U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- Founded in 2014, TorkMag has been manufacturing AR and pistol magazines with a unique twist. Instead of relying solely on the traditional coil spring employed by nearly every other manufacturer, TorkMag products spring to the next level of complexity. How does this new design fare? Let’s see.
Besides just running a coil spring, TorkMag’s mags also include a “constant force” (clock type spring) spring. Imagine a tape-measure type spring, tucked away in the follower and anchored to the front feed lip. Here’s a helpful diagram, courtesy of TorkMag.
There are a number of benefits touted, but one of the main ones as I see it is to even out the spring tension between a full mag and a nearly empty mag. One reason 30-round mags are the standard capacity is that the disparity between full and nearly empty mags gets to be too much when the mag gets longer. Either spring tension is too high when the mag is full, (difficult to load, pushes rounds past the feed lips) or the tension is too light when the mag is running low (can’t keep up with rapid fire, fails to feed the next round in time). I’m very interested to see how the TorkMag magazines handle this in their 35, 40 and 50 round capacities.
Speaking of, those are the magazine capacities offered for the AR-15 platform, 35- and 50- round mags. Using the “TorkMagic”, the internal (vertical) space taken up by the follower is lessened, making for a higher capacity within the same mag length. This gives the 35-round mag the same external profile as a 30-round standard capacity mag. The 50-round mag is just an inch longer than a traditional 40-rounder. I’m always for shedding bulk, when quality isn’t compromised.
Another small feature I noticed is the angled feed lips. The top round is held in a slightly nose up position, giving the projectile a far less dramatic change in direction when it hits the feed ramps. This should (in theory) reduce the number of failures-to-feed. At best, it helps. At worst, things remain the same. It certainly passes the common sense test, as well as the eyeball test when racking rounds in. I am wondering what the longevity of these somewhat thin polymer feed lips is going to be, a question that will take some time to answer. If there’s a problem, you can be I’ll be back with an update.
Range time. I ran each Torkmag through two guns, a Lead Star Arms AR in .223 and a Noveske Ghetto Blaster (SBR) in .300 Blackout. The very first time I used each mag, they failed to lock back on the last round. Figuring they might just need a little break-in, I loaded two rounds into each mag about a dozen times, and each locked back as it should (in both guns). The problem never replicated again, even when the suppressed SBR started to get really gunked up near the end of a lengthy range trip.
I don’t have any full-auto AR’s handy, so I wasn’t able to give a true test on whether the spring could keep up with max rate-of-fire, but I did what I could in this mag dump.
Bottom line: I dig the Torkmags 35, 40 and 50 rounders. Sure, the 50-rounder doesn’t work with my rifle rest, but that’s a small price to pay for such capacity. Even just switching some of my 30’s out for Torkmag 35’s is a nice little bump in capability, giving me less trips back and forth to reload during the range day. Despite the one hiccup each mag had on it’s first (ever) loading, each ran perfectly after that. I’m going to keep running these during upcoming rifle and ammo reviews, if I have any updates I’ll be back to share. Until then, check out the Torkmag website if you’re interested in checking these out. The 35 rounder runs $14.95, the 40 rounder runs $16.95, and the 50 rounder runs $29.95. Check em out!
About Rex Nanorum
Rex Nanorum is an Alaskan Expatriate living in Oregon with his wife and kids. Growing up on commercial fishing vessels, he found his next adventure with the 2nd Bn, 75th Ranger Regt. After 5 tours to Afghanistan and Iraq, he adventured about the west coast becoming a commercial fisheries and salvage SCUBA diver, rated helicopter pilot instructor (CFII) and personal trainer, before becoming a gear reviewer and writer.”
I wasn’t very familiar with these but I may try them out. I like they were tested and work well with big bore calibers. I’ve been itching for a magazine that will two digits worth of .50 Beowulf.
Mr Gunsngear on U TUBE uses it a lot in his demos, it’s super accurate in almost every firestick/pistol he runs it through, even better than(or as good as) FED GM Match.
Too rich for my blood though.
They are fairly priced for the capacity. Hope they hold up!