Brownells shipping M16 magazines with anti-tilt follower to military
In March Brownells were awarded a contact for 1.4 million M16 magazines. They have just shipped the first 60,000. Interestingly these have a new propriety anti-tilt follower, instead of the normal green follower.
The new military magazine manufactured by Brownells
Larry, from Brownells, told me that the follower will unfortunately not be available to the civilian market as part of the contact prohibits them from using the design for any other purpose than the military.
It must be some new sooper sekret follower design that no other manufacturer has come up with. I find it hard to believe it could be military specific.
I wonder whose follower design it is. I know Picatinny Arsenal was working on an anti-tilt design way back when.
I will stick with MagPul.
Probably a magpul.
Is it just me, or is preventing an anti-tilt follower from getting into civilian hands just silly?
what does that do exactly?
What is an “anti-tilt follower” ?
So, a government is making silly rules.
How very unusual…
whats anti tilt mean?
When the military makes such a contract restriction, it is generally because someone else owns the design to the part in question. A typical license agreement only allows the licensed part to be reproduced for government use. For instance, the Army has acquired the license rights to reproduce the various Knight’s Armament RAS/MWS parts, but the companies contracted to make these parts for the Army can’t turn around and sell the same items commercially.
An anti-tilt follower is when the follower doesn’t tilt. Well it does tilt a little.
You get the most benefit out of them on GI magazines. It will improve the reliability of the magazine.
Magazines like Lancer L5 that have a constant radius geometry will see little benefit from anti-tilt follower.
Most GI mags that is being sold comes with anti-tilt follower. Magpul was the first one to produce anti-follower, since then other have created their own.
Price jumped. It use to be $1.50 for three. WTF?
http://www.aimsurplus.com/acatalog/AR_Magpul_Gen_III_Enhanced_Self_Leveling_Follower.html
http://www.aimsurplus.com/acatalog/AR_C_Products_AR15_30rd_.223_mag.html
http://www.aimsurplus.com/acatalog/AR_Lancer_L5_.223_AR15_M16_30rd_Polymer_Magazine.html
So I assumed that the standard green follower on GI mag will be phased out in the US military.
BTW there nothing wrong with the green follower. However the anti-tilt follower improve the performance of GI mag greatly.
I expected such answers…
Actually english is not my mother language and i am not used to english terminology about firearms, so a “following thing used to avoid tilting” sounds a bit strange for me.
If someone have a link on english terminology about firearms it would be great.
Tilt Follower, Lancer L5 Magazine.
http://rpginn.com/xgalleryx/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=37336&g2_serialNumber=1
Anti-Tilt Follwer, GI Magazine. Magpul Gen III follower.
http://rpginn.com/xgalleryx/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=37338&g2_serialNumber=1
My Lowers
A2 Lower. Old grip.
http://rpginn.com/xgalleryx/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=37340&g2_serialNumber=1
Standard M4 Lower with CAA Saddle. Standard A2 grip.
http://rpginn.com/xgalleryx/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=37342&g2_serialNumber=1
CAA CBS Lower with magazine holder. Standard A2 grip.
http://rpginn.com/xgalleryx/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=37344&g2_serialNumber=1
Magapul CTR Lower. Ergo grip.
http://rpginn.com/xgalleryx/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=37346&g2_serialNumber=1
ACE Ultra Light Stock Lower. Magpul MIAD
http://rpginn.com/xgalleryx/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=37348&g2_serialNumber=1
Vltor Rifle Stock Lower. Hogue rubber grip
http://rpginn.com/xgalleryx/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=37350&g2_serialNumber=1
Took two stripped lower out of storage. Going to put Vltor Emod and Magpul ACS stock on them. The shiny one is a 0% forged lower. I use it as a paper weight.
http://rpginn.com/xgalleryx/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=37352&g2_serialNumber=1
I used the A2 for over 12 years. Then went to the M4 stock for 4 years. I am currently using the ACE ultra Light since last year.
Just dump the M-16 and all probs will be over. That lil’ black gun has killed more of our own troops than anything previous. Vietnam was not a lesson, so we still have it. Even the A2 sucks. (more)
Get RID of the blasted M-16 rifle!!!
What the heck! Ok leif, I dont know where your coming from on this, but the m-16 is one of the best rifles ever made! And where the heck did you get the idea that it’s killed more of our own troops then “anything previous”??
Daniel Watters is correct. It is part of the contract because someone else created the design for the military. It is not a Magpul follower but is anti-tilt, although the green follower is called anti-tilt, too. Actually our first contract with the green follower also contained the language that prohibited us from using the information in the specification packet to build a commercial product. I assume since there were so many copies being built DOD just kind of winked at everyone that was doing it. There are only two suppliers making the new follower and if it turned up in a civilian mag Uncle Sam would kinda know where it came from. If a mag doesn’t come from Okay Ind, Center Ind (that’s not C-Products) or Brownells it isn’t true, current, GI spec. Center is the first choice primary supplier, if for some reason they can’t deliver enough, Brownells or Okay gets the contract. There are more than 120 critical dimensions on the follower alone and ALL MUST be met.
As far as the reliabilty of the M16, we don’t think Uncle Sam will let us film a live fire test but we’d love to. We just finished testing 750 mags from six production lots in just about 5 hours. Test took place in 15 degree temps with light snow falling. Among the 10 tired, govt issue M16s and M4s we didn’t have ONE gun failure, and no mag failures. The standard is zero mag failure. If one fails, the entire lot has to be scrapped. Those guns take an incredible beating and keep running. Gas tubes glow cherry red after about 3, 30 round mags are run through them, and they we run another 3 or 4 through before changing guns. Even in the cold you can’t lift the gun out of the fixture without wearing gloves. Seven mags gets risky, rounds can cook off in the chamber before you pull the trigger. That’s 2200+ rounds through EACH gun as fast as the crew can rotate them and fire them.
PEO-Soldier’s Flickr page has additional photos of the new magazine and its follower, along with a bunch of other photos of interest.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peosoldier/
Daniel, thanks!
This afternoon, the PEO-Soldier blog added a new post on the improved magazine. They have also uploaded a computer simulation of the improved magazine to Flickr.
http://peosoldier.armylive.dodlive.mil/2009/12/14/armys-improved-magazine-increases-weapons-reliability-“tan-is-the-plan”-for-the-new-magazine/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peosoldier/4184964248/
Daniel, thanks, will blog that
Yes, no specific reason other than contractual obligations for people’s patents and commercial considerations.
I have green, orange, black, etc. followers and they all work fine. Never had a tilting or non-tilting issue with any of them in my light shooting and since I will never be in the sandbox, I don’t get too worked up about having the latest everything in the military arsenal.