Promag 303 British doorstops

steelgray

steelgray

Regular
Rating - 100%
37   0   0
Location
Ottawa Valley - Ontario
I bought one of those Promag aftermarket magazines for the No.1 MkIII* Lee-Enfiled. It didn't seem to hold the rounds in place properly unless I fiddled with the stack in the mag a bit, after loading. Then, when I ran the bolt normally, I got a bunch of misfeeds. This was a while back so I don't remember the specifics.

Thanks to the pandemic, there was a pretty considerable gap between the time I bought and opened the packaging of the mag and the time I finally got to around to using it. As such, by the time I became aware that the mag wasn't working in my SMLE, the packaging was long gone - and I wasn't even 100% sure that I'd bought the right one; that is the one for my No1, versus the mag that Promag sells for the No4. I wanted to make sure I wasn't getting misfeeds because I was using the wrong version of the mag, so I went to my local gun store to compare my mag to the one's the store had, in unopened packages.

My friend who works at this store spent a lot of time opening up packages of both versions of L-E Promags he had in stock. Strangely, neither he or I could see any differences between the ones he had, marked No1 and No4 - and both of these seemed identical to the one I had bought earlier. Partly because my friend at the store had spent so much time looking into this situation, I decided that I should at least buy another Promag from him - which I knew, for sure this time, was the one packaged as a replacement for the No1 gun.

I tested this new one in my No1 and if had the same problems as the one I had bought earlier. I the tried the newly-bought one - and the one I bought previously - in a No4 and neither feed properly in that gun, either.

I now know why these aftermarket L-E mags by Promag are made with that distinctive pointy edge at the rear heel area. They may be crappy mags, but they might make really dandy doorstops.
 
I have never heard a good review of the LE promags. It's a shame because originals are definitely drying up and climbing in price. That also brings up another question.... why are SO MANY old rifles around missing the magazine, or the bolt, or both?
 
I haven’t heard of a LE ProMag working properly ever. Absolute junk and it’s a wonder they are still on the market. I have ProMags for my Mosin that work flawless straight out of the package. ProMag has been around long enough they should be able to fix the problems. Not surprised that the two mags look the same. I have original mags that will fit both 1’s and 4’s.
 
I've never understood the Lee Enfield magazine paradox.

The magazine was intended to be fit to the gun and essentially was an internal box magazine that could be removed for servicing/cleaning, and every rifle came with a magazine. Every single one of them. Not one rifle was made that didn't have it's magazine.

But, people are people I suppose? Ever buy a used car? 60% of the time, there will be one item missing from the car, something that every car initially came with...the fu<king jack!? People sell the car, yet keep the jack as though it isn't part of the deal?

Somewhere, beyond the cloak closet, lies a land chock full of Lee Enfield magazines and car jacks! What the hell is wrong with people?

Anyhow, it doesn't surprise me that an aftermarket magazine doesn't work. A magazine from another Lee Enfield will most likely work, or could be made to work, but aftermarket, no.
 
Painkillers said:
I've never understood the Lee Enfield magazine paradox.

The magazine was intended to be fit to the gun and essentially was an internal box magazine that could be removed for servicing/cleaning, and every rifle came with a magazine. Every single one of them. Not one rifle was made that didn't have it's magazine.

But, people are people I suppose? Ever buy a used car? 60% of the time, there will be one item missing from the car, something that every car initially came with...the fu<king jack!? People sell the car, yet keep the jack as though it isn't part of the deal?

Somewhere, beyond the cloak closet, lies a land chock full of Lee Enfield magazines and car jacks! What the hell is wrong with people?

Anyhow, it doesn't surprise me that an aftermarket magazine doesn't work. A magazine from another Lee Enfield will most likely work, or could be made to work, but aftermarket, no.
Click to expand...

Umm how long you been here? Haven't seen ads for Cooey bolts, or other rifles magazine? People remove the mag loaded and forget it. As it's the quickest way to unload a magazine fed rifle. Or quickly load it. Also 303 are subject to rim locking.

But I think it was the earliest child safety. Remove the bolt and put it somewhere else, so the kids wouldnt play with the gun.

Big difference in taking something out and not selling it with it, and miss placing it.
 
I'm not quite sure what is being suggested here, but based on my experience, if Promag took your advice - and started making aftermarket car jacks - I doubt they'd be any good either.

Painkillers said:
I've never understood the Lee Enfield magazine paradox.

The magazine was intended to be fit to the gun and essentially was an internal box magazine that could be removed for servicing/cleaning, and every rifle came with a magazine. Every single one of them. Not one rifle was made that didn't have it's magazine.

But, people are people I suppose? Ever buy a used car? 60% of the time, there will be one item missing from the car, something that every car initially came with...the fu<king jack!? People sell the car, yet keep the jack as though it isn't part of the deal?

Somewhere, beyond the cloak closet, lies a land chock full of Lee Enfield magazines and car jacks! What the hell is wrong with people?

Anyhow, it doesn't surprise me that an aftermarket magazine doesn't work. A magazine from another Lee Enfield will most likely work, or could be made to work, but aftermarket, no.
Click to expand...
 
