SA80 Magazines: The First 3 Generations For The L85A1, L85A2, L86A1, L86A2, L98A1 and L98A2 

H&K to MoD: "Heavy is good, heavy is reliable. If it doesn't work, you can always hit him with it."

There was a “cult of the HK steel mag” in my US Army unit in 2008. I however spent my meager personal funds on Gen 1 PMAGs :)

To get floorplate off the old Colt magazine, I use a needle nose pliers to lever up the tab and then pull it off. Then replace with Magpul USGI floorplates.

As to the nags being treated as" consumables" I was reminded of an interview with a WWIi US veteran. It was a piece on the M1 carbine. He stated the magazine was the week point and as soon as any one of the 15 round mags for the carbine failed they tossed it. It was no problem to go down to supply and pick up a whole case of new magazines. Considering new in the wrap magazines made during the war as still available in quantity over 75 years later attests to the numbers made back then.

The biggest thing that killed magazines was guard duty. The guard changes every 12 hours and every 12 hours those magazines are unloaded and then loaded again. 365 days a year. So that's 750 load/unloads per mag for however long they lurk in the guard room weapons locker. Then they make it back into circulation with other mags issued out to the battalion and the problems start. Having said that I never had a problem with Colt prancing pony mags. RG mags were variable with some being complete dogs eggs destined for the bin.

This was a trip down memory lane, truly! Never found the H&K magazines to be an issue, but as for the Radway Green... well least said the better.

Man, this really helps one appreciate stuff like PMAGs. Although there are some rifles where PMAGs don't fit.

The award for worst magazine issued to a 1st world nation still has to go to the Thermold issued to the Canadian Forces. We used to snag RG mags that had been dropped in the training area after British units had moved through Wainwright or Suffield. There were always a few to pick up. As bad as they are, they're an improvement over Thermolds

Before you and the chap started doing content on this kind of minutiae I would never have supposed myself interested, please do keep it up. Thanks for the content.

Back when I worked in an army surplus shop, I remember dropping a RG mag on a carpeted floor and accidentally/successfully fieldstripping it that way. The RG mag must be a finalist in the worst magazine competition. The HK mag felt like you could batter someone to death with it. I still love the Sterling L2A3 magazine design, particularly the follower.

Could keep "questionable" mags for range practice only. Malfunction practice is always a good thing.

As a mechanical design engineer I've really fallen out with aluminium. Unless you're bolting bits of extrusion together, or milling something from solid it's just an absolute faff of a material - strength to weight ratio is great, but more often than not you're stiffness-limited rather than strength-limited and its stiffness to weight ratio isn't that amazing, and its fatigue life is something you need to be particularly careful of, and you need to be careful when forming it as to not crack it, and don't get me started on welding the damn stuff... ...ahem... I bet those flimsy magazines are the result of doing whatever they could to move the rifle's centre of mass closer to the bore axis, looks like they were trying to save every gram and it didn't _quite_ go the way they imagined. Also £5 says Bloke reassembled that USGI magazine off camera 😁

On the HK mag, the AD is the date code for 2003. Yours seem to be missing the smaller rubber bumper on the Endplate, which should prevent the magazine from spilling its guts when a rifle grenade is fired. And also make dissassembly much harder.

Ahh, I remember counting the HK ones out along with the L98A2s from our armory for range days.

This was actually a fun video! I have way more mags than I actually need, but there are so many makers here in the States that I often pick up a magazine from an obscure maker just to have one I've read that a rationale for modern polymer mags is that when they finally fail, it's obvious so it can be discarded without drama, whereas the earlier aluminum mags often still look fine, even though they are actually unserviceable.

This video is a contender for the nerdiest video awards. I think it will win by a mile. Good work 👍😁

I don’t know how available magpul anti tilt followers are over there but I highly recommend them along with updated springs. I updated all of my older magazines with them and problems solved.

Modern USGI mags are pretty solid nowadays. I do have some of the more vintage ones in my collection, but I'm a sucker for mags with field art, unit marks, and paracord speed pulls from the troops. Those don't really get used at the range however.

There is an easy technique to take those base plates off the colt and to put them back on. while pressing down with your thumb on the plate to ensure it clears the tabs, insert a punch in the floor plate hole and lift while adding upward pressure. To reassemble get the plate started and slam down on a flat surface. Those early M16 mags are made exponentially more reliable by replacing the original follower with a Magpul anti-tilt follower. I would venture to say for the Radway Green mag as well (though I don't have any experience with the British mags). The HK mags are bomb proof but I would still prefer the lighter aluminum mags. Ounces equal pounds, pounds equal pain.

Very interesting. My SAR-80 came with a mag that resembles the gen3 magazine with anti-tilt follower. Among many trialled, it works best with open-bolt-on-empty feature and it did not jam on me after 1k rounds or so. I have bought another one that looked similar (same style of the follower and base plate), but it's much thinner, has these pronounced weld spots and jams all the time, plus, doesn't actuate the bolt open feature, plus doesn't drop free. Which probably speaks of manufacturing tolerances. I suppose it's a knockoff made by Norinco, but it lacks any markings so i can't be 100% sure.

The first sentence of the vid contains the word "nerdery." Promising!

Ein interessantes Video, danke dafür.

My local shop (I'm in the UK) had a big box of RG magazines for sale. I may be remembering wrong ,but the did feel and look a lot more flimsy then the RG ones I used as a cadet. This was when the L98A1 was starting to replace the No4s

PMAGs are the answer all though the HKs are a great alternative

Back in 1972, I went through US Army basic training at Ft. Polk, LA, US of A. We had very few problems with the 20 round magazines, 30 round magazines were for combat units...and I was told by a very experienced soldier, the 20s were preferred in combat. Early days of course. Geoff Who has been around awhile.

