Why Drum Magazines are a Bad Idea 

The solution is obviously: *Triangle Mags*

drum mags -2 reliability -1 agility +10 charisma

Drum magazines only make sense in computer games where you don't have to physically carry the ammo yourself.

Yep found all this out the hard way

POV: your high school principle is telling you why your shooting plan wouldn’t have worked

Correct answer is to start out with a drum, then reloads with stick mags.

It is hard to deny that a 1921 Thompson with a big ol' drum magazine has a cool factor that is off the charts.

During the war in Chechnya, Russian scouts complained that when moving in silence, the drum with cartridges for the RPD machine gun makes a lot of noise, the cartridges beat against the walls of the drum. This unmasks the scouts.

Did anyone else feel like he was having a talk with us? Like we disappointed him and he was giving us our last warning?

Everyone turns their head when I walk in with a sphere mag

Remember, switching to your secondary is faster than reloading.

Can't imagine how heavy the BAR would've been if they'd been issued drum magazines

Me: “Drum magazines are awesome Gun Jesus: “Drum magazines are unreliable” Me: “Drum magazines are unreliable..”

Title: "Why drum magazines are a bad idea." Me: *Sad AA 12 noises*

There are a lot of guitar magazines out there. I don't see why drum magazines would be bad

Drums seem to be used best by having one drum magazine loaded into the gun, and using regular box mags for your reloads. For example a D60 Magpul drum with 30 round PMAGs as reloads.

How to make drum magazines easier to carry: 1) Design to double as belt buckles. 2) Give to Texans.

I accidentally picked up a land mine I thought it was my drum magazine

As a percussionist, I feel attacked

RPK Gunners in Chechnya would carry One Drum and Five Extended Mags. The drum would be their starter. The Zaslon units would do the same for their Alpha AK’s.

50 rounds of 30-06 on a BAR? Like that thing isn't heavy enough as it is.

"Drum Magazines are a Bad Idea" MG36: "Alright, double-drums it is"

I remember when the Nerf Raider came out and had the first ever Nerf drum mag. It held 35 rounds and weighed more than the gun itself. This thing not only failed to feed, it REFUSED to feed. The follower got stuck after each shot and the thing was basically unusable. So a pretty accurate representation of Hasbro's part

My WW2 vet father carried both versions of Thompson and told me that the drum magazine was jam prone and made the gun too heavy. And pointless, because he said that it was almost always fired semi auto. Even with a Sten later, he said they were expected to fire three shot bursts.

Personally, nothing against drummers, but I prefer the guitar magazines.

For the MP40/I the real answer is actually: "Drums, despite being complicated, were too simple for the german engeneers. So they came out with a weirder, more complicared and less effective idea"

"Why didn't the BAR have a 50 round drum?" Have these people ever carried hundreds of rounds of 30-06 Springfield??? That would be *stupid* heavy.

Yeah, I remember old stories from WWII veterans about the PPSh drum magazines. Their nominal capacity was 71 round but it was impossible to load it to that number - the resistance of the spring became incredibly hard. If I recall the story correctly, no soldier in the field ever could get it to above 60, but even that was a record. Loading it to above 50% apparently felt like something is going to break - possibly your fingers.

haha dinner plate go brrrrr

A good wardrum can bring good moral to the men. Never underestimate the musicians job in a company

The B.A.R. deserved a 30-06 chain and we know it...

It's also kind of awkward to use a drum with a bullpup style rifle.

You make some compelling arguments, but you forget: Drum Mags are cool af.

Once you have unloaded your thompson's magazine upon the enemy, eject and grasp your drum magazine and end them rightly.

Hollywood: this sign won’t stop me because I can’t read.

The Germans complained about the Soviet's higher capacity SMG but did not have to deal with the draw backs so it was easy to complain.

Drum mags are bad? Alright, I believe you. But my Tommy gun don’t!

You're all missing the point: The solution is obviously a tetrahedronic prism structure.

I'm gonna run a complicated drum mag on my obsolete bolt action

One slight correction: the Bren mk1 was capable of using a 100 round drum in the anti-aircraft role. It may not have been used much but it did exist

Drums weren't intended for carrying, drums were usually for people staying in one spot who could have more drums next to them

When Ian is posting from his office chair things get serious

This is how i imagine jesus explaining something to his disciples at the last supper

I remember when I was younger I thought drums were cool. That quickly evaporated from my mind when I got a Thompson with a drum in my hands. There was no "correct" way to hold it without something pressing against the side of the drum (it had the blocky front hand guard, not the gangster grip). Nowdays I'm even looking at 20 round mags as pretty viable.

Ian: saying "pa-pa-sha" instead of P.P.S.h. Russians watching the video: Finally! Ура!

The real solution is to just hook it up to the machine that manufactures the ammo. Come on guys, think outside the box for once.

I feel like I just got called to the principals office and had a long talk with him.

I'm about ready to buy a drum magazine for my new AK-47, so I watched this video first. I understand the practicality of the box mags over the drum, and as an old soldier myself I get it. BUT, that said, the drum looks so damn cool on an AK. For range fire, it'll do just fine for me. Update: Bought a KCI drum; all metal (I think there are some with a see-through). Loaded all 75 and took to the range with my Riley AK. Drum fit well, and I fired all rounds flawlessly. Drum did a great job. Very happy with that purchase!

Long story short: Drums are good for sustained fire with minimal reloading from a stationary position. Drums are bad in any situation that requires mobility.

Drum magazine in theory: looks cool, you can spray hot lead all over the place! Reality: Heavy, takes forever to reload, rattles like a bucket full of marbles, prone to jamming at the worst possible time.

