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KCI Gen 2 MP5 mag showdown - Part 2

12K views 9 replies 6 participants last post by  Hacker 
#1 · (Edited)
KCI reached out to me, after I did the first round of testing with the KCI Gen 2s and ETS mags, to do another test run. They provided me with 3 brand new KCI Gen 2 mags and 150 rounds of Prime 124gr ammo. These are a new iteration of the Gen 2, with some new improvements. They've tweeked the feed lips a bit, added an extra coil to the spring, and changed their welding procedure. They've also branded them with their logo, so it's very clear who produced the mags. My understanding is that they are looking to start producing 10 and 20 round mags in the future and potentially an MP5 drum as well.

So, with that being said, let's see the mags:

Packaging (I'm not sure if this is going to be the final packaging or if they are still tweaking):





Mags out of the packaging:










Now for the testing. I tested the 3 new KCI Gen 2 mags against an HK made 30 rounder curved mag and an HK made 30 rounder straight mag. After my self-inflicted struggle the first round, I smartly numbered the KCI mags, so I could keep them straight for consistency in the testing results. I settled on a cadence of 5 rounds in semi-auto and then emptying the mag in full auto first with some bursts and then dumping the rest. Due to the amount of ammo I had on hand, most of the mags were loaded only to 25, so I could have enough to run through all the mags (I had a lot of MaxxTech, so for those tests, I loaded to 30 and on the 2nd run through of Prime I loaded to 30).

The ammo I used for testing was:

  • Prime Ammunition 124gr 9mm brass cased
  • PMC Bronze 115gr 9mm brass cased
  • MaxxTech 115gr 9mm steel cased (appears to be nickel washed)

The test gun is my Omega OM9 MP5 with a MAD MAX bolt head, running my Fleming sear. I cleaned the gun thoroughly (barrel, action, and bolt and carrier) before the session. I oiled the action with Rem oil.

Round 1: Prime 124

  • KCI 1 - 5 semi good, 20 full good
  • KCI 2 - 5 semi good, 20 full good+25+
  • KCI 3 - 5 semi good, 20 full good
  • HK curved - 5 semi good, 20 full good
  • HK straight - 5 semi good,19 full good, 1 light primer strike (round fired 2nd time through)


Round 2: PMC Bronze 115

  • KCI 1 - 5 semi good, 20 full good
  • KCI 2 - 5 semi good, 20 full good
  • KCI 3 - 5 semi good, 20 full good
  • HK curved - 5 semi good, 20 full good
  • HK straight - 5 semi good, 18 full good (with 1 FTE and 1 light primer strike during the full auto)


*** Interlude**** Range Officers came out and asked politely if they could shoot the gun, so 1 additional mag of Tula 115gr steel cased and 2 mags of unknown brass cased 115gr were fired through a separate HK straight mag not involved in the tests (I only bring this up, so that round count through the gun since cleaning can be documented).


Round 3: MaxxTech Steel 115

  • KCI 1 - 5 semi good, 25 full good
  • KCI 2 - 5 semi good, 25 full good
  • KCI 3 - 5 semi good, 24 full good (with 1 FTE)
  • HK curved - 5 semi good, 25 full good
  • HK straight - 5 semi good, 24 full good (with 1 FTE)

At this point in the testing, I continued only with the KCI mags, to conserve ammo.

Round 4: Prime 124 round 2

  • KCI 1 - 5 semi good, 24 full good (with 1 bad primer, which I can't really blame on the mag, since there was a solid dent in the primer)
  • KCI 2 - 5 semi good, 25 full good
  • KCI 3 - 5 semi good, 25 full good


Round 5: Mixed aka The Gauntlet

This test was a bit ridiculous. I had 10 rounds of Prime 124gr left, 25 rounds of PMC Bronze 115gr, and a bunch of MaxxTech left. So, just for fun, I decided to mix the rounds in the mags, apportioning 3 rounds of Prime 124gr, 8 rounds of PMC bronze, and 18 rounds of MaxxTech 115gr steel. For each mag, I mixed up the rounds and put them in random order, trying to prevent my OCD from kicking in an making a pattern. I will say this test wasn't really fair, as it is almost as much a test of the gun as it is of the mag, but I figured what the hell.

  • KCI 1 - 5 semi good, 24 full good (with 1 FTE in full, with a brass cased round getting stuck above the bolt head and preventing the next round, a steel cased, from feeding)
  • KCI 2 - 5 semi good, 24 full good (with last round FTF, a MaxxTech round, which was possibly a bullet seating issue as I noticed, and discarded a few rounds with bullets that were too deeply seated from that batch of MaxxTech)
  • KCI 3 - 5 semi good, 25 full good


Final Comments:

So, I was extremely impressed with the performance of the KCI Gen 2 mags from this batch. They performed almost as well as my HK made curved 30 rounder (and better than the HK mag straight mag). There was 1 failure in each of the mags (ignoring the bad primer round, which again, can't be held against the mag) in 140 rounds through them, with 670 rounds total fired through the gun in the session. And frankly, 2 of those failures were in a pretty unfair scenario with a mixture of rounds in them.

If these mags are good examples of the ones that KCI is producing currently, I'd say their quality is very high for the value, especially seeing as how they are selling for $35 a mag and HK made curved mags are $60+. If the choice is between an ETS (which I have had nothing but trouble with, even after having them replaced), POF, and these KCI Gen 2 mags for the same price, the KCI mags have my vote.
 
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#10 ·
Just a follow-up to my post. I contacted KCI USA about a couple of the old green box ATI-imported mags from the 2010 timeframe that were problematic (one that wouldn't seat properly, another one that had trouble feeding JHPs).

They told me I could return and swap them out for replacements, and that since I was currently in Vegas I could take them there in person rather than shipping them.

The KCI USA folks were very welcoming, and as I'm sure you've read before, under "new management" that is really trying aggressively to rehabilitate their image and improve their products. They swapped my old ATI mags for two of the new KCI USA Gen 2s (the ones being tested by OP in this thread), and threw in a couple patches with the deal.

An interesting discussion with the VP of the KCI USA operation about where their magazines are being used, and companies they are making "OEM" magazines for. I was surprised to hear they are supplying large numbers of mags to the local Vegas "machine gun tourism" places like Battlefield Las Vegas and Range 702, and that the feedback and lessons learned from those mags' hard use is going back into tweaking the design specs. He didn't have a hardball number, but apparently the mags were going something on the order of 25,000 rounds each before malfunctioning (or, before the guns were having a mag-related malfunction on that specific mag), and that it was policy at several of those places to discard mags as soon as they had a single malfunction.

They encouraged me to give feedback to them after using the two new mags as hard as I could, so they'll be my new go-to's for a little while.

Outstanding customer service IMHO. If you have any KCI mags (for any platform) that are sitting around unused because they don't work for you for whatever reason, definitely contact them for replacements. They are eager to make up for the ills of the past.
 
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