BigWaylon
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I thought I’d start a new thread for this instead of adding to my Beowulf thread, as some of the info might be useful for 450 BM, 458 SOCOM, etc.
Here’s what the follower in a Beowulf mag from Alexander Arms looks like. I’ve never had an issue with them feeding. You’ll see in a later pic how high up the round sits. These have been slightly modified...I ground a slight semi-circle in the front based on the D&H mags I’ll post down below. I don’t have any reason to think it was necessary, but I was on a roll with the Dremel.
I have two of those mags, the 7rd that came with the upper and a 10rd I bought later. When I bought my second Beowulf upper a couple months ago I decided I wanted another few bags. Saw that D&H sells a version for 12.7x42 and ordered two since D&H has worked well for me with 6.8 (I have some one 5.56 but don’t think I’ve ever used them). Here’s what the mag and follower looks like. Since the round sits a lot lower, they come with the deeper cutout in the front:
At a quick glance, the mag body of these and my 5.56 look identical, with just a different follower.
Feed lips look to be the same shape...so I emailed D&H to see if they’d sell me some Big Bore followers. This is mainly because D&H and AA both want ~$25 for a 10rd Beowulf mag, 2X-3X the price of a 5.56. They replied to say they normally don’t sell them, but he’d send me a couple if I gave him an address. I’d included a pic of the two I bought just to prove I was a paying customer. So imagine my surprise when just a couple days later I get 5 followers in a padded envelope...yet they look like the green one instead of the black one:
but they look a LOT like the blue ones in the AA mags:
The Beowulf ARs are both built with Magpul foliage green accessories. I’ve seen people mention using standard PMags with just a little modification, so I hunted down some foliage colored PMags to see what I could do. Note: I painted all the metal mags shown, as they all came black. I also found a 3D printer pattern for Beowulf in a PMag, and had a CFF member volunteer to print me a few. Here’s a standard 5.56 PMag follower compared to the ones I had printed:
The printed versions arrived last night and I messed around with them a little. Unfortunately I ran into some issues. The design has a little tab on the back that prevents the round from sliding all the way back, and that results in the nose of the bullet hitting a little peg inside the body that smaller rounds bypass on each side. You can see the gap behind the round and the nose getting hung up on this pic:
So I looked at the D&H follower, which was the only one with a “center channel” and saw it didn’t have a little tab on the back. I’m aware it’s a metal mag vs a PMag, but I decided to grind the tab off anyway. Here’s a 3D with the tab, one with it ground off, and the D&H Big Bore showing no tab:
After the grind, the round slides to the rear of the mag. I was able to load 5 rounds and easily flip them all out with my thumb. I did run a file across the little peg just to take the tip of it off as well. You can see the round hits the back of the mag here:
and misses the little peg here:
Here’s what the follower in a Beowulf mag from Alexander Arms looks like. I’ve never had an issue with them feeding. You’ll see in a later pic how high up the round sits. These have been slightly modified...I ground a slight semi-circle in the front based on the D&H mags I’ll post down below. I don’t have any reason to think it was necessary, but I was on a roll with the Dremel.
I have two of those mags, the 7rd that came with the upper and a 10rd I bought later. When I bought my second Beowulf upper a couple months ago I decided I wanted another few bags. Saw that D&H sells a version for 12.7x42 and ordered two since D&H has worked well for me with 6.8 (I have some one 5.56 but don’t think I’ve ever used them). Here’s what the mag and follower looks like. Since the round sits a lot lower, they come with the deeper cutout in the front:
At a quick glance, the mag body of these and my 5.56 look identical, with just a different follower.
Feed lips look to be the same shape...so I emailed D&H to see if they’d sell me some Big Bore followers. This is mainly because D&H and AA both want ~$25 for a 10rd Beowulf mag, 2X-3X the price of a 5.56. They replied to say they normally don’t sell them, but he’d send me a couple if I gave him an address. I’d included a pic of the two I bought just to prove I was a paying customer. So imagine my surprise when just a couple days later I get 5 followers in a padded envelope...yet they look like the green one instead of the black one:
but they look a LOT like the blue ones in the AA mags:
The Beowulf ARs are both built with Magpul foliage green accessories. I’ve seen people mention using standard PMags with just a little modification, so I hunted down some foliage colored PMags to see what I could do. Note: I painted all the metal mags shown, as they all came black. I also found a 3D printer pattern for Beowulf in a PMag, and had a CFF member volunteer to print me a few. Here’s a standard 5.56 PMag follower compared to the ones I had printed:
The printed versions arrived last night and I messed around with them a little. Unfortunately I ran into some issues. The design has a little tab on the back that prevents the round from sliding all the way back, and that results in the nose of the bullet hitting a little peg inside the body that smaller rounds bypass on each side. You can see the gap behind the round and the nose getting hung up on this pic:
So I looked at the D&H follower, which was the only one with a “center channel” and saw it didn’t have a little tab on the back. I’m aware it’s a metal mag vs a PMag, but I decided to grind the tab off anyway. Here’s a 3D with the tab, one with it ground off, and the D&H Big Bore showing no tab:
After the grind, the round slides to the rear of the mag. I was able to load 5 rounds and easily flip them all out with my thumb. I did run a file across the little peg just to take the tip of it off as well. You can see the round hits the back of the mag here:
and misses the little peg here:
