Mec-Gar Para P18 .38 SUPER 10-round mag restriction removal

[NavyVet1959]

OK, I made a mistake, I'll admit it... I didn't read the fine print on the ad and ended up buying one of the limited capacity (i.e. 10-round) Mec-Gar magazines instead of the non-restricted capacity (should be 17 rounds) ones. I had been waiting months for Midway to have it in stock and stumbled across a listing on eBay where someone was selling them for a decent price. From the title on the ad, it looked like the right one and I didn't see anything about only 10 rounds in the body of the ad and in fact, I didn't even *know* that they made that magazine in only 10 rounds, so I can see how I could have made the mistake. The company's current ad does have the fact that it is a 10-round mag in small print way down in the body of the ad and it would still be easy to miss if you didn't know to look for it. Not having a copy of the original ad, I can't prove that it didn't say that it was a 10-round mag, so I'll just give them the benefit of the doubt and figure I must have just missed it. Anyway, the cost and time to ship the item back to them and the new right size one (if they even have it) just doesn't seem worth it to me.

So, I was curious what it would take to convert this mag from 10 rounds to 17 rounds. It *looks* like there is just a dimple on each side of the mag that prevents the magazine follower from going lower than the 10-round position. The spring goes all the way to the base pad, so I think it is the same length as the original spring.

To *me*, it looks like I could just disassemble the mag and put the magazine body in my drill press and drill out the dimples. Many magazines have holes in the sides or bases of them to allow you to see how many rounds are loaded, so this doesn't seem like too radical of an idea for a modification.

What I bought	What I *should* have bought

Anyone ever tried this?

[woodbutcher]

Hi Navyvet.In the pic it looks like there might be a rivet in the middle of the crimp.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

[NavyVet1959]

Hi Navyvet.In the pic it looks like there might be a rivet in the middle of the crimp.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

As far as I can tell, it's just dimpled deep enough to keep the follower from going any lower, but the spring is still the full length.

I was hoping that someone else might have tried it before.

If it works, then that gives a new source of these mags and they're a couple of bucks cheaper than the mags that do not have the 10-round limit.

[AbitNutz]

Give it up...get an STI 126mm or 140mm mag. They are the best there are for Para's.

[NavyVet1959]

Give it up...get an STI 126mm or 140mm mag. They are the best there are for Para's.

Actually, I'm using it for a RIA .22TCM/9mm mid-size that I've added a .38 SUPER barrel to for a .38 SuperComp conversion. It seems that RIA uses the Mec-Gar mags for this.

[HarryT]

drill through the dimple from each side, file the inside smooth

[NavyVet1959]

drill through the dimple from each side, file the inside smooth

As far as I can tell, it's not possible to drill through from both sides since the dimples do not line up.

But, I decided to give it a go tonight and see what I might end up with.

Here's the two mags as I started out. The 10-round mag is on the left and the 17-round mag is on the right.



Here's the two mags disassembled, sitting side by side. The 10-round one is still on the left. As you can see, the 10-round mag has a long spring in it. I'm not sure if this is something to do with the 10-round limitation or just a modification that Armscor makes to the mags.



Here's the 10-round mag with the holes drilled in it from both sides, but before taking a dremel tool to the inside to smooth out the burrs.



And here is the inside of the mag after the dremel, but before I took some very fine sandpaper to smooth it up a bit.



As you can see, I didn't drill all of the dimple out of the mag. I wanted to remove the absolute minimum necessary, so I started with the smallest drill bit and worked up from there until I got to the point where I thought that one it was deburred, it would not be any higher than the ridges that were already on the inside of the mag.

I cycled a full mag of 9mm though it without any problems, so it looks like the modification worked.

Originally, I thought it was the dimple that was stopping the magazine follower from descending past the 10-round point, but as I looked at it a bit and thought about it, I don't think that is exactly what is happening. If it was that, then you wouldn't be able to remove the spring and follower from the bottom. I think what is actually happening is that as the spring compresses, the coils of the spring gets closer and closer together and it ends up acting as a rectangular tube and hits the dimples and it stops the follower from going any further. It would be interesting to have a mag body that was made out of clear plexiglass in order to see exactly what is happening though.

[NavyVet1959]

I received a response to an email that I sent to Mec-Gar the other day asking about my proposed modification. They said the following:

You wouldn't be able to use the drill press to drill the dimple out. They magazines are heat treated and extremely tough. You would bend the body of the magazine and make it unusable way before the hole would be drilled with the required force, not to mention you will ruin at least a few drill bits in the attempt. If you would like, we can exchange the magazine for you with the larger capacity. We are currently out of them but we would send it to you once it arrives. Please let us know if you would like to do this.

I replied back thanking them for the information and informed them that I had already completed the modification and it worked.

I had noticed the mag being a bit tough to drill through, but I had thought that I might have just grabbed a dull drill bit. I just put some oil on the bit and set the drill press on its lowest speed and took it slow and gentle and it eventually cut through. Maybe an end mill would have been a better solution?