450Bushmaster.net

A picture is worth a thousand words and an example is likewise valuable. What really helps is having an actual 450 Bushmaster factory mag to compare your donor mag to. With a live model, it's not hard to experiment with your tweaking technique to form the lips of the donor mag to match the factory one, or even improve upon it. I ordered a couple of AR Stoner 20 round straight mags that are on sale today. They are my mag of choice since I'm not using my unit in a war zone. When they arrive, I will try to make an image rich, how-to article on tweaking your mag lips to reliably feed, but the first step for anyone considering making their own mags is to try your donor mag as it comes and see if it works un-tweaked. Some do. Some do, but unreliably and some just plain don't, without tweaking the lips, as MarkCo has already reported. My experience with the reasonably priced SS AR Stoner mags has been that their lips are too wide and some narrowing is in order. The half-moon cut at the front is assumed to be a necessity since the factory mag has it.

Hoot

Yes! A Live model would be nice. Not you Hoot!

Built 2 more...

Lancer translucent AWM. I was a little more cavalier with this one. I turned on the disc sander and took off what "looked" like about 1/10th of an inch on both sides of the new black follower. Then I took off the sides of the rear spine and the front rib to clear the folded metal tabs. Used a pocket kinfe to scrape the edges and melted plastic off. It took maybe 5 minutes total. Bench functioned fine. Ran some rounds through it and is worked 100%.

Another parts build: Brownells 100-001-985WB mag body, 080-000-109WB mag basepad, 100-003-143WB CMMG wound wire spring. With the $6 for the follower, you would have $29.50 in this magazine. But the 40% XP magspring and their longevity seemed like a good idea to test. Bench functioned fine. Shot about 3 rounds and then had several misfeeds. Fortunately, I had my feedlip tuner with me. 5 minutes of feedlip tuning made it good to go. Ran 100% after the tune. While I really like the spring, I think I will stick with the steel mag bodies.

I have had to retune one of my original aluminum bodied mags already.

AR Stoner Mags on sale again! 14% off at Midway!
http://www.midwayusa.com/find?userSearc ... toner+Mags

Don't know if it will work for anyone else...

I bought 3 Stoner mags last time they were on sale. I pulled the follower and put in black followers. Then I bought mag bodies and springs from Brownells in the 10 pack and put the Stoner followers in three of those. I sold the 3 "new" .223 mags locally for $40 making $10. You won't get rich doing this, but it keep more parts out of the "For Sale" bin under my bench.

MarkCO wrote:Don't know if it will work for anyone else...

I bought 3 Stoner mags last time they were on sale. I pulled the follower and put in black followers. Then I bought mag bodies and springs from Brownells in the 10 pack and put the Stoner followers in three of those. I sold the 3 "new" .223 mags locally for $40 making $10. You won't get rich doing this, but it keep more parts out of the "For Sale" bin under my bench.

Nice!

Anyone put the black follower in a magpul pmag30??

Keesey wrote:Anyone put the black follower in a magpul pmag30??

Not worth the effort. The intenral ridge has to be ground down and the feedlips are not tuneable.

Having run a bunch of different kinds, the Stoners and the Lancers are the top dogs IMHO.

MarkCO wrote:
Not worth the effort. The intenral ridge has to be ground down and the feedlips are not tuneable.

Having run a bunch of different kinds, the Stoners and the Lancers are the top dogs IMHO.

Curved body 30rd? Or straight 20s

Also anyone try stoner 40rd?

Keesey wrote:Curved body 30rd? Or straight 20s
Also anyone try stoner 40rd?

I would vote for the straight 20s.

Hoot