Black Dog Machine .22 UZI Conversion Magazine - A First Look.

[Garrett]

I found that if you lube each mag when you first get them with powdererd graphite they work great

I've found that to be the case as well. At least it seems to help with the Vector mags. I haven't tried it on the BDM mags yet.

I just tried a couple of the BDMs out the other day. They were new, and had never been loaded before. Initially, I couldn't get more than about 25 rounds in the mag. The follower seemed to hang up where the mag starts to curve. I think it was mostly just break-in issue, as with repeated loading I was able to load to full capacity.

The mags run about as well, or a little better than my Vector 20-round mags. I have a few of the 28-rounders that don't run all that well. I need to mess with them, and just haven't had the chance yet.

 

[K2]

Follwers, Graphite, Good & Bad

Well,

Today I ran the BDM Uzi mags in competition. I was using old BDM AR-15 22 follwers in 2 magazines and trimmed "red" follwers in two magazines. No "bolt hold open" feature with these followers. These follwers have eliminated the splitting of the front of the magazines so far. These 4 magazines have over 1000 rounds through them now and the bodies and feed lips show no adverse wear or cracks.

The good news...I ran some graphite "fine powder" into the magazines. I could really feel the difference in the loading of the magazines and they ran absolutely 100% for the first loading. Bay 1 I ran 60 rounds w/o any type of failure. It was great! (Then I just spent some time in another bay with it and it ran just fine. Ok. Time to reload the magazines.)

The second loading saw one of the four magazines start to have binding issues. If you pushed the stack down it was very sluggish when returning to the top of the magazine. The stack also "screached" when returning to the top of the magazine. I culled that magazine from my mag pouch and all was well through the third loading.

At the fourth loading the gun turned into a jam-o-matic. All failures were bullet nose-up into the top edge of the chamber. (I normally get this when the rounds do not come up in the magazine.) Essentially 5-6 jams/magazine worth of shooting.

After the match I cleaned the gun. It didn't seem that dirty. I'll get out to the range on Monday to try the magazines again w/o cleaning the magazines to see if the odd functioning continues.

In short I went from estatic I'd better buy more to "back to the drawing board" in a 4 bay subgun match.

Thanks to all for all the help so far. The graphite made a huge difference. I'm tempted to try some graphite in my Vector 28 rounders. These magazines normally run the best of any magazines I've tried. These are early 28 rounders. The later 28 rounders are about 1 inch longer and I've had no luck with them.

YMMV,

Good Luck,

K2

 

[kaen3e]

hmmm i ran 1500 rounds out of 6new bdm mags saturday. lots of gophers...I had NO problems at all with CCI blazers and Winchester PowerPoints. 100rds of CCI standard velocity. i was using a htg universal II at all times. FWIW vector FS SMG

 

[arch stanton]

I removed the hold open feature as well the mag should last a long time. If BD doesnt make the change to the follower you can do it yourself easy enough.

Later

Joe

 

[Mike26038]

Has anyone had any luck running hollow point ammo with thease mags?

 

[FlaSport]

Yes, What do you do to remove the BHO function?

Originally posted by Garrett:
What do you do to remove the BHO function?

 

[jim c 351]

BHO

Just got 3 Uzi mags from Blackdog today. They didn't hold the bolt back. Must have done away with it.
Jim C

 

[K2]

Removing Bolt Hold Open

Hi,

I've attached a picture of some BDM Followers. The first follower is one of the AR-15/M-16 BDM follwers from an early mag. This will remove the bolt hold open feature.

The second is a BDM Uzi follower. It holds the bolt open.

The third is a trimmed follower with the bolt hold feature removed. (Note: This follower is a reject as I didn't replicate the geometry of the second BDM Uzi follower.) I just run these through a Bridgeport. It can be done with a belt sander or other suitable tool.

I've found by removing the bolt hold open feature I don't crack seams on these mags. (I still can't get them running as well as my Vector mags but I'll figure that out one of these days.)

Sorry for not getting back to you Flsport. Work and clearing pepper trees has been getting me home rather late.

Good luck,

K2

 

[K2]

More helpful hints - YMMV

I've finally gotten the BDM Uzi mags to run at 99% reliability and I know why the other 2 rounds out of 180 didn't feed. First I should mention I live where it is normally very, very humid. Even with the old Vector 28's I had trouble with high humidity and feeding. I'm rambling. And the answer is: (for me anyway)

1. Do something with the follower. If you are a lucky person that may have followers that don't hold the bolt open you can skip this. The bolt hold open feature will keep crazy glue in business as I've found it cracks the seams of the mags. I prefer to remove this "feature".

2. With a cleaning rod push down the follower. There should be no binding, grabbing, sticking. Clean and remove flash as necessary. Kind of a no-brainer here. If the rounds stick in the magazine they will never feed all the time.

3. Lubricate the magazine. I was hoping to avoid this as the BDM AR-15 skinnys will run down here w/o cleaning or lube. Running w/o lubrication is not the case with the BDM Uzi mags (for me). I tried graphite with mixed results. Maybe I didn't use enough. After 2 or 3 loadings the rounds would start sticking in the mags. (This is where I suspect climate/humidity was kicking my....well you know.) I picked up a can of "Silicone/Teflon spray dry lube" at the hardware store. I just remove the floorplate and spring, give the mag a short blast and reassemble. I run the follower up and down a few times and let them sit. After lubing the magazine I can hardly imagine using a mag loader. The first rounds nearly drop in place and the last rounds to load in the mag are as easy as the first 5 rounds in the old Vector 28's.

