.50 Beowulf Magazine Classification Update

[Foxer]

I'm wondering if it will boil down to what Alexander Arms did originally.

Did Alexander Arms
a) take a .223 mag they had lying around, and bend it open with a pair of pliers, eor
b) think: we've been building and designing magazines for years, they have to have this and this and that and that, here's an autocad that will fit our new round, press that out.

If (a) then it's prohibited,
and if (b) then its originally designed as 50 Beowulf and not designed for dual caliber.

That would be my take on it.

[Booletsnotreactwell]

I hate to say this but I've know this was gonna happen since about a year ago.


I made a post on a certain gun website about a year ago on doing an access to information request as to why the .50 Beowulf E-Lander magazines (attempted to be imported by NRM) were deemed "dual use" and the original Alexander Arms magazines were not, here was my reasoning.


If you've ever seen an actual .50 Beowulf magazine you'll notice it shares the EXACT same CAGE code as 556 NATO STANAG D&H magazines used by the Canadian Forces. Just like all things AR15, AA probably does not actually make their own magazines, nobody is gonna setup the tooling to make aluminum stampings of magazine bodies just to give one out free with every rifle they sell. They probably piggy-backed off D&H and used standard D&H 30 round magazines, fitted them with an old school tilting type 556 NATO follower and MAYBE slightly bent the feed lips out a little bit. Take a set of calipers to a 556 D&H magazine and your overpriced AA .50 Beowulf magazine and look at the measurements.



A few members realized that I was essentially shooting us in the foot if I used that argument and sanitized anything to do with that post. I was actually amazed that nobody had noticed that yet with the product being on the market for almost a year but I also know despite keeping this on the DL that somebody would fill in the blanks at some point. Apparently today was that day.

[Mark-II]

I saw the problem coming when these Canadian "manufactured" metal ones came out that were obviously reworked 5.56 mags - the epoxied up seams? Really? C'mon....

Then our buddies with the plastic mags that obviously were not tested thoroughly with .50cal ammo because they sure didn't feed my big blunt bullets worth a damn.

But now that the conversation is going and the cat is long out of the bag I think our buddy Rod has to do his thing and take control of the narrative.

See this 30 round mag? See the pop rivet? See how easy it is to remove? See how none of us have done that? See how we've paid big bucks to avoid a rivet? Do you think gangbangers are buying plastic .50cal mags because 30 round ones have rivets?
Given your head a shake lately?

Of course my cynicism says that will only lead to 5 round mag bodies and bullet buttons being mandated, because to a Liberal a failed policy is one that has merely not been taken to its full retard conclusion yet...

[Kane63]

What ever happened with the Mossberg 715 magazines? This is the exact same sh*t. Someone at the lab said they were now prohibited but I don't see a change in the bulletin.

[TV-PressPass]

See this 30 round mag? See the pop rivet? See how easy it is to remove? See how none of us have done that? See how we've paid big bucks to avoid a rivet? Do you think gangbangers are buying plastic .50cal mags because 30 round ones have rivets?
Given your head a shake lately?

That's exactly where my head is at.

[Foxer]

That's exactly where my head is at.

Its true but it's definitely not the fight to pick when the libs are in power. They would just 'close the rivet loophole' and demand we do something even more stupid.

[DanN]

Its true but it's definitely not the fight to pick when the libs are in power. They would just 'close the rivet loophole' and demand we do something even more stupid.

We know this fight is coming regardless; is there a way we can use this to gain momentum with the public before the libs start drafting laws?

[Foxer]

We know this fight is coming regardless; is there a way we can use this to gain momentum with the public before the libs start drafting laws?

well sure, there's always a way. It's usually a matter of resources and priorities - if we had endless money we could do it all

I think the main focus when it comes to the public is to try to get the message out that we're already under a huge amount of law and that it's getting unreasonable, and any additional laws are unreasonable and expensive and such. But we need to pick issues that they can understand in just a few sentences, and that it's harder to spin by the libs and anti's. For example - we can explain how much we have to go thru to own and shoot a handgun in under 30 seconds, and people will understand that. It will be fairly clear that adding more restrictions are pointless and that the libs are just fostering a culture of intolerance and division. But mag restrictions are more difficult - it takes time to explain the current laws and how they're limited by a pin and such, and the libs can easily counter with "ok, so we'll make it more than a pin" and " do you want a criminal to be able to shoot 5 people or 100? That's why we limit mags". And it's hard to counter that with people who's attention span is perhaps 10 seconds.

