Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Handguns Plastic magazine baseplates.......or not.

How many of you have had a mag baseplate break and dump its contents? I had it happen the other day, fortunately not at a critical time. Said mag was more than 20 years old,so I suppose it was overdue for replacement, but it prompted me to decide to switch out all the plastic plates I can to metal. Don't care to lengthen the mags, and don't care if it adds rounds or not. I'm looking at NDZ aluminum baseplates for the Shield. Anyone have experience with these, or other suggestions?

I used to break baseplates on my Wilson 47Ds while IPSC shooting. No problems, they were/are available, but I thought I'd be smarter and switched to brass baseplates, which I thought would help get the magazines out of the well quicker.

Nope, the added inertia/weight caused the sides of the magazine to pooch out a bit, which slowed their exit out of the gun. Those were the hazards of an indoor concrete-floored range. I think it's better, overall, if you stick with the plastic baseplates, at least if you're dropping magazines over concrete.

Magazines are expendable items that need replacement periodically, much like timing belts/chains, etc.

While some will last a very long time if you don't shoot too much, eventually they will fail.

I cannot think of too many magazine types that I have not seen fail,

Frankly mags are not really that expensive (from a monetary standpoint) as compared to having one fail at an inopportune moment.

My suggestion: Relegate work/carry mags and training mags. Don't mix the two up. That is what I do.

I mark the base plates of mine with a couple dots of paint, so I know which is which.

BTW, you can get metal base plates for your training mags which will last a very long time. I have some brass ones for glock mags that I have had for 15+ years now (maybe longer, I can't recall) and they are still going strong. They get used exclusively for training days .

Cheers!

This mag was not one that gets dropped. It mostly gets fired only to verify function and is carried on a daily basis. The failure happened while sitting in a chair.

Good tip on marking the mags, MS. I have been doing something similar. While I suppose that age of the plastic part may be a contributing factor, I have lost some faith in that material for mag bases - especially considering that part is exposed to potential bumps when wearing the gun. Fortunately, metal replacements are available. I just wondered about this particular brand that is available for the Shield (not the gun that had the failure, BTW - it's taken care of).

Anyway, I ordered a few and will try 'em out.


Thanks for the replies.

Only time I've had a magazine dump it's contents was an aftermarket extended +2 baseplate on a Glock 17 mag. I showed a young shooter how to tap the bottom of a mag to make sure it's seated in the gun; he managed to hit it (probably harder than necessary) at just the right angle to cause the baseplate to come off and dump 19 rounds in the grass at our feet.

After that I spent some time trying to reproduce the issue, and figured out that a strike at a certain angle could take most any extended baseplate off a Glock 9mm mag, and I could also remove them by twisting. I've quit using extended baseplates on Glock mags, except for the factory 33rd mag.

Never had one just shatter or break though.

Broke one baseplate on a Wilson magazine once. Other than that, never had any problems. I actually prefer a plastic base.

It seems the newer S&W baseplates are some nylon-ish (technical term) plastic that is pretty dang tough.

Well, that's a good thing.

It probably makes a difference just how thin the material is around the slot that slides over the bottom of the mag. I know some are dying to know what gun this was, so I'll tell you. It was the K9. Yeah - that mag is about 25 years old and was all original but the spring. The chair was hard, and I do remember leaning back roughly against it. Maybe a fluke, but new metal bases are on the way from Kahr.

Yondering - thanks for affirming my choice to not go with extended bases.

To be fair - that was on double stack Glock mags. Your Kahr mags are likely a different story and I don't want to give the wrong impression on that. I shot and carried a Kahr for a while (before switching to a G19) but never tried extended bases on those, just the flat metal bases and the plastic finger rest bases (maybe those were +1 now that you mention it, I forget?). I don't recall ever dropping a Kahr mag either though.

To your original question - you can drop Glock mags all day without breaking the standard flat base plates, which are plastic. However, those seem to be a tougher plastic than I remember was on some of my Kahr mags.

Yeah, even the Shield mags appear to be a little more robust in the base than the Kahr's. Definitely a different plastic. I don't know of any extended base for the Kahrs, but they do offer longer mags. Pretty much irrelevant to me though. NDZ offers a +2 aluminum base for the 9mm Shield, but I didn't bite.

Is S&W still using ACT mags? I like those.

Kevin, the only brand markings on the Shield mags are S&W. They do seem to be very well made.

NDZ bases for the Shield came yesterday. Very well made. Perfect fit. Installed easily. I like 'em.