Gunco Forums banner

Saiga12 ProMag 10 Rounder has arrived!

6K views 21 replies 11 participants last post by  dutigaf 
#1 · (Edited)
This is a short overview of this mag. Bottom line - looks like a nice competitor to the APG mags!

Shipping.
I ordered directly from their website because no one had them in stock. They were really swamped so I had to wait *quite a while* for it to arrive... as in 6-8 weeks for delivery. I'm probably more patient than some folks, so if you're a *must have it tomorrow*" person, you need to adjust your expectations when ordering.

Direct link to the manufacturer's page:
ProMag | Saiga

Overall Quality.
The magazine appears robust. Black polymer with metal feed lips. Polymer feels more grainy than some other mags, really close to a Bulgy waffle mag. I'm no plastic expert so that's all I can say about it. It doesn't seem brittle, so it should be able to take some abuse. Spring seems nice and springy. :) Hand-feeding the rounds into the mag "just works". All 10 rounds can be inserted with no excessive load on the spring. Mine had just a little bit of mold flashing (trim) that caused the follower to drag when inserting, but after a few cycles it smoothed up.

Locking lugs.
The magazine locks up tight in the magazine well. Mine does not "drop free" like the factory mag, and behaves just like the Bulgy waffle mags do in most of my 7.62 rifles. You have to physically pull the mag out of the magazine well. You can see on the rear locking lug there is a little bit more meat on the sides that seems to be the point where it rubs against the center support. I could easily file this area with an emory board or small file but for now I don't see the need for any modifications.

Side "waffles"
On the outside of the mag, the top-most "waffle" pattern contacts the bottom of the receiver. I trimmed off a very, **VERY** thin amount from the top of this waffle to get the magazine to more smoothly engage the magazine release. Out of the box, I had to firmly rock it into the receiver to get the rear lug to engage more smoothly and get that "click" that lets you know it is fully engaged. As previously stated, I believe the extra "meat" on the rear locking lug could be trimmed up to get it to fit, however I chose to trim the sides. By a "very thin amount", were talking about the thickness of a business card. These side waffles appear to also serve as an anti-wobble feature. Not sure about that, however it does give it a nice, solid lock-up. The factory mag I have has about the same thing with its side ribs. The ProMag locks up more firmly, which to me "feels" better for my shooting and reloading style. OPINION - I suspect they made this a bit larger to ensure it fits all batches of the shotguns... I don't know for certain how it fits in older -12s since I have only this one available to me. ;)


Follower.
The follower sits a bit higher than the factory 5-round mag. I don't have a factory 8-rounder to compare to. It is high enough that the bolt contacts the follower after the last round cycles... JUST LIKE the Yugo magazines! This made it MUCH easier for me to grab the bolt and pull it back to the bolt hold open, and made it faster for me to switch mags. If you need really fast magazine changes, this will be a good thing. Also, JUST LIKE the Yugo magazines, it provides you with that extra indication that the mag is empty.

Since the feed lips are the same as factory, the high follower does not seem to affect feeding or loading at all.

OK here are the pics -













... and here are comparison pics to the factory 5-rounder to show the difference in the follower height















... and finally the "side waffle" rib that contacts the bottom of the receiver - like I said, I only trimmed the thickness of a business card:


Before Trimming:




After Trimming:

 
See less See more
9
#3 ·
Terrific write up Pook. I'm looking forward to a range report.
I must admit I'm not a big fan of promag, I've been burned by them before. I've got 2 brand new Glock promags, neither of which will even chamber a round. I also have a Remington mag from them that will not feed more than a couple of rounds without hanging up. The reports I've read on their AK mags is not very encouraging either. I hope they got it right this time.

There seems to be some issues popping up on the new surefire Saiga mags also.
 
#7 ·
Any more info on this, I just got two and didn't get to try them yet.


There are a couple of threads on the saiga forum by guys who have had some problems with them. One guy broke two of them completely in half while using 3" shells (which they are supposed to able to handle) and another broke just a corner off while using 2-3/4" shells. Mike Davidson, (the guy who makes the MD-20 drum) has done a ton of Saiga mag R&D, and He blames it on the fact that the surefire has no metal reinforcements like his or the factory mags.
 
#9 ·
ANOTHER THING-

I just realized that this 10-rounder can be cut down to a 5-rounder size! They molded an additional floorplate retainer tab halfway up the magazine body so that you could hacksaw off the bottom part of the body and re-attach the floorplate. It would be the same size as the factory 5-rounder.