My first 303 didn't have a mag when I bought it. Cost like 8 bucks in those days to buy one. But that was a long time ago. Reason it never had a mag most likely was because nobody that walks this earth could make that rifle groups less then around 3 feet.
 
steelgray said:
I'm not quite sure what is being suggested here, but based on my experience, if Promag took your advice - and started making aftermarket car jacks - I doubt they'd be any good either.
Click to expand...

The only time I really seen jacks missing from cars was they're being scrapped or tuner world weight reduction, or trunk full of subs.

Pro mag already makes jacks. Volkswagen widow maker. But there are tones of crappy OEM jacks, that are useless.

Now I know what mag to use for a project if they dont work well.
 
several issues

first: part of the magazine shortage is that there are guys that insist that they have to have 5 mags for their rifles and have bought up any mags on the market and driven up the prices.

second: mags need to be tuned or tweeked this involves looking at how the mags hold the ammo and then adjusting the mag lips so that they feed, this included OEM mags. As long as the promags have mag lips the right size then they can be shaped to hold and feed.
 
woodchopper said:
several issues

first: part of the magazine shortage is that there are guys that insist that they have to have 5 mags for their rifles and have bought up any mags on the market and driven up the prices.

second: mags need to be tuned or tweeked this involves looking at how the mags hold the ammo and then adjusting the mag lips so that they feed, this included OEM mags. As long as the promags have mag lips the right size then they can be shaped to hold and feed.
Click to expand...

I tried fixing a couple. All I can say is I improved them. I couldn’t get them to function 100% of the time.
 
OkayShooter said:
Umm how long you been here? Haven't seen ads for Cooey bolts, or other rifles magazine? People remove the mag loaded and forget it. As it's the quickest way to unload a magazine fed rifle. Or quickly load it. Also 303 are subject to rim locking.

But I think it was the earliest child safety. Remove the bolt and put it somewhere else, so the kids wouldnt play with the gun.

Big difference in taking something out and not selling it with it, and miss placing it.
Click to expand...

Laugh2 Says the fella who doesn't load with chargers. One has to know how to load the gun. If done properly it will never rim lock. It's a battle rifle!?
 
woodchopper said:
several issues

first: part of the magazine shortage is that there are guys that insist that they have to have 5 mags for their rifles and have bought up any mags on the market and driven up the prices.

second: mags need to be tuned or tweeked this involves looking at how the mags hold the ammo and then adjusting the mag lips so that they feed, this included OEM mags. As long as the promags have mag lips the right size then they can be shaped to hold and feed.
Click to expand...

Exactly right, and the tongue in cheek point I was making. It's an AR mindset that soaked into Lee Enfield ownership...and it's wrong. The rifle was never intended to be used like this. Use chargers, kinda like an SKS.
 
Painkillers said:
Exactly right, and the tongue in cheek point I was making. It's an AR mindset that soaked into Lee Enfield ownership...and it's wrong. The rifle was never intended to be used like this. Use chargers, kinda like an SKS.
Click to expand...

No it's not. Americans will hoard anything, even stupid stuff. The toilet paper was a good example. Only people that have stock pile of mags are the ones buying them to fix up or for parts, have a collection of Lee's.. I dunno anyone that has 1 Lee and dozen magazines, like they would with a AR. My father had 40 something AR mags, but only the 1 for the No4 mk2. A hunter might have 2.

Also things changed, guns adapt. Chargers don't work if you scoped it.
 
I have adjusted many magazines in my time but didn't feel the impulse to try it with this. Frankly it seemed so rough I was disinclined to try.

This fellow obviously took the plunge and you might be interested to see how that worked out. Spoiler alert, it was major surgery and still didn't result in a fully-reliable mage.


I threw both of mine in on a sale of L-E - as a spare.

woodchopper said:
several issues

first: part of the magazine shortage is that there are guys that insist that they have to have 5 mags for their rifles and have bought up any mags on the market and driven up the prices.

second: mags need to be tuned or tweeked this involves looking at how the mags hold the ammo and then adjusting the mag lips so that they feed, this included OEM mags. As long as the promags have mag lips the right size then they can be shaped to hold and feed.
Click to expand...
 
I'm going to give Pro-mag full credit for making an effort to bring affordable steel Lee-Enfield mags to a market - where they are clearly in demand. I know other Pro-mag product are usually good, but this effort comes up short. The concept of their product is good but they should put a bit more R&D into making these things work properly out of the package - rather than leaving that requirement to the buyer. They also need to sort out there QA when it comes to packaging. The reason the guy in the store and I couldn't tell the ones labeled as No. 4s versus the ones labeled as No 1s was because that store had received a shipment that was all No. 4 mags but half were in sealed packages mislabeling these as No 1 mags. That why they were total crap in my No. 1 gun. Come on Pro-mag - finish the job of making these solid reliable mags. You will be making the World a better place.
 
I bought one for the spring, replaced an original mag spring with a promag spring. Drilled off both followers and put original follower on promag spring in the original mag. Saved quite a bit of cash.
 
OK--AS Shell used to say-your mileage may vary. I was given a Pro Mag in a trade that was supposed to work in a #1MKIII . It did not, I had on hand an old military mag that had one of the feed tabs broken off at the front of the mag. I removed the spring and follower from the old military mag and substituted it into the Pro Mag. The ProMag worked perfectly after this substitution.
 
A lot of this reproduction stuff is pure crap, buyer beware, I'm still trying to deal with an investment cast Cooey extractor. :mad:

Grizz
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom