Spontaneous magazine disassembly

B

Betty

New member
This past weekend we (Oleg, me, family) had a fun outing on the family property. I was happily plinking away with my ParaOrd. C6.45 LDA (which still functions great, BTW) when after the last round I hear "clink". I look down at my feet and there's the metal floorplate and all the inner guts of my mag! The mag body itself was still in it's proper place inside the Para.

The ParaOrd factory mag looks like it's spot welded at the bottom, and it just fell apart. Not only was that embarrassing, but it could have been downright dangerous if I were in the situation where I was shooting from that mag to save my life! I'd have cartridges dropping like bird poop all over the ground.

The mag is going back to the dealer for replacement, and I'm contacting ParaOrdnance.
 
It happens sometimes with the Colt style magazines. The spot weld just lets go. It happened to my once while on a qualification range in Germany.:eek: :o I hate when that happens!
 
I watched it happen to a Glock a coupla weekends ago, during a Combative Pistol class, POW, POW, *sproing*, the spring shot out the bottom, dumping rounds all over the place, this was during the final "shoot-off". I don't believe that it was a factory mag.
 
IIRC, GI mag bodies were tested with a device that forced a rod down into the mag and would break off any floor plate that was not welded on correctly. I guess no one does that anymore.

Jim
 
I had the same experience with a Colt Factory Mag on a Colt .45

Thought at first that there might have been a slight kaboom or somthing but looked at the brass and could find no malformed or mis shapen brass.

It was on the last round in the mag, cheap weld.
 
ParaOrd just responded to my email, saying they will be delivering a new 6 round mag!

I'll still be using F-26 heavy-duty adhesive on ALL the mags, to ensure it won't happen again.
 
Several years ago I bought some aftermarket seven round mags for my 1911. They looked good and had the follower that is supposed to feed everything better than the plain military follower. Unfortunately they also had the habit of disassembling themselves when loaded up. The floorplates would just start sliding forward off the mag body. I returned them to the dealer who sold them to me, and went back to military surplus mags.
My Para P14 mags have never given me any trouble. (I hope I haven't alerted Mr. Murphy be writing this.)
 
I've heard of this, but never witnessed it. In a SHTF scenario, could be REALLY bad.

On the lighter side though, gives a new meaning to "I'm gonna empty a mag at ya..."
 
I had a cheap aftermarket 1911 mag come apart from the other direction. I couldn't figure out why the trigger on my Sistema wouldn't reset, so I dropped the mag and the ammo, spring, and follower all tumbled out of the top of the mag body. The lips at the top had bent and widened enough to release all the contents.

Since then I've decided it's worth the extra 7 or 8 bucks for CMC mags.
 
This is one of the better arguments for always carrying a spare magazine when carrying a semiauto. Still, there are some people who insist you don't need a spare. Without it, you have a slow to load single shot.
 
I recall seeing the guts of a FN C1 ( Canadian Military semi auto FAL) mag go SPROING! as it was "Present Arm's"ed during a Royal Salute, base plate damn near nailed the Lt Gov. that cost someone some beer...
 
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