Everyone runs into a situation once in a while that just can't be solved with a real capacity magazine, or a mid cap, or even a hi-cap. Once in a great while you just need a drum or box magazine to get things done. Well in search of a great deal on a rarely used component (for me that is, your mileage may vary) I came across something I just HAD to try. 5000 rounds at my disposal sounded too good to be true for the low price it was selling for so I had to try one out.

First Impressions

After giggling for a few minutes when I opened the box I finally picked it up and it was light… very light in fact. It felt like it was missing some parts. Nothing rattled or made any undue noise and it appeared that all the parts were there but it just felt off. I have felt TM hi-caps with more meat than this box. Does it affect performance? Not at all, in fact it makes it much better when you fill it with 5000 rounds. The surface of the magazine is a dull olive drab color with smooth lines and a solid feel (albeit light). I took the time to slap it  in my G&P bodied M4 and it looked right at home. It snapped in perfectly and had very little play. Granted the realism of this type of box magazine is minimal as there is no real equivalent to compare it to. Normally this style of box is used with something similar to the Shrike or Ares platform that uses a system akin to the M249 where a belt of ammunition feeds into the gun from the side, not as this magazine does with a standard vertical feed mechanism. It still just has a nice appearance and 'cool factor' of housing 5000 rounds.

Operation

This is a very simple design. The only moving part is a door that allows you to transfer bb's from the lower compartment into the upper compartment when 'reloading' the magazine. According to the documentation it holds 2000 rounds in the upper section and 3000 in the lower. Since I am surprisingly low on bb's I was unable to verify this claim but I was able to put EVERY bb I had in my large canister into it easily and at last estimate it was around 3500 rounds. Filling is done through a large door on the back of the box. It opens large enough to quickly fill the upper magazine portion with rounds. Once the top portion is about half full I recommend that you close the outer door and start transferring the rounds to the lower storage portion in order to fill it easier. Transferring bb's is done by rolling the magazine towards the right side and turning the knob on the back of the box to 'Open' then shaking and slowly righting the magazine to vertical again. To fill the feeding (top) section of the magazine just reverse the motion. To wind it you simple turn the wheel on the bottom of the magazine just like a standard hi-cap.

Things to Note

This cannot be installed on rifles that use M203 launchers in the standard setup. The box extends forward of the magazine well and is in the way of the magwell. I am sure this could be remedied with a bit of demel work but may compromise the magazines strength. Another note is that it says if you load it full with heavier than .25g rounds that the magazine may be too heavy to stay in the magwell. Take note of this if you use .28g rounds and load a bit less rounds.

Testing

Testing was a very simple run of approx 500 rounds through the magazine. The rounds were .25 Stealth bb's, a very smooth bb that is prone to double feeds if the magazine spring has too much pressure placed on them. In this case the magazine fed perfectly through all rounds. No double feeds, no missed rounds during firing as long as the spring was still wound. It fired around 100 bb's per winding for the first 200 rounds and then was followed by much longer strings of rounds, most likely as the assembly started to break in.

Overall

As a price for the buck this magazine is a bargain. After pulling it apart it was apparent that there was plenty of room to add a servo motor for upgrading it to a motorized magazine later on and I can't wait to do that mod down the road. In all I rate this magazine extremely high on the dollars to fun scale. Pick one up today!

'Engrish' Lesson

These are some of the funny items found on the box:

• "Who have enough bullets who will win the game"
• "Little parts will cause hurt, please pay more attention, Our company will not bear any duty for it"
• "Reload more 1000pcs bullets, full the spare loader same as step 3, then turn the fast-loading knob to the." - seriously the sentence just stops there.
• "Install the box magazine on the gun till you hear the sound (It will fall off if not install correctly)"
• "Load too much bullets or some damage with the bullet supplying assembly will impact fire"