I am a drummer. The video thumbnail just said "why drums are bad" Relief of my life

This is an old topic but it just came up in my feed. I'll add my two cents as I have sat in on discussions about this topic for military procurement. The perspective of serving members is mostly one of need. Our tactics are based in "effective use of fire suppression to win the firefight." If you are using small teams with fire and movement we learned in the last Afghan conflict it was better to have 30 shots of accurate volumes of fire than mag dumps using long sustained bursts. And if you don't need long sustained fire you don't need 10 lbs of ammo hanging on a weapon that will for the most part not be shot and just be carried on patrol all day. The other side of that is reloading in a sustained gunfight. The standard battle order is 5 mags and 5 additional boxes of clips(10 roundsx3/box) which you can pack in mags with a mag charger in seconds vs fiddling with spring mechanisms. There are a lot of ways to think about it. But from most field perspectives drums are bulky, heavy, hard to reload, and not needed for the roles that we are performing. We have belts for sustained fire and you just clip a belt together rather than pack a drum.

Title : "Why drum magazine are bad" Russian PPSH-41 : 𝗔 𝗡 𝗚 𝗘 𝗥 𝗬

Nobody who likes drums has ever carried more than one at a time.

You shoud have done this monologue while loading a drum mag It would be so cool and self explaining

Wait, can we just think about this guys? Imagine a 75 round drum mag, firing 30-06

I only like drums as a flex against the local range brass goblin.

Hear me out "belt fed PPSh-41". All the style, all the dakka, but gloriously simple.

When we were using RPK in action in 90's, we fit drums for start, but the aditional rounds we carried were all in standard AK "bananas".

I respect, understand, and acknowledge all of the downsides but im going to have to ignore them because of how iconic a Thompson with drum is.

"This is brilliant!" *points at box mag* "But I like this" *points at drum mag*

"Belt infrastructure" I love it. Gonna start using it when someone calls me fat. "No, I've invested in belt infrastructure!"

PPSH41: I declare you an enemy of the revolution.

The only time I will "carry" a drum mag, even for a match, is when it is the very first mag used and already in the gun. Every other mag is a box mag

Any Tarkov Player: "they have a really high ergonomics penalty!"

The whole gangster gimmick is based 75% on a drum magazine Thompson

But the Thompson just looked good with a drum mag.

Magazine guys: "watch how fast I can reload" Drum guys (after 5 minutes of shooting): "what?"

PPsh-41 drum: I assume you want to hold the trigger for longer than you can blink

“It’s a bad idea” “Yeeaaah, but-“

Can't hear you over the sound of my akimbo MP5's with 50-round drum mags.

DAMN - I always wondered why drums weren't more widely used. Turns out, the answer is pretty obvious. Thanks Ian - another nugget of firearms history GOLD!!

I own one drum mag for my AK's, it spends most of its life unloaded and forgotten in a bag in my closets, but when I take a picture of any AK you know it has the drum mag instead of the 30 rounder locked in. Best 89 dollars ever spent at a pawn shop.

Moral of the story... carry one drum mag on gun, carry rest of ammo in box/stick mags on body :-)

When a drum jams you just lost a lot of potential ammo.

Thompson 100 round Drum Magazine: Heavy, Large to Carry, but when it was empty you got yourself a Frying Pan for the Field^^ Gotta make Friends with your fellow Soilders (Just kidding)

This is why we need 200 round box magazines that are 4 feet long for our ar-15's

Remember throwing your gun at the enemy is faster than reloading and switching to your secondary gun

And here's why they're a good idea: The Rule of Cool.

My feeling is that drums are good for having one as your first mag thats in your gun while on patrol or standing guard so that when an engagement begins, It would be advantageous to be able to fire back with a lot of shots before you have to reload as you assess the threat and plan your response, but from there on out switch to box mags as the engagement continues.

That my friends is why, when the superior Calico was created they integrated a helical magazine

Gun Jesus: "It's a bad idea." Me: "It's cool, tho."

This explains why nobody took my pretzel shaped mag design seriously.

This also applies to bigger guns, the soldiers using the 20 mm Oerlikon AA guns during WW2 complained a lot about the drum mags these were using, and that's why the Oerlikon's successor - the Polsten was capable of using new box magazines

IM SORRY I CAN"T HEAR YOU OVER ALL THIS AMMO I GOT TO SLING AROUND

but they look cool its like the gun has nuts

Might wanna level up your stamina to carry those drum's

''Why Drum Magazines are a Bad Idea'' simple.... They jam. Regards Someone who used a drummag LSW in basic

"Why aren't there more drums?" Because they're too noisy.

The mafia: my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

Ian: Drum mags are too complicated Suomi KP 31: * laughs in quadruple stack box magazine *

If you ever had to drop to your belly than you would know one important reason why drums are bad.

Mr Mackey: “Drums are bad. M’kay?”

Almost every nerfer in existence: yes

I like the guy. He knows a lot without appearing arrogant. Good specialist. Keep on so.

Drums have a purpose - obviously box mags are better for almost ALL applications. But drums are useful even if impractical in all other ways. For ambush or counter-ambush (as the first mag) they are fantastic. The best way to use a drum is have it in the gun already - then go to one of your many, compact, backup stick mags on your body.

I always thought "Modern Drummer" was an excellent drum magazine.

The only "advantage" to a drum is turning an assault rifle or smg into an improvised light machine gun for suppressing fire. Even then, it's obviously not that great.

But according to the movies, drums never run out of ammo.

Drums are bad, m’kay?