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Curious about ASF? Explore straightforward answers about our design, materials, compatibility, performance, and pricing
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11 questions across four topics. Select a question to read its answer.
Design & Materials
The thinking behind ASF
01 Why didn’t anyone think of this magazine design before?
Truth be told, MANY attempts have been made over the years to address the ongoing problem of “spring fatigue” in a fully-loaded magazine. There are almost a dozen patents registered with the US Patent Office trying to address the issue.
These folks have over-engineered their magazines, made them WAY too complicated, WAY too many parts, WAY too expensive to manufacture. Furthermore, none of them ever made a “model”, “prototype” or “mock-up” to ascertain if any of their ideas do, in fact, work. Those are all merely concepts without substance.
“Everything looks good on paper”. BUT, in practical application, it’s an entirely different story. In short, if any of those magazines DID work, they’d be on the market today, wouldn’t they?
02 What kind of material is this mag made of?
It’s made of polyamide 66, which is a thermoplastic nylon polymer with 40% glass-filled nylon and polyester content. Commonly called “Duramide™ PA66”, it’s a very strong, high-quality nylon polymer which is also used by the best polymer magazines available on the market today.
03 What makes this magazine different than other magazines?
This magazine can be called a “one-trick pony”, in that it does ONE thing that other magazines can’t do: It relaxes a fully-loaded magazine spring by 50%, enabling it to be stored without spring fatigue setting in. It’s as if you’ve downloaded the magazine by 15 rounds.
When you need to use it, simply snap it shut and you’ve got full spring power. Then, the mag functions exactly the same as any other conventional AR magazine on the market.
04 Is this mag really an improvement over other magazines?
As good as they are, conventional magazines CAN be improved. The ASF Magazine is not a “gimmick”; it’s a viable solution to the ongoing problem of spring fatigue. “Detachable, box-style magazines” have been around for over a century. In all that time, feeding systems have been continually enhanced to make them very efficient.
Followers have been modified to an “anti-tilt” design to prevent “nosediving”. The only problem that magazines have today is the spring. It’s really the only part of the magazine that can fail, and we’ve been successful in resolving that.
If you keep your mags fully loaded (like military, law enforcement, etc.) the springs will eventually form a “set” and, in layman’s terms, “will lose its springiness”. It’s been said that the magazine is the heart and soul of the firearm. Never “go cheap” on your mags! If you’ve got a $20,000 custom rifle and your cheap magazine fails, all you’ve got in your hands is a very expensive paperweight.
Compatibility
Current platforms and calibers
05 What other calibers is this mag available in?
Currently, the ASF Magazine is offered only in 5.56mm / .223 Remington, for the AR-Style platform. This is the most popular caliber/platform in the USA, which is why we’ve chosen it.
In the future, we’ll offer it in other calibers and other platforms as the shooting community demands.
Performance & Storage
Longevity and mechanical questions
06 How long will this magazine last?
When the magazine spring is relaxed 50%, the conditions which require spring fatigue to occur have NOT been met…not even close! So theoretically, this magazine should last a lifetime under normal use. We wouldn’t be surprised if you pass these mags on to your kids.
07 Can’t I get the same result by just downloading my magazines?
Yes, you can. But consider this: To get the same result as the ASF Mag from downloading your conventional magazine, you’d have to take out 15 rounds (50% spring tension reduction). So, you don’t have a 30-round mag, you’ve only got a 15-round mag.
Realistically, let’s say you download by 5 rounds, you’re only reducing the tension on the spring by 16%. Every little bit helps; but not very much, is it? Furthermore, if you download all your mags by 5 rounds and you’ve got 100 mags in your stockpile, that’s 500 rounds NOT being loaded up in your magazines. Hey, you might just need those 500 rounds!
Also, can you be absolutely certain that relaxing the spring only 16% will prevent spring fatigue from eventually setting in? With the ASF Mag, the spring is relaxed by about half (50%) and you’ve got a full complement of 30 rounds ready to Rock & Roll with full spring power at a moment’s notice.
08 Won’t vibration shake the latches loose while shooting?
The short answer is, “No”. But here’s the long answer: Vibration was always a major concern for us. There’s plenty of it: Cartridges feeding up through the magazine body, the eight steps in the cycle of operation of semi & full-automatic firearms; the greatest being the concussion of the cartridge being fired.
With the lever latch arrangement, we use a tried-and-true mating system called a “French Cleat”. Often used in wood and metal working, two opposing pieces meet at a 45° angle. The result is, the more pressure/stress added to the joint, the tighter it becomes.
Spring tension, both inward (latch springs) and downward (magazine spring) provides ample security against even extreme vibration. Our mechanical engineers told us that only one lever latch is really needed, but we doubled up anyway. We wanted to make sure that there’s no way they’re going to vibrate loose.
09 I’ve heard that spring fatigue is a myth. How often does it actually happen?
Let’s start with the definition: Spring fatigue is that condition which occurs when a magazine spring is fully compressed and remains in that state for extended periods of time. As the name implies, the spring gets tired of remaining fully compressed with all that spring power ready to be released 24/7/365. Metallurgically speaking, it forms a “set”, and doesn’t do its job of pushing the cartridges up through the body of the magazine.
More times than I care to remember during my 20+ years in the Marines, I’ve had my M16 say, “Bang, Bang, Click.” That’s because we kept our magazines fully loaded at all times.
How often does it happen? That’s hard to say because it’s unpredictable. It depends upon the age of the spring, its metallurgic composition, and how long it’s been compressed. I’ve had magazines last for many years; in Iraq I’ve seen mag springs go bad in as little as 8 months of disuse.
When the bad guys are trying to take your life away from you, just one time is too many! If you’ve handled firearms for any length of time, you’ll hear about or experience spring fatigue.
Value & Pricing
Why ASF is priced as it is
10 This magazine is a little pricey…Why?
This magazine has gone through extensive design, engineering, research and development for many years. We’ve even had computer simulations performed before we even considered manufacturing. Numerous prototypes of different materials have been made first, to ensure that “all the bugs are worked out” before we made a single magazine.
We presently hold 2 US Patents and a third “patent pending”. All of these things took lot of time and effort; and a good deal of money has been invested into. We did all this to give people the highest quality product that we could manufacture, and still keep the prices reasonable.
It boils down to the old adage, “You get what you pay for”.
11 Can’t you lower the price of these magazines?
As stated earlier, we put a lot into making the very best mags we possibly can. Oh, we could’ve cut corners and used cheaper parts, but we wanted to make the best quality magazine we could make. So we said, “No…we’re NOT cutting corners!”
We’re using the highest quality polymer to last for years and a custom-manufactured magazine spring specifically designed for this magazine. We want to turn out a primo product. We’re offering it at a lower retail price which allows us to break even, with only a little profit.
It’s more important for us to get the best product out there and into the hands of those who can benefit from it, than for us to make an extra buck.
