AK Drum Magazine

I've long yearned for a drum magazine for my ever-improving WASR10. Ak47s and drum magazines go together like peanut butter and jelly. The one shown here mounted on my Baby Girl is a new production Romanian made drum based on the Chinese design.

Hit the jump to see why I like the Chinese Design so much..

When I first began thinking of picking one up, they were pretty common and ran around $100 + shipping. Then, the ammo/magazine/gun scare/shortage kicked in and the price jumped up to $150 + shipping. And that was the price if you could find them at all. 

Recently, though, the prices have begun to return to their pre-frantic levels. I once again turned my thoughts to grabbing one while they were affordable and readily available. The Chinese design has several advantages over the other (namely Russian) style drums for the AK47. They are both rugged and reliable - as befitting a magazine intended to feed the tough and reliable AK platform.

However, the Chinese design allows you to open it up and feed rounds in (or unload) rapidly. No more feeding individual rounds one at a time down the chute as the spring presents more and more resistance. Once you have the magazine loaded, you can store it either fully wound up (via the handy key on the back), or store it with the spring under no pressure what so ever.

The magazine weighs a lot when loaded, but I find that more of a comfort than detraction. Especially since I'm not required to carry Baby Girl for long distances over hill and dale :) The magazine does what it does - i.e. send a massive amount of hurt down range without the need for pesky mag changes - and it does it extremely well. The fact that 75 rounds of 7.62x39 weighs a lot isn't the magazine's fault.

I had thought about picking up a Chinese surplus magazine pouch for the drum, and then modifying it to be Molle compatible. However, I've since discovered that the drum magazine fits just fine inside a standard sized SAW pouch - which are readily available, cheap, and already Molle compatible. I love SAW pouches in general, since they are easily added to other Molle gear and can hold a wide variety of gear for camping, hunting, fishing, or tactical/survival needs.

My only regret is that pre-Christmas finances kept me from picking up more than one. AIM had them for $64.95 recently - even less if you bought more than one. My total including shipping for this magazine was $74.74.

Sadly, they are sold out. Maybe I'll luck out and they'll get some more in after the Holidays. I'd sure like to pick up a couple of extras just to set aside for a rainy day.