gambled on a promag M&P40 25rd magazine

E

Evil Monkey

New member
Loaded to 25rds and gonna let it sit for a week and take to the range and try it out.

I plan on putting 500-1000rds through it and document its performance over the months.

Out of the package, it looks nice. Fits in the pistol and even drops free. Spring is obviously weak. Loading to 25rds, I can tell the spring is going to become soft crap before 500rds or just by leaving it loaded for a period of time.

I hear the body is soft steel and not heat treated. Looks well formed though. I hope I don't drop it. :eek:

Alot of people buy promag magazines and put a box of ammo through it and say "its good". I don't buy that. You have to put plenty rounds through it to really see what kind of quality you're dealing with.

While we wait on next weeks range trip, tell me about your aftermarket mags and what kind of problems, if any, you've had.
 
Several years ago I wasted some money on the Pro Mag 25rnd drum for the 1911.

Tested in three different guns. IT NEVER WORKED. Fit the guns just fine, but would not put rounds in position to feed.

Told everyone on TFL about it at the time. search, you might even find it in the archives.

Hope you have better luck with yours than I did with mine.
 
I was looking for AK mags a while back and bought three of their black polymers to try. Ran a few mags through each and they worked well. Were lighter than steel mags and no corrosion concerns, so I ordered 9 more to get the full number I wanted. Of the nine others I think 2 ended up working.
5/12... And that is only with about 90 rounds through the ones that worked.
 
Bought a promag for my LCP. Have to force it in every time, and it always jams on loading the first round. Absolute GARBAGE, and I'll never buy another.
 
I've bought my 1 Promag for my TCP, it won't stay in the gun. I think we all try Promags, I have yet to meet anyone who has had success with them.
 
I bought a Pro Mag for my recently acquired Elsie Pea. No problems with it staying in or ejecting from the gun - seems no different from the factory mag for that.

Have not shot with it yet though as I broke my neck a few weeks back which has severely cut down on my trigger time.
 
my USP 45 came with one of the big Pro Mag extended mags. I think it's 20 or 25 rounds. I've only tested it a few times at the range in the several years that I've had it. It does actually reliably. The only issue is that it does not lock the slide back on the last round. It's nothing I would ever use for any kind of shooting that mattered.
 
Promag is a company whose entire business plan is based on selling to people who are too foolish to read reviews of their products.
 
'You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time and with those odds you should be able to make a profit.'

anonymous unscrupulous business person.
 
I cannot say that most promags are good or bad. I had some horrible 20-30 rounders for an SKS. but, then they put out a new design, and they were even better than tapco's. tapco's 20 roundrs are about perfect for the SKS, but their 30's sucked, the new promag design works well up to 40 rounds, and it's cheaper and nice hard polymer. I also just bought a promag 9mm magwell and mags for an ar15. the mag-block is of decent quality(nice hardened steel ramps and other critical parts are steel), but the 9mm SMG mags are pretty flimsy and all around awful, but they work for now, but the soft plastic lips are already deforming. good luck, they seem to be good on some models and poor on others, but they seem consistent with either quality or crap depending on what type of mag you get.
 
You should buy a lottery ticket.
Click to expand...

LOL! I buy lottery tickets every week but have had better success with ProMags.

I use ProMags for practice, not for carry, which means they do get used often. The mags I use for carry are usually factory mags.

Usually my after market mag of choice is MecGar, a company that also makes mags for lots of gun makers. Always quality and a good price.
 
Just got back from the range.

Fired 250rds of ammo. It was 200rds of federal aluminum and followed by 50rds of Tula steel cased ammo.

The last magazine loading of 25rds of tula had 1 fail to feed resulting in the nose dipping a little bit right into the bottom of the feed ramp. Pulled the slide back and it chambered, firing the rest without issue.

The feed lips are not properly shaped. The first round is capable of "see-sawing", which can have the round nose dive slightly upon feeding.

The FTF I had was most likely a result of a dirty magazine and using polymer coated ammo (Tula) which is known to be sluggish in double-to-single feed magazines. When I had loaded the Tula ammo at home just to see its behavior in the magazine, there was no issue. But after firing so many rounds, the Tula ammo started getting stuck down in the magazine. I believe a much stronger spring would solve this issue. Although the aluminum cased ammo had no such issues.

I really thought I was going to have nothing but problems based on my initial analysis of the magazine. When I recognized the feed lip issue that it had, I though every round was going to be a FTF, but apparently not.

We still have many rounds to go.
 
I've had several Pro-Mags over the years and some of them have been quite good. When there are problems, it's generally the springs -- which when replaced, make the mags work right.

For a number of years the Pro-Mags for the CZ-75B Compact in .40 (a gun they made mags for but CZ never produced, although they announced it) were the best (reliable and less costly) mags you could get for the compact 9mm or .40 CZs. These .40 mags worked as hi-caps in a 9mm, during the ban. (CZ .40 mags, back then, wouldn't retain a 9mm round.) Pro-Mag's full-size CZ mags were never good -- but again, if your replace the springs, they were OK. You just had to figure whether the price was low enough to justify changing out springs much sooner than usual.

I've also had Pro-Mags for Berettas and 2nd Gen S&W semis that worked well. Pro-MAG will replace crappy mags under warranty if you go to the trouble of sending them back.

You'd think they'd just spend a bit more on springs and redeem their reputation.

Would I buy their mags if a Mec-Gar equivalent is available for $4-$5 more? Mec-Gar all the way.
 
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Promag did a great job on the Marlin 795/70P/989M2 25-rd mags...
other than that I've had zero experience with 'em...
still awaiting their promised 75-rd Drum Mags for the same...

The Promag Marlin mags were FAR superior to the Shooter's Ridge Marlin mags.
The SR's had to be reglued on the main seam with Plastic Weld to be useful...
had 'em for a couple years now and well over 1000 rounds thru each mag.
After regluing, the SR's are fine, and the Promag's always worked well from the getgo.
 
another 200rds of federal aluminum cased ammo today. Had the mag loaded for a week as well. Zero problems.

total of 450rds with 1 FTF because of the polymer coated tula ammo so far.

As crappy as the spring is, I can't see how it can cause malfunctions in non-full auto weapons, like pistols, with hard coated ammo (ie: brass, anodized aluminum, lacquer, etc.)

Polymer coated ammo on the other hand is another story. Though this seems to be predominately an issue with magazines that go from double to single feed based on what I've read on the subject.
 
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