Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know that ever since the horrible tragedy in Newtown, CT, anything related to AR-15s has been flying off shelves, especially magazines. Manufacturers, dealers, and distributors are backordered for a long time, in some cases I’ve even heard all they into 2014! Although you can definitely find them on the used market, people are price gouging and are asking, in some cases, $80-$100 for what once was a $15 magazine. Crazy stuff, and, in all honesty, pisses me off (we’ll save that for a future post). Although I had a good supply of AR mags on-hand before the rush started, I wanted to pick up a few more.
Where to get mags, though, if they’re out of stock everywhere? I’ll contact my good friend Mike Centola and the people at Allstar Tactical (AST). AST is a small manufacturer based in Webster, NY (yes, I know, behind enemy lines), that specializes in parts and accessories for the AR15/M16/M4 platform. They make extremely high quality upper and lower receivers, triggers, buffer components, and…magazines!
Let me just say, the AST magazines are quality. They’re aluminum milspec with Magpul followers and a high quality black teflon finish. On the bottom floor plate is the caliber, manufacturer’s CAGE code, Q/R code and the AST logo and name. At $14/piece the price can’t be beat, so I ordered up 5.
My testing is simple and straightforward – run 100 rounds as fast as I can through two different AR-15s – a .223-chambered Smith & Wesson M&P15 and a CMMG .300BLK – and see if I can get any sort of a hiccup (jam, failure to feed, etc). However, not only did I run .223, but also .300BLK as well. I’m happy to report it was a pretty boring 100 yards. Nothing happened. All the rounds fed as they should with no failures. Because of the slick Teflon coating, I was able to drop and change mags with ease in both ARs. Like I said, boring. Which is a good thing! I think of AR magazines as the offensive linemen of the AR world. If you don’t notice them, that means they’re doing their job.
As of this writing, Allstar Tactical is out of magazines, much like everyone else. However, I’d implore you to keep checking back and snatch some of these up when they’re available again. There’s no reason whatsoever to buy mags from the likes of Tapco and Pro Mag, especially when these are $14 a pop and are 10 times the quality.
If Mike and the gang at Allstar Tactical do this good of a job with mags, just imagine the quality of their other products.
Hammerhead Armament 