Somehow I always knew Karl was a Techpriest. It's confirmed by his invocation of the machine spirit. Also he WWSD is clearly a blessing of the Omnissiah.
a chunky quad-stack MDR would be diabolical. even more diabolical would be quad stack on the 7.62x51 or 6.5 creedmoor MDRs. this is treading into kel-tec territory
Id imagine its identical in premis to the surefire just with a shallower angle at the shoulder where the mag goes from quad to double stack and a much shorter double stack neck.
I still think it would be a huge improvement if the adapter to run standard mags was on a hinge or something so it’s easily accessible and not easily lost. Would really suck to run out of quad mags, have a bunch of 30s handy, but not be able to use them because your adapter is buried in your pack or something.
I agree, if the possible use-case is as a support weapon, a bit of plastic hanging off the side is not gonna be an issue when you're already lugging as many of those thicc mags as they can fit on you 😂
@@windstormscr3222 Yeah, looking at the picture, it looks like there are the two plastic sides that have a hook to go into the cutouts in the well, and then that little metal wedge that I assume locks everything in place. I'm sure that little piece is easily dropped and lost... hmm.. maybe the metal piece is a mag catch extension? Not sure.
@@whelper4231 to repeat a comment I heard elsewhere, what they should have done is make the adapter one piece that clips in with a spring pin, so you can just slam it in place and be back to a standard magwell in seconds
Love the Warhammer 40k "machine spirit" reference for pleasing the surefire 60. That's way cool that they fit in double-mag pouches, no special pouches.
Considering the main advantage is IMO for SAWs, it remains to be seen how reliable the magazine is in automatic fire, considering the gun has less time to feed compared to your test here. Granted, the others have issues more related to total jamming of the magazine but there are other faliure modes to consider. Regardless, at least someone is trying to innovate on this field. Thank you for your content, been enjoying it for years now.
@@johneven318 Spring decompression to put next round in position to be fed after the top round is taken takes time. So theoretically, bolt can close without picking up round cause the later was still being lifted by the mag's spring at the time.
If we do the math. You can carry 8 30 mags + 1 in the weapon or 4 53 mags + 1 in the weapon. 9x30=270 rounds in total. 5x53=265 shots in total. So you sacrifice 5 shots in return for having to change magazines 4 times less
What Would Stoner Do Now, Squad Automatic Rifle. WWSDN-SAR. They need to use a FightLite upper made as light as possible. Maybe a 12.5 barrel version, so they need an SBR or pistol lower. Then, it would have a quick change barrel, belt feed as well as quad and double stack magazine feed. Merge a little of the Stoner 63 spirit into it's creation.
That russain ak mag you've shown in the beginning is not a military 6L31 but a commercial one called "SG545 60/B M1" manufactured by a company called PufGun in Russia. They work well. Only downside I discovered after owning one for 1.5 years is that last 2 round are virtually impossible to load by hand.
I saw a decent amount of footage of Russians using those throughout 2022 in Ukraine but it seems since then their reputation has soured. Maybe they don't hold up to the trench conditions very well.
I am curious how fast the mag type switch is in the field. It was my understanding that one of the main benefits of the m27 was easy ammo exchange between squad members. Thanks for your content!
You have to pop a new mag catch into a small slot and plug in the two halves of the spacer, it looks easy to do "in the field" but not "while under fire". Desert tech has shown it on their youtube channel
Gotta say, I'm more impressed with this than the usual "InNoVaTiOnS". My usual question for those is "Okay, what do you do better that justifies you being proprietary?" This one actually has an answer beyond "Make my company more money." That's already better than most, even if the benefit isn't *that* bit in my opinion.
VERY interesting! Like some others, I'd like to see they hold up during full-auto fire. I've heard the SureFire type quad mags called 'coffin mags' due to their shape; but jamming gives the term another, more literal, meaning...
I bought 5 60-round magazines from the German company Schmeisser. You can still find them for a decent price. They were $100 at first. I bought them for $50/per. Excellent magazines. A mag loader is not a must, but darn near. The only downside is you must load a full magazine on an empty chamber to get that first round to feed, so no Tactical reloads with this baby. Oh, I just found them on gun mag warehouse for $40!!
sounds awesome in theory, would love to have one. Aside from the ACF (Awesome Capacity Factor), the weight added combined with the amount of heat wear-and-tear on barrel and BCG components would necessitate having one or two spare uppers in cases of high-volume full-auto "saturation hedge trimming" Commando movie style. Loading multiple mags might cause sore fingers as no EZ load device currently available will work with it. Having said that, I still greatly lust for this very impressive feat of firearm engineering.
