Christie Mags Need Breaking In?

[Garrett]

I recently received some of Ken's new production Reising mags. Overall, they look great. But when I installed onein the gun, the bolt would drag and hang up. I had to push the action bar forward to get the bolt to close. If I removed the mag (without touching the bolt or action bar) the bolt would slam closed. I figured the mag catch hole on the back of the mag had been cut a little too low, and that the bolt was dragging on the top of the mag. No big deal, I could just move the hole up a little with a file.

 

But before I started doing that, I measured from the feedlips to the top of the hole on the new mags, and compared that to my older mags. The hole was in the same place.

 

Upon closer examination, I found that the action bar is dragging on the sides of the mag. You can see from the picture below where it has worn the finish off just in front of the feed lips. The mags on the left and middle are new - never been fired. They have only been hand-cycled. The mag on the right is a pre-'94 Christie mag. It shows evidence of wear here too, but it does not seem to drag. I have never had a problem while shooting with this mag.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v632/GarrettJ/DSC02850a.jpg

 

Here's a pic of the bolt being held open with the mag inserted. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v632/GarrettJ/DSC02852.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v632/GarrettJ/DSC02853.jpg

 

I have two original factory mags. Neither appear to have the rub marks that I get on the Christie mags. Since my one old 30 round mag runs fine, I think it's just a matter of breaking in the mags. I could try tweaking the mags, but I don't really care to do something that may mess with the feedlips.

 

As I said, I think it will be fine. Just wondering if anyone else has noticed this?

[Garrett]

Followup:

I looked again and the 12 and 20 round mags have the rub marks as well. I shot a few hundred rounds through the new mags yesterday. I had tweaked a couple of the mags before shooting. Most of them ran pretty well. But it was often necessary to manually push the action bar all the way forward when initially chambering a round. After that, the gun would usually cycle fine.

 

One mag was obviously dragging quite a bit. While the gun would still cycle, the rate of fire was slower and erratic. I had done some ROF measurements. With a 12 round mag, I was getting 1149 RPM with one particular load. With the same ammo, I was only getting 947 RPM from one of the new mags. I think this is going to take some more tweaking.

 

A couple of the mags wouldn't feed reliably when fully loaded. However, this was after shooting several hundred rounds. The bolt was starting to hang up even when no mag was inserted. I'm thinking a clean gun would function fine with these mags. (maybe I've been spoiled by my MACs. They rarely get cleaned, but go bang every time)

 

Since I do have evidence of rubbing on my old mags as well, is it possible that my action bar is out of spec? Would it be easier to just relieve the action bar where it is rubbing? I hate the idea of altering an original part to fit an aftermarket mag, though.

[First Sergeant]

Garrett,

 

I had the same problem with my 30 Rd mag from Ken. I was limited on time so I only shot one of the two mags. It has identical wear marks as shown in your pictures. The bolt will get hung up just as yours does. Having little experiance shooting the Reising I can't comment on the normal rate of fire but it seems to be much faster than my 28A1 Thompson but not as fast as my PS Mac 10 .45. I concur with the statement about the Mac going bang everytime...no matter what ammo or how dirty the gun gets.

 

As far as the action bar being the culprit, I doubt it. Mine is brand new and has had less than 200 rds fired with it. Just in case, I'll take a look at it to check for abnormal wear.

 

Chuck

[21 smoker]

While we are on the subject of 30 rounders....mine seem a bit tough on the ole` thumb...does anyone have a loader for this mag...I did not want to disturb the Hayes family during this time of distress if at all possible...anyone have an extra they want sell?... http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/wink.gif

[New1]

From what I understand, you may need to file the mag catch hole in the mag with a rat tail file since some mags seat too deep into the gun. I have 3 30 rd mags and an M50 "pending"...hope to be able to try the mags in this lifetime.....

[21 smoker]

Well,..finally got to run the new 30rds this last weekend and after some initial hiccups,probably the ammo,...the mags worked very well...one mag dragged the bolt a little but soon loosened up enough the run a complete stick without a stoppage....thanks Ken for the good job!... http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/wink.gif

[renovate7]

Took my Christie mags out and also had them drag a bit. My original 12 rounder is .74 inches wide where the drag marks show in the above pictures, and shows no drag marks. My original 20 rounders are .77 inches wide at that point and also have no drag marks. The Christie mags are .84 inches wide and show drag marks. Both my action bars are factory beveled on the inside bottom, obviously to clear the mags. Both show wear from rubbing on mags at some point of their life, not the Christies. If you look at the front of the Christie's they stay full width much closer to the top. The original's start tapering in about a half inch lower. My gun ran fine after helping it close on the first round so I'm just going to live with it. I definately would NOT take any metal off the action bar, their thin enough to begin with.

[RSP]

I have two new 30 rd magazines from Christie and they run great, no problems. http://www.machinegunbooks.com/forums/invboard1_1_2/upload/html/emoticons/smile.gif