Chip McCormick of CMC Mags has been designing 1911 pistol magazines for decades. His latest development of the 1911 magazine is pretty interesting. What makes these mags different is the design of the feed lips. As you can see in the images, the metal in feed lip area is folded inward making it a stronger construction. The magazines with this folded feed lips are called Railed Power Mags (RPM).

CMC Mags claims that these new feed lips are at least twice as strong as the conventional ones and these magazines will have twice the service life of ordinary ones. The new feed lip design should let avoid or minimize malfunctions associated with bent or warped feed lips. Another advantage is that having a round folded edge instead of a cut edge makes feeding from the magazine smoother.

The RPM mags are made of laser-welded stainless steel tubes and come with CMC Tactical RPM followers. These new McCormick magazines are available either in 8 or 10 round capacity. Both versions are only available for the .45 ACP cartridge. The magazines are listed on the manufacturer’s website at MSRP of $36.95 for the 8 round magazine and $39.95 for the RPM magazine with 10 round capacity.

If you have been involved in a design of any new product, you will probably agree with me that the hardest thing is to come with the simplest solution. These folded feed lips look so simple yet nobody made it before. I won’t be surprised if behind this simple design there are hours and hours of prototyping and testing.