Quote Originally Posted by browningautorifleicon View Post
Simple answer for that one. Cost. We could produce a magazine from plastic here in Canadaicon that would cost pennies compared to the US issue that we'd need to buy in bulk and pay perhaps a dollar each at source. When the mags proved to be garbage they overhauled the long multi mold instead of admitting fault. It took some years of blundering along before the hung their heads and admitted their design was headed for the gashbin and purchased metal from US suppliers, what they should have done initially.
What amazed me was they were willing to take chances with our lives in action by deliberately giving us a known substandard magazine for combat use... That was their intention...
To be fair to the magazine we did not use it as intended either. It was originally intended to be a disposable magazine, which realistically it wouldn't have served too horribly as. The problem with it being in practice we reloaded them and continued using them. I also remember reading we substituted the initial plastic used for a weaker cheaper one, I am not 100% sure if that was true, but it wouldn't surprise me.