What magazines are best?

When I began Bullseye competition a couple of seasons ago I used Wilson magazines because, well, that's what I had. Yesterday while cleaning my magazines I noticed the sides of the plastic followers were getting scratched. Not badly enough to replace them but it's definitely something I need to watch. So, I thought I'd ask what you all use. Specifically, do you prefer magazines with wadcutter feed lips and removable base plates, or the traditional military type pf magazine? I'm shooting H&G 68 contoured lead bullets so whatever I use will have to feed those. Thanks.

Wilson followers are expendable items, would do mag springs at the same time to ensure reliability.

I have 6 of the Wilson mags.. #4 always stuck in the gun after pushing the mag release.

I emailed Wilson to ask what area of the magazine should I inspect to figure out why it wasn't releasing properly, and they said send it back and we'll ship you a new one.

That's good enough for me.

Wilson mags are very good quality. I use them in carry guns. That being said, I had very good luck over the years with Meltalform magazines for bullseye pistol shooting. I like the welded base ones with the rounded metal follower. I also had good luck with Colt magazines after replacing the flat follower with a rounded metal one. I used these in accurized Colt pistols and one Les Baer. IDK if I would trust plastic followers to hold up to the amount of shooting that bullseye pistol shooters put through their 1911's.

Also a big fan of the rounded metal follower mentioned above.

Don

I have a pair of Metalform magazines like BE Mike uses that I have used for over 20 years every match and every practice and have never changed anything on them.  I have a 3rd mag in my box that I have in there as a back up and use that when I practice along with my two primary mags. I actually own a 4th magazine but I’m not sure I have ever used that one.  Those things seem to last forever.  

John

CMC - Chip McCormick mags are great. Relatively inexpensive and they have a LE/MIL discount. I have a bunch of CMC mags that I use in a few guns with no issues. They have metal followers. https://cmproducts.com/

Chip McCormick Shooting Star 7-rounders were always my favorites. Very easy to load because of the tilting follower design, and no feeding issues as far as I can remember. Had a few Metalforms but they were giving me issues and alibis every now and then.

I highly recommend NOT going with welded bottoms, it makes them a PITA to clean and I had a bottom fall of in the middle of a match and dump the guts at my feet. I like the Wilson 7 round mags with the removable bottom, never had an issue with the follower. Welded bottoms are 100% done for cost savings in the manufacturing process.

Agreed. I shoot 60 rounds a week.. Winter and Summer leagues with a month off in between, and the plastic followers are holding up nicely.

Thanks for the input everyone. I've decided to change out the innards of my Wilson magazines and convert my 8 rounders to 7. The 8's are beginning to have FTF's.

faraim wrote:Thanks for the input everyone. I've decided to change out the innards of my Wilson magazines and convert my 8 rounders to 7. The 8's are beginning to have FTF's.

Will you be using the Tripp Super 7 upgrade kit?

No, but I'll investigate the Tripps.

I have McCormick magazines for my 1911's they are the 8 shot ones with the hard plastic bumpers one the bottom, they work great and have had many thousands of rounds through them with no issues.

I started out shooting a Navy ball gun with the issue magazines the armorer just tuned the lips on.  They did that because they had thousands of the mags and could try a bunch of them until they found 2 the functioned 100% and grouped together with that pistol.  They would then electro-pencil the spines with the pistols last 4.  Those mags lasted years just fine.
Later, when I started shooting a wad gun, I had the same mags but I put Metalform rounded followers I bought from Gil Hebard.  They ran 100% and lasted.

Now, I use Metalform round follower,  removable base mags for both EIC and wad gun with great results.  With new rules allowing lead in EIC, those mags will be just fine as long as my chamber accepts lead in my EIC.

In my carry 45, Wilson all the way.

In my 38supercomp EIC pistol, Ed Brown mags on Jon Eulette's advice.  He built it, he should know.

I like my magazine with the round top follower.  Easy to load rounds, bullets seem to slide across it easier when unloading it, and doesn’t cause me any grief.