Review: Keepshooting P64 Magazines
Posted: June 8th, 2012, 11:33 pm
To start off, I'm relatively new to the P64, but other than the craptastic DA pull, it's a fantastic pistol with incredible accuracy, and zero problems. It's got a 1976 born-on date, and only came with 1 magazine...searching for spares turned up keepshooting.com
Strong points:
Brand new
Relatively inexpensive (~$21 each, including shipping)
High quality blued-steel case, metal follower, and spring
Look almost identical to the factory originals, including the plastic base
Weak points:
Lips at the top of the magazine were curled in a little tighter than the factory mag, which resulted in jams when hand-cycling. The lips would hold onto the round too tightly, which kept the round from tilting up into the chamber until too late during the feed cycle. Both magazines had this issue; I had to spread the feed lips slightly with a block of wood to get reliable hand cycling. This also resulted in very slight (not visible to the untrained eye) bulging out of the top of the magazines, as the lips are also slightly longer. This, in turn, causes the magazines to fit a little bit tighter into the pistol frame compared to the factory magazine.
Also, be careful not to over-expand the lips, or the magazine will either not fit, won't lock into place, or will let rounds sit too high, causing a different kind of FTF.
Summary:
Despite initial concerns (i.e. FTF/jams when hand cycling...factory mag cycled by hand with no issues), both magazines cycled perfectly fine when actually firing both FMJ round-nose and JHP SB and other Barnaul factory rounds. Roughly 50 rounds were put through each without any issues.
In conclusion, these are an excellent value, and I would buy again. If you buy these, plan to test them and make minor adjustments to the lips as needed...it's possible these would have cycled without any adjustments, but being able to hand-cycle a pistol is important for a variety of safety and usability reasons.
Other Considerations:
The only alternative I could find was finding used factory originals, for almost double the price. I've also seen slight variations in the exact shape of the original magazines (judging by photos) between earlier production runs and later ones...it's possible these aftermarket ones were based off of an earlier design, or a hybrid. With that said, they may work better (or worse) in a different vintage pistol.
Strong points:
Brand new
Relatively inexpensive (~$21 each, including shipping)
High quality blued-steel case, metal follower, and spring
Look almost identical to the factory originals, including the plastic base
Weak points:
Lips at the top of the magazine were curled in a little tighter than the factory mag, which resulted in jams when hand-cycling. The lips would hold onto the round too tightly, which kept the round from tilting up into the chamber until too late during the feed cycle. Both magazines had this issue; I had to spread the feed lips slightly with a block of wood to get reliable hand cycling. This also resulted in very slight (not visible to the untrained eye) bulging out of the top of the magazines, as the lips are also slightly longer. This, in turn, causes the magazines to fit a little bit tighter into the pistol frame compared to the factory magazine.
Also, be careful not to over-expand the lips, or the magazine will either not fit, won't lock into place, or will let rounds sit too high, causing a different kind of FTF.
Summary:
Despite initial concerns (i.e. FTF/jams when hand cycling...factory mag cycled by hand with no issues), both magazines cycled perfectly fine when actually firing both FMJ round-nose and JHP SB and other Barnaul factory rounds. Roughly 50 rounds were put through each without any issues.
In conclusion, these are an excellent value, and I would buy again. If you buy these, plan to test them and make minor adjustments to the lips as needed...it's possible these would have cycled without any adjustments, but being able to hand-cycle a pistol is important for a variety of safety and usability reasons.
Other Considerations:
The only alternative I could find was finding used factory originals, for almost double the price. I've also seen slight variations in the exact shape of the original magazines (judging by photos) between earlier production runs and later ones...it's possible these aftermarket ones were based off of an earlier design, or a hybrid. With that said, they may work better (or worse) in a different vintage pistol.