Why are handgun magazines not designed like rifle magazines

[Machineguntony]

I shoot mainly rifles, but will occasionally shoot my handguns. I love my rifles.

One thing I have never understood, and for which I can not find an answer, is why handgun magazines require you to push the round down and then back to seat the round. On a rifle magazine, like an AR magazine, you just push the round down.

Handgun magazines are such a pain in the butt, and if you do any volume shooting, it tears up your fingers, having to do that extra step to push the round back to seat. It's an extra pain near the end of the magazine.

 

[Wyosmith]

I have never found pistol mags to be hard to load, but to answer the question;
Pistols feed from the 6:00 position into the chamber because of the constraint of design for a handgun. Rifles feed from 5:00 and 7:00 as a rule, so rifle mags can be wider at the top. If a handgun was made that fed the same way the gun would be super wide and too big for most human hands.
You will see that the gap between the feed lips on a rifle mag is as wide or wider than the base of the shell. No so on a pistol. It can't be made that way if the gun is to feed from the 6:00 position.

 

[BarryLee]

Have you tried the UPLULA magazine loaders? They’re available from most supply places including Amazon, Brownells, Midway, etc.

 

[RX-79G]

There is no good reason they can't be, aside from finding a place to fit the trigger bar. Here's the magazines for the HK VP70, FN FiveSeven and Steyr GB:

Those are pretty normally laid out guns. I had a GB - the mag design was excellent and didn't make the lockwork particularly restrained.

And virtually all machine pistol designs use this type of mag - like the Micro Uzi, MP5K and Steyr TMP.

Nothing wrong with it. The handgun world is just very backwards and slow to change.

 

[45_auto]

One thing I have never understood, and for which I can not find an answer, is why handgun magazines require you to push the round down and then back to seat the round. On a rifle magazine, like an AR magazine, you just push the round down.

Handgun magazines require you to push the round back because they use a "center feed" loading system where the cartridge is fed into the chamber on the centerline of the gun. The feed lips are NARROWER than the width of the cartridge, therefore you have to push the cartridge down then back to slide it under the feed lips.

Most rifle magazines, like AR mags, use a "stagger feed" loading system where alternating cartridges are fed into the chamber from slightly off each side of the centerline. The feed lips on a stagger fed magazine are WIDER than the cartridge, so all you have to do is push the cartridge straight down until the pressure from the preceding cartridge locks it into the appropriate side of the feed lips.

See pic below.

There are couple of basic reasons why handguns do not use a staggered feed system.

1) You need two feed ramps or a single extra wide feed ramp. Would make for an extra wide frame on a handgun. Notice how the AR 15 chamber in the pic below requires TWO feed ramps because it is stagger fed.

2) Main reason is because handgun cartridges are MUCH shorter than rifle cartridges. Trying to feed them offset from the centerline compounds the angular problems of getting them into the chamber. For example, a 9mm cartridge is about the same diameter as a 5.56, which means that it would require the same offset in a stagger fed system. But the 9mm is less than half the length of a 5.56 which means that the angle into the chamber would be more than double. In addition, the pistol round has a much blunter bullet profile which would require the feed ramps to be correspondingly wider than a 5.56.

 

[RX-79G]

Dude, I just posted two fully reliable 18 round double feed 9mms. Neither of them have "two feed ramps".

 

[Machineguntony]

I have to agree with RX. When I was reading the above posts, I went to examine my rifle and handgun magazines and their respective actions. The rifle mags and wells are not thicker. Also, I looked up the specs on RX's guns. They aren't thicker or bigger because they feed the ammo like a rifle.

With a single stack handgun magazine, I would understand the above theories, but with a double stack handgun magazine, it doesn't make sense.

 

[45_auto]

Dude, I just posted two fully reliable 18 round double feed 9mms. Neither of them have "two feed ramps".

Homey, you really ought to read the whole sentence.

Here, I'll post it again for you:

You need two feed ramps or a single extra wide feed ramp.

Look at the feed ramp pic you posted vs a pistol with a center feed magazine system. If you can't tell the difference, no big deal.

There is a very roughly machined triangular area in the center of the ramp that you posted, because NO round feeds down the center. No need to waste money on unneeded machining. A round feeds from EACH side of the rough triangle, making it TWO feed ramps. No different in function than the AR15 pic with the two feed ramps I posted. The radii of the ramps must be bigger to accommodate the larger diameter, blunter handgun projectile profile, because like I said,

In addition, the pistol round has a much blunter bullet profile which would require the feed ramps to be correspondingly wider than a 5.56.

I just posted two fully reliable 18 round double feed 9mms.

That would depend on your definition of "fully reliable".

With a single stack handgun magazine, I would understand the above theories, but with a double stack handgun magazine, it doesn't make sense.

