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Range Report

Well that certainly felt like a marathon--I ended up shooting 200 rounds through each of the magazines. I had another box of 100 I took thinking I'd shoot it, but I was growing tired of reloading the short mag in 8rd increments and I could tell I was getting fatigued and lazy and I did not want to enforce any bad habits that may have shown up had I continued.

The ammo I used today included Federal aluminum, Winchester white box, Remington brass, Federal HST 124gr +P, and Speer Gold Dot 124 +P

I wanted to get a wide variety of ammo so that I could ensure it would feed anything and everything I could throw at it. During my testing I had four malfunctions with the 7rd magazine converted to 8rds with the MagGuts spring alone (to be referred to as "standard" from here forward) and one malfunction with the 8rd mag converted to 11rds with the Hyve extension and the MagGuts spring together (referred to as "Hyve"). That said, I am going to carry my Shield and keep the magazines the way they are and I'll explain why.

The malfunctions I experienced with the standard mag were 1 double feed that caused a FTE and 3 failures to lock the slide on empty. The double feed/FTE happened on the second mag through the gun (ammo was WWB). If I were to see any failures I expected them to come right at the start since MagGuts themselves say it takes a few loads and unloads to fully seat the spring. Despite having loaded and unloaded in my house 4-5 times it is still nothing compared to them being subjected to the recoil impulse and actually being used. I tried and tried to get it to give me another double feed, I mixed types of ammo, I loaded half full magazines or magazines with just two rounds, and I obviously shot numerous magazines that were loaded completely full. After that one experience on the second mag it was flawless as far as feeding went. Two of the slide locks happened to be when loaded with WWB, one of them was with a mixture of the Remington and Speer (last round would have been Speer).

The one malfunction I experienced with the Hyve mag was a single failure to lock the slide on empty when it was loaded with WWB. Now it may look like the mags have a problem with the WWB, but I don't actually think that is the case--the problem is that I shot the aluminum and WWB first, then finished with a mixture of WWB/Rem/JHP, then exclusively JHP. What I discovered part way through my shooting is that my thumb was riding the slide release keeping it down. Once I made a conscious decision to ride my thumb along the back of my support thumb instead of "pinching" the frame with it I did not have a single malfunction of any sort. At the end of the day I opened my spare box of WWB and shot a mag through each and did not have an issue when I kept my thumb out of the way.

My guess is that because the MagGuts are weaker springs to allow the extra round they cannot provide the same force to push back against the pressure my thumb has always been adding to the slide release like the stronger stock springs could. That is also probably why I only had it happen once with the Hyve mag since I had more to grip onto I didn't feel the need to ride my thumb right up against the frame as firmly. In the end once I realized what I was doing the magazines functioned flawlessly. I believe part of the problem is that I've been shooting Glocks too much recently where I can get away with the thumb issue and it's just going to come down to the fact I need to train more with the Shield to get it corrected.

Obviously testing will continue as I go to the range more and more and I will be working to correct the thumb issue, but I am extremely satisfied that I can carry 20 rounds for my Shield in a very compact package. At the end of the day the biggest issue I had was a failure to lock back on empty which I don't believe is a fault of the springs or extension themselves. Should I encounter any issues in the future I will update this thread.

jweg84 wrote:

rotor wrote:I wonder why one of the magazine manufacturers doesn't come out with a bigger mag for the Shield, Glock 43 and whatever. I will be interested in hearing your results though.

I've wondered this myself. I personally don't like the appearance of the Hyve extensions. I would rather go for a more "factory" look. But since there are no other options out there, I very well may go with these Hyve base plates.

While it isn't a fully factory look Hyve does offer these in numerous anodizing options some of which would be more subtle--namely black and grey. I just happened to go with red because the next thing up on the list is the Apex action enhancement kit with the flat red trigger.

If you want a really factory look from the Shield then MagGuts makes a +2 kit that is their spring and a new baseplate. That kit also works on either 7 or 8 round magazines, but it does add 1/4" to the bottom of each. It would give you the same total rounds as my Hyve setup, but the short magazine would be a bit longer and the big magazine a bit shorter. Once I test these I'm going to carry like this for a bit, but I may end up doing the MagGuts baseplate to my short mag as well.

Some pictures of the MagGuts + 2 kit:

Well looks like USPS decided to be extra efficient--everything I had set for delivery Monday all showed up today. Looks like I'll actually be able to hit the range on Monday instead and I'm looking to run 200-300 rounds of a mixture of FMJ and Federal HST/Speer Gold Dot JHP through each of the mags. Installation for the most part wasn't terribly hard, though I had a couple issues with each. For the z-spring MagGuts you want the end of the spring pointed to the back of the magazine...before you can put any tension it's already positioned so that it points more up than back which made the follower want to pop out vertically with the back pointed up. The easiest way I found to get it together was to hold it with the follower against my chest to keep pressure across the front while I stuffed the spring inside the magazine body and slide the base plate on. Once on you can see one full bend of the spring along the bottom of the follower--I had to use a small allen to fully seat the spring in the big mag once it was all together.

When looking at the Hyve I felt like I had everything lined up properly and I fought it for a little, but eventually I tilted it very slightly so that it looked like it was angled too much downward toward the rails, but it slid on easily. Both were compounded by the fact you could not use the easy method of compressing the spring some and sticking a small allen wrench through one of the round witness holes (I tried it once and the spring slid past and shot across the room).

The first time I loaded the magazines they were somewhat stiff though MagGuts states it takes a couple loads and unloads to fully seat the spring--once this is done they load up just fine and I can fit the full 8 rounds in my small mag and 11 rounds in the extended large mag. They both will activate the slide lock when empty, so I have hopes they will do the same at the range and function flawlessly. I'll update again with a range report Monday, but for now I am hopeful they will live up to expectations.

Ordered a couple things for testing yesterday--looking to put a MagGuts spring kit in my 7rd Shield mag to carry the gun 8+1 in compact form and then use a Hyve +2 extension with the MagGuts spring kit in my 8rd magazine for a total of 11rds in a backup magazine. Obviously reliable feeding will be the primary concern...whether the 11 rd variant can lock the slide to the rear will be of minor concern since it would be the least of my worries in the event I needed 20 rounds. My parts should be here by Monday and I'll be at the range sometime next week to give both mags a thorough workout.

I found a couple posts on Reddit saying the combo worked, but also one video saying it didn't (a couple comments of the video saying again it did). What's interesting though is all of these posts and the video were in regards to the original first generation MagGuts system that used the two separate springs systems. The newer 2.0 that I ordered uses a single "zee-spring" system--must be a new change because the YouTube video I found was from only a month ago. Will be updating the thread with results, but looking for any firsthand experience in the mean time.