech max the AC unity mags that just totally made my brain fart and what he found is even dropping a cinderblock directly down on the side of these things that these really significant waffle patterns did a lot to absorb that external shock and he had to try really hard Tim and military our channel did to actually get this thing to fail he had to deliberately destroy it to make it fail and that's saying something for in the u.s. made polymer magazine the other thing that I like is that they have this bolt hold-open follower available not all of the versions of you can if you want to save 5 bucks or so you can get one without which is pretty neat and it works well it is always a little disturbing to feel that kind of chunk feeling whenever the bolt locks open on an empty mag because it's not something I'm used to on a case but it works and it works quite well unlike with the waffle the Bulgarian waffle I have never had a fitment issue on my ex Tex the same guns that the Bulgarian waffle will not fit in this one fits in fine and that is one of their claims to fame on their website is is that they've tried every a K they could get their hands on and they fit in all of them so I think that that's pretty respectable as well I really like this very squared off floor plate with a big generous takedown disassembly button there pretty neat so my two favorite mags are just surplus in this case polish I think I'm more polish than anything else because whenever I was buying a key mags more these were the most available I think there are 11 or 12 bucks we have the extech mag for a polymer mag if you need to go polymer and I think I paid around $30 a piece from which is still about 15 dollars less than the Bulgarian waffle - I guess I need to pick our favorite overall and just because I feel like it I'm going to arbitrarily pick the extech as my favorite AKM egg overall because I really do like that bolt-hole a good follower its polymer and fairly lightweight without sacrificing any durability considerations and to be honest something makes me feel good about checking my favorite a Kmag to a US manufactured company so that's that's pretty impressive that they've that they've managed to really pull off just a really really high quality polymer magazine I think better than any other polymer mag except for the Bulgarian waffles so anyway yeah highly recommend either if you want to just buy a captain of mags just to have a crap ton of mags because you need a crap ton of mags because everybody does it's gonna be hard to go wrong with just getting Eastern European surplus and just buy buy up ten or twenty of them as he knew them and have them put back or if you get to a point where you can't get them anymore so because they're not important anymore or because we're not legally allowed to buy them anymore so get them while you can smoke and while young anyway this is J hope you like the video please click like if you did be sure to subscribe to us if you haven't already and check out the link to our patreon page if you want to help support us and we'll see you again soon next time

Channel: Mishaco

Views: 30,928

Rating: 4.9574466 out of 5

Keywords: Educational Historical Documentary Historic History Preservation Documentation, Misha, Mishaco, Ozark Bear Arms, OBA, plinking101, MishacoOBA

Id: wA-pZuxoxTs

Length: 21min 37sec (1297 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 29 2020