20 Rnd Smle Magazines

[John Sukey (Deceased)]

Have heard using the 30 rd mags in the SLR can also be a problem as the spring is designed to force the rounds DOWN not UP, though that never stopped anyone from trying it on.(will have to try that someday as I have 4 new ones)

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[Alfred]

Wasn't there a forty round magazine made for the heavy barrel squad auto version of the FN FAL?

Generally squad autos that feed from the bottom work best with some form of snail drum if more than 20 rounds of a main battle cartridge are needed. The lighter assault rifle cartridges work okay with thirty and forty round banna mags.

The BAR twenty round mag was considered sufficient due to the need to avoid overheating its fixed barrel, but the Polish quick change barrel version of the BAR was sometimes fitted with a belt feed mechanism.

Come to think of it, the "Mad Minute" would have been truly devastaing if a squad of riflemen had all been equipped with twenty round mags, especially if they carried spare twenty rounders.
Probably would have resulted in many more heavily eroded bores though.

Also I'd been under the impression that the 20 round mags had been used for the autoloader conversion of the Ross rifles. Or did this auto use a drum of some sort?.

[Mk VII]

Have heard using the 30 rd mags in the SLR can also be a problem as the spring is designed to force the rounds DOWN not UP, though that never stopped anyone from trying it on.(will have to try that someday as I have 4 new ones)

Yes, it was not allowed. And the reverse was true too; the SLR ones were not supposed to be used on the LMG except emergency use on active service only, 'owing to the stoppages and damage to the weapon which will occur'. Though I've seen that done as well, when somebody forgot to bring the right ones on a weekend exercise.