Mec-Gar 10 round 9mm magazine MGCGOV910AFC

[Steve in Allentown]

A year or two ago I fit a 9mm barrel to my 9x23 5" 1911. I needed a magazine to test my fitting job and wasn't interested in spending the big bucks to get a Wilson, Tripp, or McCormick so I picked up a Mec-Gar from Greg Cote. The pistol ran fine and accuracy was spot on even with the el cheapo bulk 115gr ammo I used.

The magazine presented no issues at all. Feeding was velvety smooth. I tried to buy a couple more of those as the months went by but Cote was out of stock. I left a request on his site to notify me when they were back in stock. Finally, last week I was notified and immediately bought two more.

If anyone is interested, here is some information for you. First of all, each mag costs $22.

Below is my switch barrel 9x23 / 9mm with one Mec-Gar mag seated and the two new ones on display.

I don't have much experience with 9mm magazines but these are unlike others I've worked with. As you can see below the sheet metal of these mags has been bent to form a groove that runs up the length of the body. The groove serves two purposes. One, it acts as a spacer so 9mm rounds won't rattle fore and aft. Two, the top of the groove is formed into a feed ramp to help the rounds stay nose up as they exit the mag.

Here's a pic looking down through the disassembled mag showing the feed ramp. It is well formed and while it's not mirror finished, it is smooth enough to fulfill its mission. I see no need to waste my time smoothing it any more than it already is. It's a better mouse trap than bending the forward edge of the tube forward into a lip.

Another pic of the integral feed ramp.

Here's a pic of the fully assembled mag. You can see the groove at the front of the body and the follower. The follower is also unusual in my experience. It's similar to Tripp's in that the body is some flavor of plastic and it has a chunk of steel fit to it that is what actually makes contact with the steel slide stop to prevent the plastic from being damaged. I don't know if the very latest Wilson's have the same feature. You would think with how expensive those mags are Wilson would have done something similar.

Another pic of the follower showing where the chunk of steel is located. From a manufacturing standpoint, it's pretty clever. It's a flat piece of steel that passes through the follower body and is secured on the other side.

The magazine tube is extended and there is no spring stacking with all 10 rounds loaded into it. The feed lips are subtle hybrids. It's easy to identify .45 hybrid feed lips but 9mm is so much smaller that I had to take measurements to verify what my lying eyes were telling me.

[Dave W.]

Nice write up.

I have used some Mec-gar's 45 ACP, they worked well in all my 1911's.

[niemi24s]

Tnx for posting this, Steve. It's always nice to hear about something that works right out of the box.

[Doran]

I've always considered Mec-Gar excellent products. Good to see they've carried that on with these 9mm magazines.

[Hawkmoon]

The notion of the 9mm magazines with the front indented and a "ramp" at the top was created several years ago by Springfield Armory and Metalform. It's interesting to see Mec-Gar picking up on the idea.

[Steve in Allentown]

At this point I've put PMC 115gr FMJ, Fiocchi 124gr FMJ, SIG 147gr JHP, and my handloads using Precision Bullet 125gr flat points through the mags and pistol with 100% reliability.

The integral magazine ramp was a stroke of design genius. Attached are a few additional pics I took in an attempt to show more detail. Unfortunately, I lack the lights necessary to illuminate the inside of the tubes sufficiently for really good images.

Below are two pics of the same magazine with different exposures. You can see the front spacer that was formed by the bending of the sheet metal the very top of which is the integral feed ramp.

The two pics below are also of the same magazine but with different exposures. Here you can see the angle of the ramp. I noted the smoothness of the feeding previously. The ramp seems to be playing a big part in this by preventing nose dives and insuring the cartridge hits the frame ramp or barrel ramp higher.

[Steve in Allentown]

I blackened the feed ramp using soot from a burning candle and took these pics showing the bullet impact on the ramp as they fed from the Mec-Gar mags.

Here's the barrel after being blackened. I blackened the ramp after each of the three sessions. What I should have done was wipe the ramp clean after each session before blackening it again. As you'll see the soot was getting pretty thick in the last two sessions.

Here are the results of feeding 10 rounds of 115gr FMJ. Note how the rounds are striking the ramp off center to the left. I suspect the force of the extractor claw pushing against the case is responsible for this. As you can see, this did not affect feeding. The normal 1911 feeding pattern of the first round out of the mag hitting lowest while the last round hits highest is apparent.

Here are the results of feeding 10 rounds of 147gr JHP. This where things went awry due to my failure to keep up the speed of pushing the the slide forward.