I gave you the basics. Not much point in going any further on an internet forum. If you really want to learn, take a few math/geometry/engineering courses.

 

[Jim Watson]

The weak point of the STEN and MP40 is their center feed magazine design. What works ok for a dozen or so in a pistol is not as good for 30 in a SMG.

Most later SMGs have double feed magazines. The British Patchett/Sterling will even use center feed STEN magazines as a substitute for its own double feed mags.

Makes for a bulky pistol, though.

 

[James K]

A problem for a long column magazine in 9mm Luger is that the cartridge is not straight, but tapered. Luger compensated for that with a sharply raked magazine and follower, but the taper has always cause feeding problems in other guns, including even the German P.38.

Jim

 

[9miller]

I think the problem is you're not shooting pistols enough for the callous to grow from the mag loading, after that it's easy.

 

[tipoc]

RX-79 G,

What gun is that in post #6?

Is that rust, or freckling?

tipoc

 

[TunnelRat]

Handgun magazines are such a pain in the butt, and if you do any volume shooting, it tears up your fingers, having to do that extra step to push the round back to seat. It's an extra pain near the end of the magazine

It really doesn't tear up my hands anymore. Instead of a push method I used my thumb to pull the cartridge over the follower.

That being said, the UpLula loader is always an option for fast and pain free loading. Most pistols come with a poor man's version nowadays.

 

[AK103K]

The UpLula is hands down the best pistol mag loader out there to date, especially if your loading a bunch of mags at once.

I usually load up 15 Glock 17 mags before I go to the range each week. Those 15 are a lot easier on the thumb, than the last three I load at the range.

Their other mag loaders/unloaders are pretty good too, although I always thought the trigger was for the unloading part, until I got one.

 

[Lost Sheep]

Uplula not for everyone

Pardon my going off-topic:

Coonan .367 Magnum mags don't fit in my Uplula. The cartridge's length makes the magazine too long.

Lost Sheep

 

[JohnKSa]

One thing I have never understood, and for which I can not find an answer, is why handgun magazines require you to push the round down and then back to seat the round. On a rifle magazine, like an AR magazine, you just push the round down.

The designer of the CZ75 tried to make it a double-stack, double-feed design but ended up abandoning the idea.

Obviously it can be done, but it's not a common feature in handguns.

 

[Skans]

The simple answer to the OP's question is the quest for slimmer frame profiles, slimmer grips, better reliability and without compromising capacity.

 

[Jim Watson]

If you want to see a strange looking magazine made for the most capacity while clearing complicated action machinery, look at a HK P7M13. Two into one, asymmetrical.

 

[tahunua001]

because handgun magazines are angled rather than curved. you cant push straight down and expect the round beneath to slide back as is rocks down an angled tube. this is why you have to push down and back because it also forces the round underneath father to the rear. the same is true for unloading where forward motion helps push the round forward in the magazine as it rides up.

some handguns which use straight bodied mags do feed straight down from the top such as uzis because no back and forth motion is necessary inside the magazine.

 

[tipoc]

I think mostly because George Luger, Browning, Saive, Hugo Borchardt, the Koucky brothers, Gaston Glock and other were simply inconsiderate wretches who cared little for Machineguntony's mangled thumbs.

But more seriously it's a good question. I don't know the complete answer. In the overwhelming majority of pistols the rounds are loaded by pushing down and back (not just down, or down and to the side) and the feed lips retain the round in the mag securely and this mangles some thumbs while reloading when the spring is tough and strong or the follower sticky. This is true for both single and double stack mags.

Saive was the first to design a double stack mag and his was built this way. Meaning that as the rounds fed upward the mag tapers till only one round sits alone at the top and is retained by two lips of the mag rather than a single lip. In some rifle mags only one lip actually keeps the round in place while the pressure of the spring and the round below and to the side of it keep the round located and secure. The follower in these is not flat but staggered. It is flat in single stack mags.

So what sets a pistol's action and design apart from a carbine, smg, or semi auto rifle that could influence this?

One thing is that the mag loads through the grip frame on the pistol and the angle and thickness of the mag is a factor in the gun's design.

The second important factor, seems to me, is that the slide of the pistol moves back and forth. It's action and construction is quite different from the bolt of the carbine. Slides are generally thinner than rifle receivers.

The third thing may be where the round, in the mag, sits in relation to the feed ramp. It's been said already that to get a mag in a pistol where the top round is not on center line of the bore in the Y axis (side to side) to feed reliable you'd need a wider feed ramp. It would also be effected by where the round sits in relation to the chamber on the z axis, meaning how low the round sits in the gun. In a 1911 the round sits low and bumps it's way into the chamber, in a Berretta 92 it's almost a straight shot. So this could make a difference.

tipoc