Just a friendly reminder from the Adeptus Mechanicus, to please the machine spirit, just remember that to not only pray and chant to it, but of course, use lots and lots of incense.
As the Suomi takes a coffin mag, I always wondered why no one re-engineered it. I get the transition to mags from belts, but this constant mentality that everything must be as compatible with current m4 equipment hamstrings development. Not like the saw was compatible. Not to bad for price either. Worth the risk
I wonder if they will do a 70, 71 round quatro mag as that should be the same length as a 40 rd pmag. Anyway i love the design and will jabe to consider one if i build another ar.
Hey Karl, do you think the skeletonization on the magwell will facilitate ingress of debris? It bothers me on a gut level but the more I look at it, there's not a whole lot to gum up once there's a mag inserted. Great work as always! I've been waiting for your take on the quattro since it was announced.
I was wondering the same thing. I was guessing that they did that to save weight, but it also looks like some of the holes are for the mag well conversation insert. Depending on how and where you run it, I could see moon dust or mud sitting on all the little ledges and getting jammed up into the action when changing mags.
If you really think about it, there’s no reason any material needs to be there besides the obvious of retaining the mag. An AK with a rock in mag literally has no material in that area. A skeletonized magwell isn’t an issue.
Like others have said, the skeletonization of the magwell is of minimal concern when a mag is inserted, and only marginally more with it empty. But at first glance, it also looks to me like the cutouts are designed to provide more geometry for the adapter to latch onto. An important feature, given the receiver is already wide enough as it is without trying to add more bulk for the adapter mating.
It'd be awesome if tou guys could do a test showing the 30rd inserts as well as doing the mud and dust tests. Should be fine since it still has an AR upper but I would love to see the tests nonetheless!
If you think about it just like a 30rd is a standard magazine for a standard lower the 53rd is a standard magazine if you have this lower on your AR. No high capacity magazines here just the ones made to work with the platform.
I've been following the development announcements from Desert Tech about the Quattro-15 and it's encouraging that they seem to have gotten things right straight away. If Desert Tech is smart and don't BetaMax themselves by refusing to license the quad stack single feed design and let other manufacturers play in their sandbox for a reasonable license fee. If they do so, I imagine the Quattro would become near ubiquitous. Also, for an IAR type application, a larger capacity version, say an 80 or 100rd magazine, wouldn't be too much more cumbersome to integrate into your load out. Definitely a lot easier to reload than a 100rd SAW "nutsack", with orders of magnitude more reliability than the SureFire 100 round magazines (yes, I know Karl was using the Surefire 60 in the video, but there was also a 100rd version that was redonkulously long, and it failed in epic fashion.).
It would be quite cool to have this ability on the MDR...... It would add even more versatility to a platform that's already versatile and differentiate it even further from it's peers
That's a cool way of doing it. I also thought about a magazine that would bend up and around the receiver with a curve to look like a snake drain almost. It should be able to fit 60 to 70 rounds and still have the ability to use standard magazines.
The problem you run into when making the magazine longer, is that you are increasing not only the total spring tension on a full magazine, you're increasing the difference between the spring tension when the magazine is full vs the last few rounds in the magazine
If open to a mag that wouldn't fit in a standard pouch, the Beta C-Mag works quite nicely in standard pattern lowers. They're not cheap though, and with a 100 round capacity, the weight is certainly felt.
Or, for using a magazine-fed system in the auto-rifle SAW role, where capacity is the name of the game. A binary trigger on a civilian rifle w/ bi-pod would give nearly the same ability as the Marine's M-27....it shouldn't take much added length to make it a 60 or 75 round proposition for the SAW role, and still fit in basic web gear, either....somebody call MAR-SOC!
I still appreciate the fact that DesertTech listened when you all encountered issues with the original MDR way back when and actually directly addressed said issues. That was a really nice thing to see. This, I find a little odd. On the other hand, the advantages over the uber-clunky drums is pretty obvious. Though as mentioned earlier by others, it would be nice if the adapter for the standard mags was a little more available, for lack of a better word. Something you could easily pop in without fiddling around with the receiver open. But to be honest, the setup they have now is probably perfectly fine as is. If you're in a situation where you need more than the 4 mags on your rig, plus the one in the magwell, you're probably having a extraordinarily bad day and should be more concerned with finding somewhere else to be post haste. Anyway, it is a really neat idea. And if it does work as well as I have heard it does, it is a nice change from the usual oddball extended capacity setups.
My guess is it's a reliability trade-off, not just in terms of feeding correctly but also in terms of the mag release: you need the adapter to seat quite firmly to operate correctly, but also you can't use (much of) the geometry that the magazine is meant to seat into because you need to keep that clear or the mag release won't work right. So it's kind of got to seat itself by pressure on the sides, not the front and back, and that's a little trickier to do without at least a little bit of installation (beyond "just pop it in.")