My 2 misfeeds in the last 180 rounds were the last round in the mag in both cases. These misfeeds were the result of trimmed bolt hold open followers. I may have taken to much off the follower. The old AR-15 followers do not rock as much in the magazine as trimmed "bolt hold open" followers. The old followers are my favorite so far for my gun. Evidently BDM states they no longer make or stock the old followers.

My testing was done in an IMI RR conversion. The ammo was Winchester Dynapoint, Winchester X-pert, and Federal Bulk Pack. With the Federal I have to use a reduced force recoil spring. The cyclic rate was much lower with the Federal Bulk Pack. The reduced force spring only works with the BDM magazines or 15 round short loaded Vector 28's. (Another reason I like the BDM Uzi mag.) The force to strip a round is much lower with the lubed BDM Uzi mags.

All guns are different. Just some hints and not to be taken as fact or absolute.

Good Luck,

K2

 

[Mr.Burns]

Great post K2.

 

[SecondAmend]

Considering there have been numerous 25+ round capacity Ruger 10/22 mags for well over 20 years and Ciener 30 rnd .22 mags for nearly that long that work just fine without lube, I see no reason why any 25-30 rnd .22 mag should need to be lubed to work properly. A 5.56 100 rnd Beta C mag - yes. A 25-30 rnd .22 mag - I respectfully do not think so.

MHO, YMMV, etc.

 

[Mike26038]

Considering there have been numerous 25+ round capacity Ruger 10/22 mags for well over 20 years and Ciener 30 rnd .22 mags for nearly that long that work just fine without lube, I see no reason why any 25-30 rnd .22 mag should need to be lubed to work properly. A 5.56 100 rnd Beta C mag - yes. A 25-30 rnd .22 mag - I respectfully do not think so.

MHO, YMMV, etc.

I an way, I got to agree with you. These mags need some serious work. I was looking in the Mac10 section today, and they were talking about the mags BDM are making for the Lage 22 upper. I hope they learn a thing or two, and apply it to the UZI mags. A different plastic, really need metal feed lips, ect.

Sorry, but I am holding off ordering my standard 20 mags until you get them a tad better.

 

[K2]

Black vs. Smoke Colored mags

Hi again,

All of my testing has been done with smoke colored BDM 22 uzi mags. Has anyone compared the smoke colored mags with the black mags? I've just been getting the smoke colored mags as I can easily see when the magazine is loaded to full capacity.


TIA,

K2

 

[arch stanton]

Yeah that is a good point. Who has used the black mags

Joe

 

[JWH 223]

This is off base a bit here, but I need to ask.

I own a few ARs with .22 conversions and run BDM mags in them and they work great.

I keep having this same thought when I see these Uzi .22 mags.

I am curious if you have a 9mm setup in an AR, if you swaped out the upper with either a dedicated 22 AR upper or a 5.56 with a .22 unit in it.....if the mag would sit anywere near the correct location and actually work with the .22 AR unit.

Why you may ask.....my normal response is why not....

If a person has a 9mm AR with the mag block that takes un-modified Uzi mags and wants to use that as the gun he swaps out with his .22 upper. That, and the Uzi .22 mags are cool as hell.....plus, nobody else has done it yet

Just a thought.......if RoverDave has some of these mags, I may have to hit him up to lend me one for a few days.

In a nut shell:

AR lower with 9mm mag block in it.......22 AR upper units with ciener, CMMG, Spikes, etc....22 conversion unit and the new BDM Uzi mags????

Just because.......

 

[RoverDave]

Just a thought.......if RoverDave has some of these mags, I may have to hit him up to lend me one for a few days.

I have one of the mags that came with the .22 Mini UZI bolt. You can try it if you want to.

 

[SecondAmend]

If one shoots an AR-15 with a "Foote" conversion (made by Ciener, CMMG or Spikes) using a 9 mm magwell adapter and Uzi .22 mags (made by BDM or Vector) in addition to the ammo position (fore and aft, as well as up and down), another question I would have is will the .22 have enough energy to work the action. I understand that some people have to install a weaker hammer spring to get .22 conversion to operate in their AR-15/M16 guns. With the proposed setup, the bolt travel is, I think, somewhat further than a regular .22 conversion kit in the Uzi so there may be additional drag and loss of bolt energy.

In any case, sounds like an interesting experiment.

Best of luck!

 

[JWH 223]

Thank you RoverDave.....

I just came up with a better idea......Kevin, please design a 9mm mag (with would have to have a simple metal feed ramp and ejector pinned into each mag) that would fill up an AR magwell and work with a 9mm bolt. This way no mag block would be needed and we could switch from 5.56 to 9mm to .22LR in the same lower. We could run the 9mm buffer for all of them.

Sorry for going off topic.

 

[JWH 223]

SecondAmend,

You have good points....the other thing that I just realized is that I am sure the ejector in the 9mm mag block would completely be in the way of the conversion bolt...not to mention the feed ramp on the block.

 

[K2]

Nose high jams - Any hints?

Hi All,

I've got things running pretty well right now. The failure I often get is the nose of the round (in this case Dynapoints) impacting the top edge of the chamber opening. It isn't nearly as bad with Federal bulk pack. (The Federals are a bit more pointed.)

The top of the BDM mags as well as the top of the Vector 28's I've got are .357"-.358" above the floor of the receiver.

I'm a bit nervous breaking the edge on the top of the barrel but that might be an answer. If I do that I'll do it very, very sparingly.

On the good side I got over 500 rounds down range without breaking anything

TIA,

K2