ETS Glock Mags; A Quick Review

[FLICK]

I recently purchased two 22 round 9mm Glock mags and one 15 round 40 mag from www.etsgroup.us for my myriad of Grock pistols and carbine.

Initially, I was impressed with the looks and price. I like to run TTI +5 baseplates on my Glock factory mags, which cost around $40 per, and hold 22 rounds of 9mm. The ETS Glock 9mm mags are supposed to hold 22 rounds and cost around $20 per. These were and are range mags for me, as I will keep the Glock factory mags for HD/SD/whatever. The ETS mags can use Glock aftermarket baseplates and extensions and are, generally, reviewed highly on ARF.com and other websites.

I hit most of the pros above, now for the cons. There are quite a few, honestly.

I'll start with the 15 round 40 mag I used in my po-po trade in three pin Gen2 Glock 22….. Loaded or unloaded, this mag will not drop free and must be stripped out of the weapon, rather forcefully. This thing is crazy tight! Unnecessarily so. I don't have another 40 Glock to try it in; it fits fine in my Gen4 G17 and does drop free, but only when empty. P-mags drop free loaded or unloaded in the G22. The ETS mag fed the G22 perfectly with two types of ammo (cheap brass and SD hollow points, both 180gr). Frustrating…


Now the 22 round 9mm Glock style mags….. I really wanted these to work. And they did. 100%. Fed my Gen2 17, Gen4 17, and PSA 9mm Glock carbine with everything I could get in them, dropped free (rather sluggishly, however). The problem is two fold; they only fit 21 rounds. No matter what I did to try to get in the 22nd round… no go. Fine, but I paid for 22 rounds. I'd like to have them. The second issue is the mis-stacking of rounds in the mag. When I load one of the mags, it will mis-stack the rounds and leave a blank space where one round should be, further limiting capacity. This did not effect function of the gun. I can load the mags correctly if I go slow and take out any misplaced round and re-feed it. Not into it. Ill pass….



In my mind, these mags have crazy strong springs. The crazy strong springs force the plastic to bulge when loaded and make them tight in the mag well and limit capacity (in 9mm). I left them loaded for about a week prior to taking them to getting them to the range and loaded/unloaded them three times to 15 and 21 rounds, respectively. I contacted ETS via e-mail, who got back to me within hours, saying they will send out new springs for the 22 round 9mm mags and said to please contact them if the problems continue. Great CS so far, but not having to use it would be killer.

Overall, unless the new springs cure the issues with the 22 rounders, these will be sold with the next panic and I'll continue to overpay for TTI mag extensions and use factory Glock mags. I won't buy any more G22 ETS mags, period.

Anyone else have similar issues? Do yours run *your* gun and load to capacity?

Thanks…..

[JoeyBones]

I have a couple 15 rounders and they work fine in my Gen 2 G19s. Yes, the springs seem unnecessarily strong in mine too, although I can get the full 15 rounds in at the expense of my thumbs getting pretty raw.

I bought mine purely out of curiosity, and because they were on sale direct from ETS right when they first came out.

They're OK, but the next mags I bought after these were $20 OEM mags. I think that sums up my overall thoughts on them. I use them at the range, and have not had any failures though.

[FLICK]

I contacted ETS via email late last week and recieved replacement springs for the 22 round 9mm Glock mags on Monday. The mis-stacking issue has seemed to resolve itself and now I can fit the full 22 rounds in the mag. I'll see how they run.....

[arjohnson]

I recently bought 3 of the 22rnd and 1 31rnd 9mm mags, used them a few times and they worked and drop free with no issues. Most of what I've read about them have been positive. I did see where some did not drop free and ETS quickly resolved the issue.

I bought them for range use and liked the idea of them being clear. I will only use factory mags for carry.