Much awaited, much appreciated excellent insights as always. 👍

Oooo-ooohh SUITs you sir!

I found a ACL magazine at a market

I have an odd feeling that after this was recorded, a good stretch of time was spent fiddling with that colt magazine.

I love my HK magazines.

The "Hasst Kunden" bit killed me, LOL

I recall it being a regular practice with the older mags to pop off the baseplate to empty an unused full mag (a fairly common occurrence with the A1!) In hindsight I wonder if that was doing the mags much good in the long run.... was also easier to fit 3 mags into the plce ammo pouches. I remember deploying on operations with a mixture of both as initially the HK ones were in short supply....and vague recollections of some sort of amnesty to collect in folks personal hoards of illicitly obtained rg mags

I do actually like the RG mag baseplate more than the traditional Colt mag, looks much easier. Probably why I sit around fiddling with the Pmag baseplate release as well…

I can say from personal experience that the USMC did not treat magazines as disposable. Honestly, we re-used the well past the point at which they should have been scrapped, at least in the 90’s to 2000’s.

When Bloke said HK stands for „hasst Kunden" (hates customers) I was expecting it to be for „hast Kunden" (has customers). People do keep on buying their stuff.

Btw, it's not just a joke to smash bad AR-15 GI mags with a rock, it's serious advice. The moment you find out a particular magazine is giving you feeding issues, smash it in a way that it is obviously destroyed and nonfunctional. If you do not destroy them, they will eventually find their way back into your range bag and continue to give you headaches for years.

Neat

Minute 4:13 of this video. General overview of the whole experience of the experience of anyone who has spent more than 1/2 a day with the SA80.

My Cetme Model L Maghs worke amazing despite being over half a century old.

That COLT/Okay Industries unit seems to make you tetchy.

Nerdery! :D

Interestingly, the L85A1/A2 a quite some heavy weapon compare to some competitors just seen its weight grossing : HK mag, UGL, DD rail, LLM. Brits should have quite strong arms with it.

HK seem to like the 1911 Syndicate...

Gah! Those HK steel mags. I hated the damn things, even after training with the RG ones! The pmags were so much better.

Only reason to keep and maintain old mags are for people where large magazines has been banned and grandfathered. 😢

The HK one reminds me of the BREN gun magazine! Do you have an example of one of the Emags they now use?

I can understand using steel in the body of the mag, but why on earth did H&K make the follower from steel?

I would ha e loved to have heard what all was said while taking that apart. Not the most mechanically inclined I see...

if you ask stoner the mags were originally designed to be disposable the army didn't wasn't to spend that kind of money in many ways I'm glad we didn't go the disposable route but i would also love never having to load mags just being issued loaded mags

It's my understanding that the original (AR & stanag) mags were meant to be consumables. Frustrating for us users that don't have multi-million dollar budgets.

I'd get the heavy one... Or make my own follower so it won't tilt

also I was told if you had a bad mag damage it in a plausible way for everyone's safety you dont want to be the poor sap sent down range with a bad mag guess the brits are a bit different

Dang, that is an OLD Colt mag, green semi anti tilt followers began about 1982. The USGI aluminum mags don't like to seat when fully loaded on closed bolt. That's why Magpul mags are longer. The Magpul P mags have a constant curve internal geometry. (Thank you Colt for your FUBAR dual bend) is there anything on the SA 80 the ministry didn't bugger up? They would have been better off getting AR-18's fron Sterling....

Mike you pretty much summed it up, But I would say having used RG mags from issue to their withdrawal from service. RG mags are fine but must be maintained , this happened in my unit as did correct maintenance of the L85's as well (which was the actual problem with the rifle) So lazy soldiers = unreliable weapons and components. HK Mags didn't solve a magazine problem they solved a lazy soldier problem. Follower tilt with any mag was never a thing we ever worried about, I only came across the hand wringing when I started civilian shooting.

I swear the colt only took 28 rounds, but your right the radway green were horrible 😂

🤓🤓🤓

Colt mag was 28 rounds not 30

How hard are the terrible ones to find?

The good the bad and the ugly

"issued to a serious first world military" For GB? I'd argue that's debatable lol

Watching some recent Ukraine combat footage the combatants in the vid where loading there mags in a front line trench from a loose box then just dumping the mags onto mud Infront of the guy mag dumping over the berm (and laughing like a manic ) but not to worry they are AK`s so no problems ?

The British army making anything disposable, yes mis money penny.

Not to add to the fudd lore, but I always thought they were a consumable item. If magazines were to be stupidly reliable, it would be fixed to the gun.

Its bronze coloured....... its Colt. Military equipment needs to be cussed at to work correctly. The Gods of War demand sacrifice.

Sorry, don't care. The best purpose for those pieces of military malware is, having drilled holes in the bottom, cress growing pots.

Go get chappy... Jesus.. Also... Dont listen to this British bungler... Lol. Can't believe I thought of that. Never should you throw away... An old magazine... Ever... Meaning if it's in the shape it's supposed to be in.. I mean yeah. If it's smashed in on one side.. ok sure... It would be better to pass it on.. than to literally pitch it. I could list multiple reasons why to not just throw it away. Also. Yes. Do support the channel though. I'm not saying don't support them. At all.

Was any part of the la80 program NOT an abortion?