13 replies to this topic

[huggytree]

120,000 made..80,000-90,000 went to the Marines...id assume they carried 3-4 spares each...and id assume they made 500,000+ spare mags ???

 

where did they all go?

 

why is it impossible to find ONE...anywhere?

 

yes i bought some from Keystone, but id like a few more originals....just seems odd to me that they dont exist....ingram m6 mags can be found and i can buy some tomorrow for $120 each....hundreds of them......only 2,000 m6's made

 

why are there no mags for a gun that actually saw service and 50x more made than the ingram m6?

 

someone sitting on 500,000 of them?

 

 

[M17ap]

6 mags were standard issue. Marines trashed a quantity in some river overseas in WWII. Probally dumped mags in river with guns. Guns were loaned or supplied to Canada and Russia also during WWII. A lot more Reisings made than Ingram’s. Sure all the Reising owners wanted extra mags so probally in collectors hands. Back in the seventies you could buy new in wrap Thompson mags for $ 3
while used Reising mags went for $ 10 or $ 12 dollars. The biggest supply of mags was Thompsons. Still cheaper than Reising today.
Gun parts Corp ( Numrich ) made some repro Reising mags awhile back also.

[Bridgeport28A1]

The ratio of 3 to 4 times as expensive as a Thompson magazine holds true today.

[huggytree]

So 500,000 mags disappeared ?

How many in the registry ? 2,000-4,000

6 mags per gun with many spares. Means 1/2 a million plus are gone. Would seem there would be 10-20 mags per gun easy

[M17ap]

Probally a lot were destroyed 50’s or 60’s. John Bush is very knowledgeable about these things. Some years back he had a huge bin
Full of demilitarized grease gun mags. They were all smashed some place on mag and were unusable. A lot of 22 training rifles were destroyed in the Clinton years. More recently I heard a quantity of possibly new grease guns were destroyed. Instead of selling some of this stuff they destroyed it. Only lately did they start to sell M1 Garands years ago they destroyed them also. Guys bought receiver scrap
And welded them back together in the 60’s. To the government their surplus and have no use. Smash or cut them then they go to the
Scrap dealer.

[JimB]

another factor is they probably made more of the 12 round mags than the 20s

 

I can state that years ago most of the police department Reisings I encountered only had a few 12 round mags for them

Probably more of the guns saw use during WWII with Guards

One late relative was issued a M50 when he was part of a unit guarding some dam out west and only had 12 round mags, he never saw one 20 while in the service

[PTRS-14.5]

We had a group of 12 for sale at SAR NOS and Taiwanese knock offs. Others were in the non SAR bldg for 85 dollars (rough)and up. They can be found at most larger shows in PA and Ohio... The NOS are gone I think.
Probably got the knock offs left. They run better than modified tsmg mags.

My 2 cents

PTRS

[GUNGUY45]

Back in the '90's Dennis Todd had a TON of 20 rounders, $75 each. He told me that he bought all of the California Highway Patrol mags for $2 each(or was it $3??)

A year or two later the amount he had dwindled, and the price was $125.

[huggytree]

question on the 12 vs 20...you need a 12 round mag well for 12's? and a 20 round mag well for 20's correct? you cant use 12's in a 20 mag well?

[StrangeRanger]

12s run fine in my 20 round well.

[ODS9091]

12's only for the 12 round magwell

12's or 20's for the 20 round magwell

[MG08]

Not sure where all the mags went, assuming there were that many originally..  I bought out a LEA back in the early 90s, got like 10 or 12 M50s, 8 or so Smth 76s.  Got all the mags too.  I think there were something like 60 Reising mags, most were 20 rd. and like 30 Smith mags.  I still have a fair supply of the Reising mags, but since Christie was making the 30 rd ones I stocked and sold those with the guns too Here in MN, the Reising was the low cost leader in C&R type MGs. I keep the mags these days for my guns and in cas I get more guns in. We had a lot of guns come through here that had the 12 rd magazine well, and it was common to swap them out for the 20 rd . We used the 12 rd magazines as a "doner" to build the converted thompson drums back in the pre-ban days for the Reisings. Once the repro drums went up in cost it was no longer worth it to build them.

[Sandman1957]

Most of the transferable guns out there came via Police Departments and guns "re"imported after the war.  Tons of spare parts were sold but no idea where they ended up.  Few Military guns made it into the registry, because machineguns were never sold back.  Most went to Foreign Sales, other to inter-service transfers but none went to the public.  Doubt many were to Foreign Military sales after WWII due to the poor track record it had.  There could be a warehouse full out there somewhere, but no-one has found or marketed them.  

 

The z-mags for the mac 11 run great.  Maybe you should ask them to do a run of them and see what they think.  Even if they current prices for them, I do think they could make money.  They have the double stack, single feed going, they only need to upscale it.  

[Merry Ploughboy]

FWIW, a number of years ago, in answer to a question of how many of different types of machine guns were transferable, for Reisings the answer was about 9,000.  Apparently many were sold or later given to police departments and corrections facilities.  From what was stated, Reisings were produced into the 1950s for the LEO market.