My manual feeding method consists of removing the recoil spring then using two thumbs to push the slide forward just fast enough to strip the next round in the mag and fully chamber it. I was being to gentle with the slide in the beginning which result in a few rounds striking the flat area immediately below the actual ramp. Once I got more aggressive with the slide the rounds hit the mag ramp and bounced up to strike the barrel ramp correctly.

Here are the results of feeding 10 rounds of 125gr flat points. Once again the strike of the rounds off center can be seen. The bottom line for me of this manual feeding test is that these magazines feed without any issues.

The thing that bothers me is the rounds striking the barrel ramp off center. I would rather they had been on center where the ramp is lowest. This argues for me to fit 9mm extractors so that the extractor's tensioning wall makes contact with the case rim. Sounds like I'll be repeating this test with a 9mm extractor fit in the same manner as a .45.

[Rick McC.]

Interesting, Steve!

As far as comments about composite 1911 mag followers; the current generation of Wilson ETM 9mm mags have steel followers (stainless, I believe).

I use the new 9mm ETMs in my 9mm 1911; including one that would not feed any hollowpoints from a 10 round mag, until this generation. HP ammo feeds flawlessly now.

[niemi24s]

Even though I'm totally unfamiliar with the 9mm and ramped barrels, I've a sneaky feeling that this followers feed ramp is merely a PR gimmick. Steve's photos show bullet nose contact down at the bottom of the barrel feed ramp which is probably made by the first round few rounds fed the full magazine. And just like the GI 1911 in 45Auto it's all due to the gap between that top round in the full magazine and the round below it - which is a result of the angle of the magazine tube. The followers ramp is near the bottom of the magazine tube when those first few rounds are stripped from a full magazine and their low strikes on the barrel (or frame) ramp are the result of those rounds getting rotated down on top of the round below when struck by the slide when fed.

Just like in a 45 Auto 1911, the follower is too far below and aft of the top rounds to have any supporting value except to hold them up under the magazines feed lips. But as the magazine empties, the follower moves up and forward and will eventually close the gap between the top round and the round below it.

I further suspect Steve's gun will feed flawlessly with this magazine even if the follower didn't have that ramp. This shows what I've found to be the case in a 45 Auto 1911 and suspect the 9mm version will be very similar:
P(09)5070002b Chip McCormick Mag Problem, Post 8.jpg
Coincidentally, this also explains why the top few rounds from a full magazine suffer the most bullet setback. On the other hand, the last few rounds suffer the least bullet setback as the follower is forward and high enough in the magazine tube to eliminate the gap between the the top round and the one below - so it doesn't nosedive and hits higher up on the frame or barrel ramp. The 45 Auto strike patterns below are similar to those in Steve's images:
P(10)3211234d These Boo(li)ts Are Made For Walkin'..., Post 1 .jpg

[Steve in Allentown]

Excellent post

. . . I've a sneaky feeling that this followers feed ramp is merely a PR gimmick.

I was wondering that myself so I did some testing. In fact, the first 2 rounds out of a fully loaded mag make contact with that little ramp. If nothing else it prevents those rounds from nose diving into the mag body. They still hit the barrel ramp the lowest but do feed.

I do not like ramped barrels as I find them to not feed as wide an array of ammo as smoothly as the standard set up. Also, the barrel ramp cannot reach as far down inside the frame as a properly cut frame ramp so nose dive jams into the frame below the ramp are not uncommon. Also, I've not run into a ramped barrel where the ramp is at 31.5 degrees. I actually recut the ramp on this barrel so that it is 31.5 degrees. That resulted in a tiny bit less case head support but the feeding is slick and reliable.

And just like the GI 1911 in 45Auto it's all due to the gap between that top round in the full magazine and the round below it - which is a result of the angle of the magazine tube.

I don't have the SAMMI dimensions in front of me at the moment but I think the 9mm is worse than the .45 in this regard.

I further suspect Steve's gun will feed flawlessly with this magazine even if the follower didn't have that ramp.

Here's a quick story that may be relevant.

A couple of months ago the time came when I wanted to function test a Colt 9mm Gold Cup slide assembly (barrel, firing pin, extractor, and all the rest of the parts) I had been working on. Unfortunately, the slide rails on all of my other 1911s were welded up and recut so the Gold Cup slide would not fit them.

The only frame that Gold Cup would fit onto was a Colt CCO. So I popped the slide on that frame, test fired the pistol, and it ran like a scalded dog. Standard, unsupported barrel and standard frame ramp at the correct depth and angle. I was pleasantly surprised. The moral of the story is that .45 frame ramps work fine for 9mm.

Here's a pic of the Frankengun. 5" 9mm slide on a compact .45 frame.