Follower with bump on left?

I picked up a couple of used 30 round aluminum mags. One of them has a bump on the left side of the follower, and a different spring than other mags. I was not able to replace the follower with a Magpul gen 3. It has a stamp 6P199, and 08/10. I have not tried to load it yet. Thoughts?

6P199 is Center Industries and the date indicates the new tan military follower. Both spring and follower are different, so if you want to use a Magpul you need to buy normal springs.
It should look like the one on the far left:

Yes, thanks, that's how it looks.

I wonder why they changed, maybe to reduce the number of rounds, and avoid jams when changing mags with one in the chamber?

Edited to add a quote from an article on the new follower: "Bottom line, these Improved Magazines offer a 50% reduction in the risk of a magazine related weapon stoppage over our previous Green follower magazines. "

GUESS, just a case of the engineer not having a fucking clue how some people use bullet location on magazine checks.

I've actually talked to the Picatinny engineer that designed this mag a few years back. When asked why the bump was switch he said it was so soldiers could easily identify the difference between the old and new magazine when fully loaded. "with 30 rounds loaded the top round will be in the opposite side making it easy to differentiate from the green and black follower magazines". I asked him what if the soldiers download to 29 or 28? His reply, "why would they do that?".

That's your tax dollars hard at work folks.

Good info Drake. But why would they care what follower it had anyway if it was already loaded? Just saying...

That is the most insane bunch of bullshit anyone ever said. First most do not care which follower we have so long as it works. Second, the round check thing does not pass the smell test. Most times for range use there is only 3, 9 or maby 20 rds in a mag at a time and the follower on the wrong side makes you doubt how many you have loaded when using pre loaded magazines.
Just a pain in the ass.

Fire that guy!

Well you certainly didn't expect him to say: "to beat your patent," did you?

~Augee

The military had it on the right for 50 years. How could it be a patent issue???? I have heard this before and when I asked for the patents that have to do with what side of the follower the bump went on the thread went dead.

Because the entire follower is identical to a 3rd gen magpul. So they swapped the side the bump was on to keep from having to pay magpul.

Not identical.....The spring won't fit for starters. I'm certainly not an expert on patents (like everyone else here) but I don't think simply switching sides let's you legally copy a design. If I took a set of blueprints for a building and built a mirror image without paying I'm certain that is a copyright violation.

Patents are very tricky.
If you copy a previous, existing design, but can make your new part perform the same function as the existing part, but the new part does that job in a different way, then you can sometimes get away with it.
Plus, if the original patent holder didn't write their patent claim in a really good way, using all the proper language, it's easy to leave a loophole for an infringement possibility.
Patent language is a world all it's own.
Been there....done that.
And the t-shirt is about all I have to show for it.

Just my opinion, but I cant see why anyone, soldier or otherwise, would trust round count to something as fickle as which side the topmost round is currently at. And if you are using it to just check whether a mag is loaded or not.... why wouldnt you be checking both sides?

some USGI mags can take 31, good luck stuffing that into your rifle. Not all ammo comes on stripper clips. Round location can be used as just another visual aid in checking.

I forget the exact number, but my understanding is that in order to "beat" a patent, there needs to be something like a 15% difference.

I'm not a patent lawyer, and I don't know who or how the "% difference" is determined, but changing the spring and the side of the "dummy round" seems like the kind of thing that would essentially retain all the function and important design aspects of the MagPul follower while changing the patent details enough to be considered "different."

Anyways - it was a joke to begin with. It was not meant as a serious commentary on the magazine follower.

I have no other speculation on why the change - however, just as a note, IIRC, the Tango Down ARC magazine, supposedly designed for use with the SCAR also switch the dummy round orientation.

~Augee

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