Magazine question

[Strangeranger]

None of my Uzi mags have any manufacturer’s markings on them other than what appears to be a tooling number stamped at the bottom rear. All but 2 of them are parkerized; the 2 different ones are blued and marked with a “40.” None of the other mags carry that number. The blued ones are also made from thinner sheet metal, 1.1mm (approx. 19 ga) vs 1.5mm (approx. 18 ga) for the parkerized mags. The blued mags originally had much weaker springs which were made from a smaller gauge wire which have since been replaced with standard springs. The blued mags do not feed reliably.

I am assuming the parkerized mags are all FN but the blued ones clearly are not. My best guess is that the blued ones are Norinco. Can anyone shed light on this?

 

[RoverDave]

Norinco mags are parkerized, not blued, and say “made in China” on the bottom. The mags you describe might be USA brand, which are lightweight materials and poor functionality.

 

[Strangeranger]

Dave,
Thanks for the info. Please tell me that USA mags were not made in the USA.
"Lightweight" indeed. The parkered (FN?) mags weigh 7.9-8.0 oz. each; the blued ones weigh in at 7.2 oz. That reduces their utility as a paperweight.

 

[tonelar]

I'm not sure where the U.S.A. branded magazines are made. They’re from the 1990s, iirc. Think of them as a step below Pro-mag (if that's possible).

 

[dallas]

Were the 50 rounders made by USA brand?

 

[cajun 22]

Were the 50 rounders made by USA brand?

Yes. And they were junk!

 

[SecondAmend]

I've got one of the USA 50 round Uzi mags. I think I paid around $12.99 for it. The mag lips are so flimsy that they had to be reset every two loads. Haven't even got it out of where it's stored in at least five years. I thought about using it as the bottom side of a two stick mag hookup along with a good 25 or 32 round mag using a TACCOM mag coupler back when they sold them. Never got around it.

 

[dallas]

Yes. And they were junk!

Yes they are. I think they are my first bad quality magazine experience.

 

[tonelar]

Has anyone tried hardening them? Or is the sheet metal so thin that they’d just crack?

 

[SecondAmend]

Has anyone tried hardening them? Or is the sheet metal so thin that they’d just crack?

A good thought. I'm not a metallurgist, and I don't play one on the internet; but I think that the steel used in the USA 50 round mags might be of an alloy that does not harden well.
MHO, YMMV, etc.

 

[Member13]

I had two of the 50 round ones, made for the feather at9. They worked just fine in my semi uzi...just hard to load the last few rounds into.

https://imgur.com/a/E16e8IG

 

[Strangeranger]

A good thought. I'm not a metallurgist, and I don't play one on the internet; but I think that the steel used in the USA 50 round mags might be of an alloy that does not harden well.
MHO, YMMV, etc.

All steels can be hardened but the grades that would have been used to make cheap magazines are likely to become brittle in the process. These mags are made of considerably thinner steel; they are .042" thick vs .049" for the FN spec mags. That's a 14% reduction in thickness an even greater reduction in bending strength - or resistance to bending. Regard them as junk and move on.

 

[VAFL]

A little off topic.
I have a Action Arms Mod B and a Group Ind. SMG. The mags do not integrate meaning they don’t lock into the receiver. Or the lock in but freeze up the ejector button. Is the a mag fix for this? I am not a gunsmith but it seems like a small little fix would solve this issue. Any ideas?

Big thanks

 

[Jones]

First, it would be important to know what alloy steel you're trying to temper. The higher the carbon content, the more likely to have success.
Second is heating the mag bodies correctly. They should be run through a controlled atmosphere furnace. There's no way to get even heat distribution with a torch. Oven tempering is done by bringing the steel up to temperature then holding it there at the rate of one hour of "soak" time per 1" of material thickness.
After heating, the parts are quenched in any number of mediums from plain water to molten salt depending on the properties required. After the initial quench, the parts ore reheated, this time so that only the surface starts to show a "straw" color, then re-quenched. This is to draw out some if the brittleness from being too hard and make the part tougher and more resilient.
Far cheaper to just buy good mags to begin with. Otherwise it's like trying to make chicken salad out of chicken sh1t.