Have you ever had a piece of gear you just like? Maybe you were exposed to it early, and that’s why you love it. I’m that way with Lancer mags. The Lancer L5AWM magazines have always been my go-to. I’ve always liked them, and I think it started because I wasn’t an oh-so-smart shooter. PMAGs were the hot stuff in 2009 amongst Marines in my unit.
In my effort to be cheap but also seem cool, I purchased some non-Magpul polymer magazines, and the feed lips broke quite quickly. That made me a proto-fudd about all polymer magazines. These days, I know better, and I know that “Just As Good” is rarely the case. Still, I got into Lancers with their hybrid polymer bodies and metal feed lips, and before I knew it, they were my go-to AR magazine.
While PMAGs are amazing magazines, I’ve loved Lancers’ L5AWM, which naturally fits my contrarian nature. The fact that they were chosen as the NGSW system magazine has cemented my use of them. That doesn’t mean they aren’t without fault. When you love something, you accept its faults and hope it improves. Luckily, Lancer must have heard of their magazines’ faults and created a Gen 2 L5AWM.
The Problems of Old-Gen Mags
Before we dive into the highlights of the Gen 2 series, let’s examine some of the faults of the Gen 1. A lot of folks have reported that Lancer magazines have a bad habit of spewing ammo when dropped. I’ve never found that true in my sample size of a dozen magazines, but I also shoot on soft ground, so the mags aren’t getting roughed up. I tried taking a Gen 1 and dropping it on concrete, and if it landed either on the feed lips or the bottom, it would drop anywhere from three to five rounds when fully loaded.
Another problem I have encountered is how difficult Lancer magazines can be to insert on a closed bolt. I didn’t perceive this as a problem because I was raised on beat-to-hell M16A4s and aluminum magazines that seemed older than me. I was used to slapping them into place. After shooting with PMAGs, I realized that Lancers had an annoying problem. I shouldn’t need to slap a magazine like it owes me money for it to work.
To me, the Lancer mags tended to sit lower in the magwell. This never caused a problem, but those magazines seemed to rely a lot more on the feed ramps than other magazines.
What’s new with Gen 2 mags?
With these problems in mind, what has Lancer done to make the L5AWM worthy of a second generation? If you don’t mind, let me throw some of their marketing terms at you. First, the second-generation mags feature a revised floorplate design that improves the stacking of the rounds in the magazine.
What is the result of this revised floorplate? Simply put, it’s a helluva lot easier to shove the magazine into the gun on a closed bolt. Lancer has caught up with the competition, and you don’t have to slam the magazine home or download it by a couple of rounds for a smooth insertion. According to Lancer, it requires ‘22% less force.” I don’t have a means to measure force outside of the hand test, and guess what? It passes the hand test.
Additionally, the magazine’s retention capability has drastically improved. The Lancer L5AWM Gen 2 was tested against the DOD’s drop test and reportedly performed 122% better than the nearest competitor. After looking at the DOD standard, I took the magazines out and dropped them five feet onto concrete at a few different angles. I lost one round.
I’m a big guy, and I increased the drop range to nearly eight feet by raising my arms as high as possible and dropping them. From this height, the magazine would typically drop one round but did drop two rounds when it landed on its feed lips. The retention is admittedly improved.
Getting Crazy With It
In reviewing the Lancer website, I ran across a few other claims worth testing. Lancer says the magazine feed lips are hardened steel. They won’t wear, bend, crack, or split under heavy, sustained fire, extreme temperature cycling, and storage. I can certainly put these mags under heavy sustained fire and extreme temperature cycling.
I did the cycling first. I used a heat gun to heat the feed lips to about 150 degrees. Lancer says the polymer can take up to 180 degrees. I got the feed lips to 180 degrees and dropped the magazine, feed lips first, into ice water. Then, I repeated the test four times, twice on each side of the feed lips. I hope you appreciate this because spring in Florida means it’s already 90 degrees, and I’m playing with a heat gun.
A visual inspection showed they were good to go, so I loaded them down with ammo and hit the range. I’m testing a PSA Jakl, so it was a good chance to work on some of those fast, close-quarters drills. The abused Lancer, which was the third magazine in the gun, flowed through 30 rounds of 5.56 ammunition without a problem.
Range Time
I have two Lancer L5AWM Gen 2 rifle magazines. One has been abused, and one has to sit safe and comfy in its packaging. I grabbed both for the range and just worked my reload drills. I did the classic Shoot one, reload, shoot one. It’s not the most effective drill, but it allowed me to test the magazines efficiently.
The reloads were simply speed reloads where I let a magazine hit the ground and reloaded. I repeated that until I was tired of holding the front-heavy Jakl up and on target. The rounds hit the ground, mostly sand, but were problem-free. To switch things up, I loaded each magazine with 30 rounds and did the same drill.
This time, each reload started with a closed bolt. The ease of reloading on a closed bolt proved to be handy. It was easy to throw the loaded magazine in the magwell and get back to shooting. You never realize how much you appreciate the little things until you’re racing a shot-timer.
This drill also allowed full magazines to hit the deck, which became partially loaded magazines, and before you knew it, they were empty magazines. No cartridge was lost from either magazine throughout the numerous reload drills, and I had no malfunctions either.
Throw Away Your Gen 1 Mags?
The Gen 2 Lancers L5AWM magazines are an improvement on the Gen 1 designs. Just in case you’re wondering how to tell, the Gen 2 Lancers have a small “2” printed on the magazine. I won’t throw away my Gen 1 magazines by any means.
They still work perfectly fine, but I will purchase six Gen 2 magazines to create a combat load and slowly buy more to keep a good stock of mags. Gen 2s are going to become my go-to magazines. I think Lancer continues to kill it, and I appreciate their let’s fix it attitude.
The post The Lancer L5AWM Gen 2: The Hybrid Gets Better appeared first on The Mag Life.
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