Ten round magazines suck. The Firearms Act in Canada requires all pistol magazines to be limited to ten rounds. This is a federal law with only law enforcement, military and licensed exemptions. This post is not about the validity of this law as that is beyond the preview of this blog. Suffice to say ten round magazines suck.
SJ Hardware, a Canadian manufacturer and distributor of firearms, firearms accessories and most things tactical, have developed aftermarket baseplates for the Smith and Wesson MP 9mm. For the sake of clarity, I am friends with owner and received a significant discount for purchasing this product with the understanding of an honest blog would be written.
Factory ten round magazines for the MP are basically two parts. The top half is metal containing a follower and spring like a normal magazine with a filler bottom half made of plastic. The SJ Hardware 9mm Mag Base replaces the plastic portion with a 2.7 ounce aluminum 2 piece baseplate.
The aluminum is 6061 T6 which is known as a multipurpose heat treatable aluminum alloy that provides excellent corrosion resistance, strength, machinability and weldability. The MP 9mm Mag Base are CNC machined to meet the exact dimensions of a factory magazine and maintain a high stand of quality control. The 9mm Mag Base are Type III hard anodized which is the same specification required for most Milspec contracts. Type III aluminum anodizing increases the wear and corrosion resistance, enhances the surface hardness, and improves the thermal properties of treated aluminum objects.
Since the SJ Hardware upgrade mirrors the same dimensions of a normal ten round magazine, any magazine fitted with these MP 9mm Mag Base will fit both GEN 1.0 and 2.0 pistols and is compatible with most aftermarket magwells. The two piece system was premeditated to allow for heavier or different colored upgrades or replacement.
Installation was a simple affair with only a dowel or rod required to depress the magazine spring. It is then a simple matter of changing out the factory base with the MP 9mm Mag Base. I did it one afternoon, over six months ago, as I detail cleaned my magazines. I have been running them on my MP ever since.
All my magazine fitted with these MP 9mm Mag Bases have ran flawlessly since installation. Occasionally, with factory bases, there were hangups when ejecting a magazine. Usually, when bringing it quickly into my workspace before the lighter factory magazine cleared the magwell. With the heavier 2.7 ounce MP 9mm Mag Base, magazine ejection and drop free reliability has been enhanced. This has slicked up my reloads which reduced my reload times noticeably. For faster reloads and enhanced drop free reliability, I recommend this product over the factory bases
Ten round magazines still suck. SJ Hardware just makes them suck a little less.
No comments:
Post a Comment