So I got 3 Mini-14 mags as part of an auction lot I won. I identified the longer one as an actual Ruger Factory mag that they cut down from a 30 round mag.
Now according to what I've been finding online these are pretty rare and are considered collector items. Is this correct? Do you guys know how much they're worth?
But I'm also curious about the two 10 round mags I got because as you can see the two stamps on the bottom are completely different. Now is this just a random thing where one got stamped way harder than the other? Or does this denote a different era of magazine manufacturing? I also noticed that the dimples on the back of the two 10 round magazines seem really different as well.
Ruger has frequently outsourced production for the magazines to different OEMs over the years. It's possible that the two magazines came from different manufacturers, or at least different assembly lines that had a different or more worn stamping die.
The specs should be the same otherwise. I have not heard of certain production runs of the Ruger-branded magazines holding particular value over others. Iirc, an exception would be Ruger's original run of straight 180-series magazines.
Ahh, I just read that these were rare because Ruger made them specifically for, and included them with the AC-556. Something about because the 30 rounders made the barrel heat up way quicker because of more rounds and fewer mag changes.
So before they had the tooling to make their own 20 round magazines they took some 30 round magazine blanks and cut them down to hold 20 rounds. Hence why no roll marks, a polymer plug and spring pins.
But they only did that until they had the tooling to make their own.
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u/VentureExpress 2d ago
That’s cool. I’ve never heard of a cut down mag. I have a couple of 20rd straight mags