Black Dog 50rd 10/22 Drum

Farmer Harv

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Short report on the latest and greatest drum mag for the 10/22...

Ordered it from Fabsports last week, and it arrived today! Love his new online ordering system, and automatic Canada Post tracking emails are nice also. Anyhoo, the mag itself is smaller in diameter than I thought it might be, and heavier also. A single sheet of paper is included for instructions, most of which is devoted to dis- and re-assembling. One paragraph is all there is for loading instructions, and it's so simple that none are probably needed at all.

To load one simply rotates the drum by pushing a divot/rib through a slot in the back, and drops the rounds in the top. The spring pressure is pretty much constant, with only a slight increase in force needed to load the last rounds compared to the first. It fit into the magwell of both my old 10/22 and new 10/17 very nicely, with little to no wiggle at all. Removal from the newest rifle was a bit difficult, probably due to newness and the crinkle finish in the magwell.

So I loaded it with a full 50 rounds of 17HM2 and went out back to see how it would work with the pointy little bullets. The first ten rounds went off without a hitch, and then I had two light strikes in the next 5 rounds. Checking the mag I could see a little burr had formed at the back from the bolt hitting/rubbing, so I filed a little chamfer there and that problem went away. There were also two failure to feed near the middle/end of the drum where the round was jammed up at a steep angle into the rear of the chamber, and after some very light filing of the front feed ramp to smooth out a bit of a deformity there it functioned perfectly for the next half drum I loaded.

I haven't tried it with any 22LR yet, but I can't foresee any problems there if the Mach 2 works so well. The plastic in the tower/feed lips seems quite soft however, so it'll be interesting to see how it stands up to heavy use. Overall I'm more than pleased with it so far, and it'll definitely come in handy when the gophers are charging en masse. :)

BlackDogDrum.jpg
 
i wonder if its possible to take the steel feed lips from a steel lips mag and pop it in that. im kinda loath to spend the money of a 50 round drum for my sr22 if the feed lips are gonna wear out.
 
sound cool but who can afford to be shooting 50 of 17 hmr?

I'm not aware of any 50 round HMR magazines at present, so I'm not sure what the question is?

i wonder if its possible to take the steel feed lips from a steel lips mag and pop it in that. im kinda loath to spend the money of a 50 round drum for my sr22 if the feed lips are gonna wear out.

Not possible at all...the feed lips are molded with the tower as one piece. Until there is evidence of function issues from normal use and wear I wouldn't be concerned about it though. Which brings up a related question...how many rounds would people consider to be acceptable before problems might ensue? 1000? 5000? 10k?
 
id want to put through atleast 2-3x's what the mags cost in ammo before they started to fail. if i can get 500 rounds for $20 and it burns out after $40 i really didn't get my use out of the mag.
 
id want to put through at least 2-3x's what the mags cost in ammo before they started to fail. if i can get 500 rounds for $20 and it burns out after $40 i really didn't get my use out of the mag.

That's an excellent way to look at it and gauge relative value. I can see myself using this for many things, from mags to the guns themselves.


In other news, I ran a full mag of Federal bulk pack though without a hitch, and then a mixed mag with Winchester, Remington, CCI, and Federal went through perfectly. I don't have any truncated cone ammo to try, but the round nose and hollow points function 100% so far.
 
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