The mag adaptor inserts just snap in from the bottom of the receiver. You don't have to open the rifle to put them in. That's what the cut-outs in the lower are for, to allow the adaptor to snap in place.
The USMC did not remove the M249 SAW from service when it adopted the M27. Rather it moved the SAW to the company level to be issued as needed. House to house, everyone keeps their M27s. Defensive operations, break out the SAWs.
Nice idea, but I wonder if it really adds much of a benefit in concept? I think it could be more of a no brainer if it had the ability to run standard 30s without an adapter and small pieces that could easily be lost or fiddly in the process of changing in the field. How would this stack up with simply just a 30+30 jungle taped or clamped together for a quick reload in between? Like mentioned, maybe for support soldiers or unique instances, but it might end up more trouble than its worth.
Tape will wear out and stick to other surfaces depending on how prepped it was. Clamped is better depending on the situation but you're still having to reload. While games are a terrible substitute for reality I feel it's pretty accurate to the truth of how often you die in a FPS while reloading or transitioning since you're not in cover and still very much in danger. Even during our FX round training in the military where we already train and practice shoot move communicate strategies many people just can't perform them in the heat of the moment even when it's pain that hits with impact not actual life threatening injuries. So I think it's safe to say that less reloading while all other factors are the same is much better.
@@TengrioftheCrimsonSky Understood, however the setup Larry Vickers showed in his video seemed very sturdy and preferred those over metal ones as they rode the rounds out upon recoil, tape and cardboard seemed pretty strong. I would also suggest that reloading from your magwell is a lot different than from a piece of kit or gear. They just would be harder to store/carry which is probably why its not common place. If these can be used in a match it would be good to see how they test vs normal 30 rounders.
Then don't buy one. Not everyone has the exact same use case as you. This could be a must have for high volume of fire competitions. Or it could prove to be an unreliable flop. Only the clock will tell.
me personally i think 30 rounds is enough for whatever your doing for a military style ( Sporting i meant sorry atf) rifle, and at most reloading your down a few seconds. 53? Im asking why exactly edit: watching it further kinda answered it, but im still thinking shouldnt we just need to go back to the drawing board and just remake a new lighter than SAW Light machine gun? the open bolt system is just much more suited for it than a ar15 style system, or the M27 IAR
This is very cool to see. But the lizard portion of my brain still doesn't like losing 7 rounds of capacity. 53 rounds makes perfect sense so it fits all existing gear. But an optional 60 round magazine would be very nice. It would still be shorter than the Surefire 60 and much more reliable.
That is very nice. Did you talk about this a few years ago? This looks really familiar. Probably saw it in a Shot Show video. I also agree, this would make a great SAW.
Thanks for sharing. I like DT and all of their products. This one looks to be a another great functioning piece in their already impressive lineup. However I think it's a little late to market.. I'll just grab another one of my dozen or so Standard AR's before spending $500 on a new lower (to build out) and 4 - 53rd magazines.
I think there's a European 60rd mag out there as well - I want to say Schmeisser? But it's a long boi like the Surefire IIRC. I'm not convinced of the practicality of this tbh - nice to have fewer reloads but you actually lose capacity. If you're using it in the LMG role I suppose it makes sense, but outside of that military application I'm not sure it's worth the hassle of proprietary parts etc.
There's a min-maxing part of me that feels obligated to point out that you technically lose some capacity using these magazines instead of 30-round magazines. Your 4X2 chest rig could hold 240 rounds if you used 30-rounders, but "only" 212 rounds if using QMAG-53s. If one was trying to carry 600 rounds (bare minimum LMG combat load per a cursory google) the problem scales significantly - That's 20 standard magazines versus 11-12 QMAGs (depending on if you're rounding up from 583 or down from 636). That's not an insignificant change in storage volume consumed by magazines, and the problem gets worse as your round count increases. Additionally, using QMAGs forces you to have double-thick pouches on the front of your torso, which some believe affects the ability to go prone. On the flip side though, you would end up saving a decent amount of weight! Another cursory google tells me that the QMAG weighs 5.92 oz, an M3 PMAG weighs 5 oz, and a USGI mag weighs 4 oz. So for a 636/630/630 round count for QMAG/PMAG/USGI we have a dry magazine weight of 71.04/105/84 oz. That's over a 2 pound difference between QMAG and PMAG for an equivalent combat load, and better part of a pound for USGI mags. That might just be the difference between a person carrying extra loaded magazines or extra ammunition in stripper clips/boxes. And this is without considering the tactical utility of having 23 extra rounds between reloads. At the end of the day I'm torn about this innovation. I'm glad it exists, but I'm not sure that I personally would prefer this system for an IAR I'm carrying over a standard lower with 30 round magazines. I'd definitely be interested to see how it performs on the clock, or especially at a Brutality match. I'd also be interested in seeing if DesertTech makes other form factors of quad-stack magazines. Stubby quad-stack 40-rounder? Flush-fit 20-rounder? 'stendo 80-rounder? The possibilities are intriguing. Thanks for another excellent video, Karl!
