C Products M-16 Magazine Review

By Bill Plein

July 6, 2006

A few months ago I hooked up with Larry at C Products LLC, and we agreed to do a product review of their M-16 magazines. Treedawg agreed to assist with the live range firing, while I took on the magazine upgrade review. First, my apologies go out to the vendor! Treedawg got his range time in months ago, it's me who has held up the review.

The real shame is that I should have gotten the word out earlier. The C Products magazine components are second to none in terms of mil-spec conformity, material quality and workmanship.

The package that I received was a sampling of magazine retrofit/upgrade components, including a couple of mag bodies, some new springs, their MagPul followers and even some tactical pulls!

Upon opening the box, I was immediately impressed by the professional packaging. I've bought good quality parts through other vendors in the past, and have become accustomed to receiving goods wrapped in the local newspapers of the vendor. Not that it's a bad way to recycle, but you will find that C Products is at the other end of the spectrum. Mag components are shipped in sealed plastic wrap, no news print to fight here!

First, I did a quick comparison between their beautifully finished mag bodies (in Mar-Lube finish) vs. some USGI magazines I have, and they are without a doubt milspec in every way I could measure, down to the thousands of an inch as measured with a digital micrometer. Unlike cheap aftermarket magazines which only attempt to come close to actual M-16 specs, these puppies are the real deal.

Next I did a quick visual comparison between a used USGI spring with a green follower, and the C-Products chrome silicon upgrade spring. Note that the chrome silicon spring is slightly longer. This is probably due to the USGI spring losing a bit of it's load over time. The FAQ at the C Products web site covers this and it's probably comparing apples and oranges to compare an old used spring vs. their new replacement spring.

The differences in the followers are even more stark. Back in 1999, the green follower was the single biggest upgrade one could make to their USGI mags. The orange MagPul Gen-II followers are not just an incremental improvement, they are the next big deal in magazine upgrades. Their unique design eliminates tip, while still avoiding any binding. And as I'll show below, their installation is a snap, avoiding the minor but persistent struggling to insert the old green followers into your old magazines.

Installation:

Mag Body: I'll first show an example of replacing a magazine body. Here you seen an old magazine that has not only lost it's finish, but it also fails to function due to wear around the mag catch, which throws it out of alignment in the magazine well. This old mag body also has a small but disturbing "swell" in the body that affects feeding.

To remove the old floor plate, simply pry up the edge with a screwdriver and remove the old spring and follower.

When putting the old green follower into a mag body, you'll soon remember how you may have struggled the first time around: You have to insert it at an angle, then push it up to the point where it's about to go in. Notice how it rubs/interferes. You then must gently nudge it past this point, and if it binds too much, angle it out and try again. Once you've done a couple, it gets easy, but it never fails to stymie some people especially if they haven't done it before.

After the follower and spring are in, then slide on a replacement floor plate and you are done!

Upgrade follower and spring kits: In this case, we're starting with a generally good USGI mag and upgrading only the spring and follower.

After removing the old follower and spring, lay the new follower/spring assembly down next to the mag body. Notice how the shape of the follower better conforms to the mag body. It's a simple case of sliding it in, no angle/push/shove action as we had with the green followers. Finally, we finish it off with the tactical pull floor plate.

As you can see from the pictures, the finish on these products is fantastic, and the upgrades are even easier to do than the old green follower upgrade many of us have one years ago.

Field Trials:

Treedawg took out a set of 30rd magazines from C Products for a field trial. And what better way to test magazines than to beat them up with a full auto M-16! Treedawg is the owner of a fully registered, pre-86 machine gun, an Olympic Arms M-16 modified by David's Gun Room. It's got an 11" upper, with a Bushmaster heavy buffer to reduce bolt bounce. The shorty, with it's high cyclic rate of fire (on the order of 750 rounds per minute!) really abuses any component and will bring out flaws in feeding.

With 500 rounds through the C Products magazines, he had only one "failure to feed" which he attributed to a possible short stroke on his shorty upper. While we haven't had a chance to put many thousands of rounds through them, we're satisified that these are not only 100% USGI in dimension, but "better" in terms of having the latest follower upgrades, optional chrome silicon springs and cool tactical pull floor plates.

C Products not only puts out magazines and upgrade kits that meet or exceed the quality of USGI components, they are available online at very reasonable prices. With prices like theirs, there's no need to buy used USGI from unknown sources. Looking at their website prices, it's like being back in the pre-ban days all over again!

Also, C Products is "ban state friendly". What does that mean? If you live in a state that has tricky laws regarding hi-cap magazines and upgrade kits, C Products has done their homework and is willing to ship to you the things they can legally ship. Many vendors avoid doing business with California, for example, because they don't want to have to keep up on our various laws. C Products, who is selling to Law Enforcement customers as well as private end users, is taking business to the next level by keeping up with the laws in all 50 states, and is willing to ship where they can legally ship. That's customer service which is over and above what 1/2 of the aftermarket parts vendors out there are willing to do.

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