It would obviously be a one-time conversion, but for a hunting application it makes sense.


 
#12 ·
#13 ·
I bought these mags recently direct from Pro-mag. (They weren't far from me) Initially I had problems with it not fitting properly at all. It seemed like there was too much meat molded into the mags to fit properperly in the mag well and have the catch latch on. Upon close inspection, I found that the tap the catch latch onto stuck out a little too far. Also when comparing it to the stock 5 rnd mag I noticed that the profile was different. It was this profile that caused it to have problems releasing.

The solution to it was for me to grind a new profile more closely to the stock on and removing some of that extra meat on the tap with my Dremel tool. Once I got it to catch and release easily, the mag kinda feels a bit loose. It seems to wiggle a lot side to side but I figure its because of the length of the mag compared to the stock 5 5nd which was shorter but also wiggles a bit but not as much as the 10rnd Promag.

After that experience, I decided to pick-up the Surefires on my next purchase but now hearing about Surefire's problems, I don't know what to go with next. Maybe wait for the next batch of AGPs when they're available.
 
#18 ·
AT LONG LAST - I am proud to say they work great! I had absolutely no problems whatsoever with the magazine. I'm definitely going to order some more.

On a side note, I did find out that my long-term storage solution of cramming a .30 cal ammo can full of 00 buckshot does NOT work. I didn't realize I was deforming the rounds, and so the deformed rounds did not feed or function properly. Some of them were almost squared! I'm going to run them through my shotgun reloading die to see if I can make them round again. If not then they are going to be used only for the pump!

My reloads had the same problem, and I think I'm putting too hard a crimp on them which causes the ends of my reloaded rounds to pucker. This is enough to make them fail to feed properly in the magazine. I actually had to bang the mag on the bench to get some of these puckered shells to come out! Sad to say, I still need to work on my shotgun shell reloading kung fu.

Anyway here's the stepson firing away!

 
#20 ·
No prob Coils! I found out more of them were dented, and those indeed caused feeding issues. They went to the SPAS on Sunday. ;) I really hate that I screwed up those shells but what can you do! The good thing is that now that g2busmc gave me some more ammo cans I'm going to start paying more attention to how many I stuff in the can.

That mag just eats all of the rounds - that aren't deformed! - with no hitches at all.

Those deformed rounds all worked fine out of the SPAS on pump action. I did notice that they are all roll crimped. I didn't have any fold crimped rounds to play with. I am going to put them on a roll crimp former to try to melt the plastic enough to get them round once more!
 
#21 ·
Update -

I got a good shotgun reloader (better than my first) and ran more rounds through it and still had some hangups even with the reloader sizing them to "factory fresh" sizes. So I regrouped and re-examined the magazine.

After doing some research, it appears that some of the magazines will draw up a little and become too narrow to feed rounds. This seems to be "the" issue that people face with the Promag magazines.

OK.

Inspired by the "cork and fork" method of resizing the follower (by stuffing a cork inside the follower and submerging it in a cup of boiling water), I set about to correct what appears to be too narrow a magazine for my loads. It was REALLY SIMPLE to fix!


Here's how I fixed it:
===================
1. Secure the bottom of the magazine in the vise - carefully - squeezing against the front and back.

2. I dug around in my garage and discovered one of my screwdriver handles is slightly larger than the inside of the magazine.

3. I inserted this into the the magazine and slid it to the point where I could detect the narrow section.

4. I heated up the propane torch and gently, patiently, in rapid passes, heated the plastic material on both sides to soften it. Took probably 5 minutes to heat it up, maybe longer. Seeing as how I was applying flame to plastic, I was VERY CAREFUL to avoid burning or melting the plastic! A heat gun would be infinitely better than using a torch. It is simply too easy to burn the plastic, but I didn't have a heat gun available at the time.

5. After I was satisfied that the plastic softened enough, I let it cool down and removed the screwdriver.

PRESTO! The rounds that previously hung up in the middle now fall through the empty magazine body like it isn't even there! No sanding, no scraping mold flashing, none of that.


After testing it a few times at the range, even in really cold weather (there was snow on the ground) the plastic didn't shrink or narrow at all. I now have 100% consistent feeding out of all of my reloads, even the ones that are slightly puckered (thanks to my unperfected shotshell reloading skills). I have yet to heat the follower in the same way but I'm confident that the higher heat from the propane torch vs. boiling water.


Hopefully this will help someone who has a magazine that isn't feeding properly!

FYI I never got those deformed hulls to round back out - I just shot them all through my SPAS after all :)
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top