Magpul’s self-leveling follower patent approved
On the 24th of this month the USPTO approved Magpul's patent application for the Magpul self-leveling AR-15 magazine follower. Patent number 7621063 lists the inventors as Richard M. Fitzpatrick, Michael T. Mayberry and Eric S. Nakayama.
Diagram of the follower from the patent.
The patent can be viewed after the jump.
What’s it do exactly?
Sweet I wonder if there unique Orenge color will also be pantented?
umm…. call me stupid, but what’s a self-leveling magazine follower? And here i was thinking i knew alot about firearms… Dx
AirmanOkami, improves on the standard mil-spec follower. It prevents the follower (think that presses up on the cartridges) from tilting when feeding rounds. Tilting can cause feeding problems.
Magpul’s self-leveling are anti-tilt follower. It greatly improve the reliability of GI magazine or any magazine that doesn’t have constant radius geometry.
All Pmag/Emag comes with them. You can get GI magazine that come installed with them.
Magpul deserve this patent.
Constant Radius Geometry?
For those that like to see a picture of the tilt.
This is a Lancer L5 magazine. It doesn’t have an anti-tilt follower.
http://www.rpginn.com/xgalleryx/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=37336&g2_serialNumber=1&g2_GALLERYSID=3ce2ec3e496ae66cae5fa736b532a447
GI magazine with Magpul Anti-Tilt follower. It only tilt a little if you press down compare to a normal follower.
http://www.rpginn.com/xgalleryx/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=37338&g2_serialNumber=1&g2_GALLERYSID=3ce2ec3e496ae66cae5fa736b532a447
jdun1911, thanks for the links
Pmag or Lancer Mag have constant radius geometry. GI mag does not. Basically a constant curve.
http://www.aimsurplus.com/acatalog/AR_Magpul_Polymer_30rd_.223_AR15_M16_PMAG_Maglevel_Magazine.html
if you have a normal green follower USGI, you can easily demonstrate a tilted follower by pushing your finger on the front of the follower. You will feel the follower sink downwards while the rear doesnt move. If the follower catches on something during feed and gets tilted, will affect mag reliability. Once you have one of these anti tilt followers, it wont tilt anymore.
Congratulations to Magpul, they deserve it
http://www.abload.de/img/m4mags3the.jpg
The GI Mag has a sharp bend while the Pmag geometry is more fluent. As already said.
A patent from 1999 about a magazine wich has similiar extension on the follower. The assignee is the Rep. of Korea.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=k2cZAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&source=gbs_overview_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Please note that this is an exceedingly narrow patent.
It only provides essentially picture claim protection of the embodiment shown in Figure 12.
To infringe, a competitor’s follower must include:
A ramp located on the top of the floor and adjacent the spacer, said ramp originating from a hind side of the follower with an angle of incidence, .theta., and a termination located between 1/2 and 3/4 of the length of the follower towards a fore side of the follower
(ramp 72).
Thus a competitor may freely make the follower illustrated in Figure 11 (no ramp) for example.
I still don’t get how the new follower “stops” the tilt. the patent says it has longer tangs and grooves that fit the mag, but the images i found on google appear to be the same.
can someone add some information? Thanks.
Mark, good find. I wonder what the difference is.
Magpul did a great job on this one, as they do with everything they “invent”. They’ve proven to me many times that they can reinvent the wheel.