Joe's Magazine Mania Update

A while back I purchased a 5 pack of mags from Joe's Magazine Mania. My initial impressions were positive, but I thought the price was a bit high. Now that I have had a few months to put them through their paces, I wanted to give some more thoughts on them.

They have had no issues in my commander or full sized government guns feeding:
200gr LSWC
230gr LRN
230gr RN FMJ
215gr LRNFP
230gr Hornady TAP
230gr Federal Hydrashock

I haven't shot much of the 'good stuff' through these (Hornady and Federal) because it is so damn expensive, but everything runs well. I have not tried these mags in my officer sized 1911 either- so I cannot comment on how they feed across frame sizes in the smaller 1911s.

feed lips

 The lips appear to be of a tapered hybrid design, and are a winning combination. The follower is steel, uses a split follower sans feed bump. For an awesome analysis of 1911 mags and how they work, see here.

The witness holes on the mag are cleanly cut and well aligned. The bodies are highly polished inside and out, and the follower and springs seem to be of quality construction materials. 

However, the base pads leave something to be desired. Though they are all quite functional and comfortable, but they are poorly fit and of inconsistent shape and dimension. Below is a very typical example of how my base plates line up on the mag. Definitely minus a point for poor fitting.

base pads fail

 Aside from my disappointment in how the baseplates fit, the performance on these magazines has been excellent. None of my mags have more than about 100 rounds through them- but no issues have crept up yet and I have put them into my carry mag rotation.

My other preferred mag is the ACT 8 round mag- which looks like this (top magazine pictured). I own about 5 or 6 ACT mags and like them very much. However, my biggest gripe with them is their wide base pads. The additional width of the ACT pad prevents me from carrying them in some of my mag carriers.

These mags avoid that issue. The pads are slim and stack well in any carrier that places mags one on-top-of-the-other, instead of side-by-side.

view of witness holes on a loaded mag

As a final observation, the mags have sufficient internal length to run all of my ammo- much of which I leave a bit on the long side. Some 1911 mags seem to have shorter usable body length than others when it comes to cartridge OAL, but that has not been my experience with these.

 Overall, I still consider these mags a win. Their performance has been top notch- and though the execution of some of the details leaves something to be desired, they still form a very functional mag. I maintain the 15 dollar price is a bit high- though if you could get these for 12 or 13 a mag, I would say BUY without any hesitation whatsoever.