- Location
- Edmonton Alberta, Canada
I've been using my 17HMR 10 rounders from 17hmr.com for a while now, probably put about 200 rounds through each (only 8 per loading, as suggested by the manufacturer to break them in)...
I noticed a few bad things and then, they both turned to crap. I wouldn't reccommend them despite my earlier excitement and initial positive impression in another thread.
First of all, the tab inside that the first round sits on is black instead of bright red. Annoying, as you have to carefully count rounds to avoid a dryfire (bad news for rimfires)... with the factory mags a quick glance shows you the bright red base in your chamber as you pull the bolt back if you need to check or lose track. That might seem picky but its a big deal when you're putting a lot of rounds downrange or you're moving between shots and forget.
Next, the actual failure of both my units...
I had cycling problems from the start, they just wouldn't feed the rounds as smoothly into the chamber as the factory mags.. like the angle/size was just a tiny bit off and required more force to slam the bolt forward as opposed to smoothly sliding it. Not a big deal at first, it wasn't severe... but a couple times it failed to load a round (didn't feed) and caused me to dryfire. Both mags did this a couple times, so i would take them out and look at them closely... push the rounds by my finger a bit and they'd pop back up to normal. The channel seems to be a bit off so they sometimes dont feed up straight. One of them I had to manually unload, and then reload, after that the clip suddenly sprayed all ten rounds into the air on me and would not reliably hold more than 1 or 2 rounds after that point. The tabs that curl over the top round were not properly adjusted and had gotten worse, or were made out of lower quality material than factory mags (softer?).
I set the mag aside, inspected it closely and tested it a few more times... then tried my second mag which was starting to do the same thing...
What happens is if you do not PERFECTLY slide the round out of the mag, without putting any strain on the curled tabs on top whatsoever, they will back off a hair, and no longer hold. Tapping or bending them back in even a little bit isn't advised as you will probably make them too tight as a result your mag won't feed correctly.
I blame poor materials engineering and manufacturing quality control.
Issues:
1) Seat base improper colour
2) Seat base or channel grooves inside mag slightly off shape so spring force does not smoothly feed it straight up through the mag reliably.
3) Metal quality or manufacturing process results in failure of tabs that hold top round in... causing mag to release all ammo and not hold any in after that.
4) Mags do not operate as smoothly as factory mags, regardless of careful insertion. They do fit... but function is not ideal and this leads to excess wear on the firearm as well as possibly contributing to failure of the mag.
It's entirely possible that they had a few bad batches that just had some machining wrong inside or something... I don't know. I'll email them and see about warranty replacement or something... but the nature of the problems seems to be design based not user.
Also, i understand that theyre not truly designed for 17HMR but are basically 22WMR magazines... there might be a slight difference in how they handle based on the weight and size of the round or something?
I rule out my firearm as the problem as I have mags from multiple savage 93r17s that all work fine and smooth... you can load a round with one finger on the bolt from them and it takes whole hand force to use the aftermarket mags. I ran some tests through on a range with live ammo and at home with dummy rounds.
Just a warning to others.. and maybe some experts can tell me some stuff that I naturally missed. But this is my experience and analysis. Since so many people were waiting to hear about these, and we were all so excited initially, I thought this ought to get a mention.
If they get back to me with any kind of advice or resolution I'll share it right away.
I trust things that say MADE IN AMERICA so, I'm a little disappointed.
I noticed a few bad things and then, they both turned to crap. I wouldn't reccommend them despite my earlier excitement and initial positive impression in another thread.
First of all, the tab inside that the first round sits on is black instead of bright red. Annoying, as you have to carefully count rounds to avoid a dryfire (bad news for rimfires)... with the factory mags a quick glance shows you the bright red base in your chamber as you pull the bolt back if you need to check or lose track. That might seem picky but its a big deal when you're putting a lot of rounds downrange or you're moving between shots and forget.
Next, the actual failure of both my units...
I had cycling problems from the start, they just wouldn't feed the rounds as smoothly into the chamber as the factory mags.. like the angle/size was just a tiny bit off and required more force to slam the bolt forward as opposed to smoothly sliding it. Not a big deal at first, it wasn't severe... but a couple times it failed to load a round (didn't feed) and caused me to dryfire. Both mags did this a couple times, so i would take them out and look at them closely... push the rounds by my finger a bit and they'd pop back up to normal. The channel seems to be a bit off so they sometimes dont feed up straight. One of them I had to manually unload, and then reload, after that the clip suddenly sprayed all ten rounds into the air on me and would not reliably hold more than 1 or 2 rounds after that point. The tabs that curl over the top round were not properly adjusted and had gotten worse, or were made out of lower quality material than factory mags (softer?).
I set the mag aside, inspected it closely and tested it a few more times... then tried my second mag which was starting to do the same thing...
What happens is if you do not PERFECTLY slide the round out of the mag, without putting any strain on the curled tabs on top whatsoever, they will back off a hair, and no longer hold. Tapping or bending them back in even a little bit isn't advised as you will probably make them too tight as a result your mag won't feed correctly.
I blame poor materials engineering and manufacturing quality control.
Issues:
1) Seat base improper colour
2) Seat base or channel grooves inside mag slightly off shape so spring force does not smoothly feed it straight up through the mag reliably.
3) Metal quality or manufacturing process results in failure of tabs that hold top round in... causing mag to release all ammo and not hold any in after that.
4) Mags do not operate as smoothly as factory mags, regardless of careful insertion. They do fit... but function is not ideal and this leads to excess wear on the firearm as well as possibly contributing to failure of the mag.
It's entirely possible that they had a few bad batches that just had some machining wrong inside or something... I don't know. I'll email them and see about warranty replacement or something... but the nature of the problems seems to be design based not user.
Also, i understand that theyre not truly designed for 17HMR but are basically 22WMR magazines... there might be a slight difference in how they handle based on the weight and size of the round or something?
I rule out my firearm as the problem as I have mags from multiple savage 93r17s that all work fine and smooth... you can load a round with one finger on the bolt from them and it takes whole hand force to use the aftermarket mags. I ran some tests through on a range with live ammo and at home with dummy rounds.
Just a warning to others.. and maybe some experts can tell me some stuff that I naturally missed. But this is my experience and analysis. Since so many people were waiting to hear about these, and we were all so excited initially, I thought this ought to get a mention.
If they get back to me with any kind of advice or resolution I'll share it right away.
I trust things that say MADE IN AMERICA so, I'm a little disappointed.
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