But if you get shot reloading for that 31st round the point is lost that you lost a miniscule amount of overall capacity. Not to mention the overall time you have to remain on target as a fireteam is far more important than, "oh darn I need one more mag pouch to make up for this benefit."
@@TengrioftheCrimsonSky This also removes the ability for the theoretical Quattro gunner to accept mags from other Marines unless they want to fiddle with the clamshell first. It's a cool concept but it needs a less clunky way to switch between Quattro mags and standard mags to have any hope of seeing real military use, imo. Even the 249 is supposed to work with standard mags, even if it's less than stellar at it.
@@In-Midnight-Clad another commenter mentioned a sort of rock/clamp in version of the single mag adapter that I think would be much better. But in all honesty the Marines wouldn't likely get the Quatro system unless the Army already was on board and had them as the primary weapon system. In all honesty I think it would be Nato or other US allied forces/security companies that would adopt this. It's a fairly small investment especially when accounting for the turn around on magazines when actually used regularly. Also I think if Marines got this first it would probably be the best thing because then they'd find all the ways it's not supposed to work but does and or all the ways it's supposed to work but doesn't.
As much as I like `InRange" , when a reviewer uses equipment specifically given to him by the manufacturer free for review then the review is paid for through the free item being given, and the fact that it wasn't a randomly chosen product also makes it questionable as to it representing all products. Karl should know this.
That is $225 on the Desert Tech web site. Could not find a price for the mags. I have a bunch of 30 round magazines. I would rather do one D-60 as my starter mag and standard mags on the rest.
While cool and an interesting concept, having to buy a new lower just to take proprietary magazines seems a bit... unintuitive. 30 rounds is more than enough for most situations, and knowing proprietary magazines, i can just tell these are gonna be much more expensive than standard pmags, possibly even drums. It's not a bad idea all-in-all, i just think that, with how standardized ar's are nowadays, it's going to be hard to convince people to invest in this new system, when the current one works fine. I'm all for innovation, but as of right now, it's looks more like a gimmick than anything.
Nothing is ever going to be as cheap as a pmag. I doubt they are trying to make this a new standard, just making it a gimmic for the people who already have 5 ARs and want to build another with an interesting feature.
@@TheJumboPenguin Also, if a million of these get sold, they and the magazines become " in common use". That would lead to more companies looking into 50+ round mag technology.
@@EWTHeckman This is the main problem when competing against the common AR mags that can be found in abundance for $10 a pop. And having 2 30 rounders in the same footprint as 1 53 means you have twice the chance of having a mag work should one be damaged.
How is that affecting the balance with practically an extra lb under the gun? Is the mag catch beefed up in any way over the standard? I see a lot more wear on my 40 round Pmag catch slots than standatd mags ans adding more rounds...
Here’s a question for you, I’ve asked several people about this really cool Winchester case seems to be a 2” at the head stamp dated 12-94 , I’m thinking perhaps a round for a Hotchkiss cannon the projectile that fits into it has a Reims crest (I’m not sure the 2 go together just because it fits but I posted it on my channel shorts or if you send me an email I’ll forward the pictures. So I’m thinking this was produced in December of 1894 from what little I could find out. I have reached out to Winchester and several of the other popular gun folks on RU-vid. Love the content keep up the great work
An important question is what the effect will be on debris ingressing into the system. That mag has some wide flat geometry that can catch alot of dirt and sand. Also, the skeletomized lower also seems to incresse that risk. Also, weight is important. How much heavier than a 30 is it, and how does this affect the handling
I know 60 rounds mags are heavy when loaded! I would guess this is made more for supported firing like Karl did with the bipod. But in any case, this has to be lighter that a M249 that they lug around now... of course you get less ammo per reload too.
@@george2113 I've thought about this sort of idea with Colt style SMG mags, and decided against it. They have witness holes on the side, and I didn't want dirt getting in there. But I was afraid if I covered them with tape, any dirt inside already would stick to the tape and eventually cause an issue. Maybe you could use a sort of spandex sleeve..? Not sure, I haven't solved the problem yet myself. Also, here on the Desert Tech, I think the side holes are being used for the magazine conversion parts for a 30 mag.