It might be even better to take a more general view and point out that Liberals already wasted 2 billion dollars going after gun owners to no benefit, and now they're at it again and it's all about division and intolerance. Why are they wasting money and resources going after us? That's something people can understand in a few seconds.

One of our most powerful points during the last time the libs were in power and grabbing guns was "You fight crime by going after the hells angels, not ducks unlimited". People got that in a second.

About 20 percent of the population knows something about guns and that gun laws like this are useless. About 20 percent are opposed to guns entirely and nothing we say or do will change that. In the middle there's the 60 percent who don't know and don't care about guns - but they are concerned about crime and getting shot and such so it's not hard to manipulate them into accepting more gun control as a 'good' thing UNLESS you can QUICKLY educate them otherwise. So the real solution is to attack gun control itself as being wasteful of money, unfair because it forces people to give up lawfully owned property that's never been misused, and divisive and intolerant.

The libs will only want to spend so much time on this and if there's no political benefit and it turns people off, they'll put in the minimum amount needed to keep their people happy. Unlike our side (which honks me off) their side will accept 'baby steps' and won't crucify them as long as they do SOME 'good', they don't need them to ban all guns. They're playing a long game. They'll hope he gets re-elected and they can do more later.

So if we poison the well, they won't go back to it very often. We should target 'gun control laws' in general as being bad and unnecessary, rather than too many specific exmaples. The specifics just take too long to explain and sell. You can definitely put some out there for people interested but the important thing is 'liberals - gun control - bad'.

[DanN]

We should target 'gun control laws' in general as being bad and unnecessary, rather than too many specific examples. The specifics just take too long to explain and sell. You can definitely put some out there for people interested but the important thing is 'liberals - gun control - bad'.

Yes, we need to do that.

But..

Remember the "50 things you'd be supporting if you vote for Harper" list? It was a terrible list because it was so vague about everything, but it was effective. This is the kind of thing that needs to go on a list like that of our own. I think we need to flood social media with as much information as possible to get the word out. It worked for them, maybe it can work for us.

Unlike them though, let's keep our information honest and truthful...

1. Banned .50 Beowulf magazines because they were adapted from another design instead of being designed from scratch.
2. Banned a Mossberg .22 rimfire rifle because it vaguely resembled another rifle they don't like.

[Foxer]

Yes, we need to do that.

But..

Remember the "50 things you'd be supporting if you vote for Harper" list? It was a terrible list because it was so vague about everything, but it was effective. This is the kind of thing that needs to go on a list like that of our own. I think we need to flood social media with as much information as possible to get the word out. It worked for them, maybe it can work for us.

Unlike them though, let's keep our information honest and truthful...

No, no i don't remember that But - i'll bet those '50 things' were all things people had some knowledge of. or at least an opinion about. We MUST remember that as hard as it is for us to believe the general public has NO knowledge about guns, other than that guns are often used in crime and can kill so they're a little concerned. But uncle bob had one for hunting so they can't be ALL bad.

That's largely what we've got to work with. The '50 things' idea can work within our community, there's a lot of people who have some knowlege but are not engaged in the fight and don't really care that much and that can bring them around. So - good idea for a commercial for wild tv, not so good for one to air during days of our lives.

THere's really three fronts we have to work on -

the "engaged" community who cares about this stuff, but who may be misinformed or have bought into the whole 'the cpc is evil' thing the NFA was selling. Those people need to be educated and brought onside for the upcoming fight, and detail is important.


The 'disengaged' community - casual gun owners and/or hunters who know a little but don't really care enough to get into the fight. THey need to be educated and encouraged to get involved in a positive manner.

The 'not our community' average person who knows nothing, and just needs to be educated on the most basic concepts because they won't spend the time to learn more. (they are the majority)

The messages we put out there have to be tailored for the appropriate audience.