AR-15 Magazine followers

[jarrodm]

Ok guys, i have been shooting AR-15s since i was a little kid. i also shot the M16 extensively in the Marine Corps. i even shot competition matches while in the Marines in the Pacific Division. all of my Ar-15 and most of my M16 mags all had black followers. i have never once had a mis feed or malfunction when using these mags. i cant say the same for the green followers. my question is, why is everyone so obsessed with getting green followers? in my experience, they are no better than the black ones. obviously the Marine Corps feels the same way as they issued is black follower mags. is this another urban legend in the making?

[Legion_Prime]

Magpul 'nuff said.

[Steve in PA]

I've replaced all my mag followers with the Magpul anti-tilt followers.

[jarrodm]

magpul, it just seems like a waste of money to me. like i said, ive been shooting these things in competition and just casually for years now. ive never had one failure on the black followers. im just wondering what the big deal is. i would have to have quite a few failures to warrant replacing the followers. so far my luck is good. im just wondering if anyone out there has ACTUALLY had lots of problems with black followers, or if its all fear and panic driven, with little to no fact behind it. it seems there is much of this in the gun collecting community.

[Legion_Prime]

If that's all you are doing and you have had no problems then feel free to continue using whatever magazine followers you wish. However the Magpul followers are a marked improvement over both the black and green USGI followers. The design is much more stable, preventing the follower from binding in just about any USGI spec undamaged magazine and rides much smoother.

[Suburban]

If that's all you are doing and you have had no problems then feel free to continue using whatever magazine followers you wish. However the Magpul followers are a marked improvement over both the black and green USGI followers. The design is much more stable, preventing the follower from binding in just about any USGI spec undamaged magazine and rides much smoother.

They're a lot easier to get out the bottom of the magazine tube for cleaning too. Add a Ranger pull or L-Plate, and cleaning becomes really quick and painless, and you don't ding your hand slapping the mag in.

[Steve in PA]

I have about 20 of the USGI-style 30rd mags that came with the standard followers. I wasn't having any problems, then one day I started to get feeding issues on one or two magazines. I replaced the followers with Magpul and the problem went away. I then replaced all the followers in the magazines.

If your happy with what you have, continue to use it.

[Gunny1969]

If it ain't broke....don't fix it. Part of being a gun enthusiast is to buy neat stuff you don't really need.

[mythaeus]

Ok guys, i have been shooting AR-15s since i was a little kid. i also shot the M16 extensively in the Marine Corps. i even shot competition matches while in the Marines in the Pacific Division. all of my Ar-15 and most of my M16 mags all had black followers. i have never once had a mis feed or malfunction when using these mags. i cant say the same for the green followers. my question is, why is everyone so obsessed with getting green followers? in my experience, they are no better than the black ones. obviously the Marine Corps feels the same way as they issued is black follower mags. is this another urban legend in the making?

Thanks for the information and for posting that question. I've wondered about that many times myself and feel thus far that it's one of those mythical hypes with the "pimp-my-AR" process. I must admit I don't shoot a heck of a lot of my ARs, but I haven't yet had a single failure to feed in any mag with any color follower, including shooting them in my P556. From your information, since it's trusted by the USMC and battle-tested personally, I'd be inclined to stay with/keep them rather than switch them out without solid stats or personal experience yourself.

Al

[Lycanthrope]

I bought green followers for my Labelle mags that came with black.........they malfed. I put the original followers back in and they have been my goto mags in competition. They have never failed.

I think the green followers probably just need some fitting to run smooth and I was feeling lazy.

LycanbecauseIcouldbethrope