Mec-Gar 10 round 9mm magazine MGCGOV910AFC

[Steve in Allentown,]

A year or two ago I fit a 9mm barrel to my 9x23 5" 1911. I needed a magazine to test my fitting job and wasn't interested in spending the big bucks to get a Wilson, Tripp, or McCormick so I picked up a Mec-Gar from Greg Cote. The pistol ran fine and accuracy was spot on even with the el cheapo bulk 115gr ammo I used.

The magazine presented no issues at all. Feeding was velvety smooth. I tried to buy a couple more of those as the months went by but Cote was out of stock. I left a request on his site to notify me when they were back in stock. Finally, last week I was notified and immediately bought two more.

If anyone is interested, here is some information for you. First of all, each mag costs $22.

Below is my switch barrel 9x23 / 9mm with one Mec-Gar mag seated and the two new ones on display.

I don't have much experience with 9mm magazines but these are unlike others I've worked with. As you can see below the sheet metal of these mags has been bent to form a groove that runs up the length of the body. The groove serves two purposes. One, it acts as a spacer so 9mm rounds won't rattle fore and aft. Two, the top of the groove is formed into a feed ramp to help the rounds stay nose up as they exit the mag.

Here's a pic looking down through the disassembled mag showing the feed ramp. It is well formed and while it's not mirror finished, it is smooth enough to fulfill its mission. I see no need to waste my time smoothing it any more than it already is. It's a better mouse trap than bending the forward edge of the tube forward into a lip.

Another pic of the integral feed ramp.

Here's a pic of the fully assembled mag. You can see the groove at the front of the body and the follower. The follower is also unusual in my experience. It's similar to Tripp's in that the body is some flavor of plastic and it has a chunk of steel fit to it that is what actually makes contact with the steel slide stop to prevent the plastic from being damaged. I don't know if the very latest Wilson's have the same feature. You would think with how expensive those mags are Wilson would have done something similar.

Another pic of the follower showing where the chunk of steel is located. From a manufacturing standpoint, it's pretty clever. It's a flat piece of steel that passes through the follower body and is secured on the other side.

The magazine tube is extended and there is no spring stacking with all 10 rounds loaded into it. The feed lips are subtle hybrids. It's easy to identify .45 hybrid feed lips but 9mm is so much smaller that I had to take measurements to verify what my lying eyes were telling me.

[Steve in Allentown,]

At this point I've put PMC 115gr FMJ, Fiocchi 124gr FMJ, SIG 147gr JHP, and my handloads using Precision Bullet 125gr flat points through the mags and pistol with 100% reliability.

The integral magazine ramp was a stroke of design genius. Attached are a few additional pics I took in an attempt to show more detail. Unfortunately, I lack the lights necessary to illuminate the inside of the tubes sufficiently for really good images.

Below are two pics of the same magazine with different exposures. You can see the front spacer that was formed by the bending of the sheet metal the very top of which is the integral feed ramp.

The two pics below are also of the same magazine but with different exposures. Here you can see the angle of the ramp. I noted the smoothness of the feeding previously. The ramp seems to be playing a big part in this by preventing nose dives and insuring the cartridge hits the frame ramp or barrel ramp higher.

[Steve in Allentown,]

I blackened the feed ramp using soot from a burning candle and took these pics showing the bullet impact on the ramp as they fed from the Mec-Gar mags.

Here's the barrel after being blackened. I blackened the ramp after each of the three sessions. What I should have done was wipe the ramp clean after each session before blackening it again. As you'll see the soot was getting pretty thick in the last two sessions.

Here are the results of feeding 10 rounds of 115gr FMJ. Note how the rounds are striking the ramp off center to the left. I suspect the force of the extractor claw pushing against the case is responsible for this. As you can see, this did not affect feeding. The normal 1911 feeding pattern of the first round out of the mag hitting lowest while the last round hits highest is apparent.

Here are the results of feeding 10 rounds of 147gr JHP. This where things went awry due to my failure to keep up the speed of pushing the the slide forward.

My manual feeding method consists of removing the recoil spring then using two thumbs to push the slide forward just fast enough to strip the next round in the mag and fully chamber it. I was being to gentle with the slide in the beginning which result in a few rounds striking the flat area immediately below the actual ramp. Once I got more aggressive with the slide the rounds hit the mag ramp and bounced up to strike the barrel ramp correctly.

Here are the results of feeding 10 rounds of 125gr flat points. Once again the strike of the rounds off center can be seen. The bottom line for me of this manual feeding test is that these magazines feed without any issues.

The thing that bothers me is the rounds striking the barrel ramp off center. I would rather they had been on center where the ramp is lowest. This argues for me to fit 9mm extractors so that the extractor's tensioning wall makes contact with the case rim. Sounds like I'll be repeating this test with a 9mm extractor fit in the same manner as a .45.