Para Mags - 22 shots?

[Dowter]

A guy I know that is a grand master has told me that he can get 22 bullets into a para mag that has a dawson basepad.   I have para mags with dawson basepads and I can barely get 21 shots in.  22 is plumb out of the question.  Is there some magical way that I don't know about to get that 22nd bullet in.  I would love to be shooting 22+1.  

BTW - My spring and follower are para factory originals for their 16 round mags.

Also BTW - One of the arguments that he uses for the Para as opposed to the STI and SV is that para can hold more bullets.  How many bullets can the mags on STIs and SVs hold?

[Dowter]

Of course he might of meant 22 as in "21+1".

[2alpha]

I've noticed that some Para tubes are slightly longer than others, maybe enough to make the difference whether you can squeeze that extra round in. Some guys run on the ragged edge with springs and followers cut down.  I don't think it's worth the risk, if you look at a whole years worth of shooting one jam will probably wipe out all the advantage you ever got from that extra round.

JJ

[Rich Bagoly]

21 in the mag is pretty good.  More would take some serious tweaking.

2alpha is right.  That one jam per year would cost you on every stage because you would not be able to trust that it would work this time.

When would that 23rd round make a difference?  There was not one stage at this years Limited Nats. where it would have helped.

 

Learn to reload better.

Don't miss.

Don't accept stupid stages that reward 20 shots from one place.

There is at least one local guy shooting Lim10 who kicks my ass nearly every time.  Getting more rounds in my gun is not what I need to do to catch up.

[Chriss Grube]

I can fit 20 some with 21. I load 19 because the jam will screw you more than a reload. Haven't seen a course yet where it made a bit of difference.

[Detlef]

First off, you probably mean *cartridges*, not *bullets*. My Para mags would probably fit close to 60 bullets, but what for??? Next, you probably refer to .40 S&W caliber, because again, in 9 mm I can fit 22 rounds in a standard factory Para mag w/o special base pad. Lastly, if all my assumptions are correct, your question would fit well into the *Stock/Limited gun* category and has been addresses there several times before (you might want to dig around there for more info). Bottom line is that indeed 140 mm Para mags hold more cartridges than the corresponding STI/SV mags (where most people report 19 or 20 as absolute maximum) due to shape differences.

Now...in the 45, two different length *full size* mag bodies were manufactured. I am unaware of this in the .40.

You need the right combination of base pad (Dawson or Grams), follower (Arredondo's or Grams) and spring (Wolff 11.5 coil or Grams) to get 21 in and still be able to reload. You also need to bevel the bottom of the mag body (otherwise the follower hangs up or doesn't even dive into the pad). Dawson came out with a modified shape base pad that supposedly allows one more round, but I haven't tried it yet. The old one makes total mag length less than the allowed 140 mm, and just a tad more space would allow one more round. Be wary of making more space by cutting the spring to less coils, 10 coils will not work reliably for me any more.

--Detlef

(Edited by Detlef at 7:29 pm on Dec. 26, 2001)

[benos]

"10 coils will not work reliably for me any more."

And never has for me. Although many use 10 coils, for me, it doesn't work 1000% of the time.

be

[Detlef]

which is precisely what it *must* (999% of the time is *not* enough)! Reliability is still an under-appreciated thing in the equipment discussion...

--Detlef