02 03 Airsoft Tech Talk: HSA Universal Enhanced Magazine Followers 04 05 15 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 31 32 33

HSA Universal Enhanced Magazine Followers

With the airsoft season starting to draw down here, I can finally get to some of the items I've been testing for the past year. One of these items that I have been using extensively are the Universal Enhanced Magazine Followers by Hunter Seeker Armory (henceforth abbreviated as "UEMF" to save my fingers the lengthy title.)

The UEMF's are basically 3D printed polycarbonate "enhanced" magazine followers with a dramatically different design approach versus your typical AEG magazine follower. If you've ever messed around with real steel magazine followers, you will see the obvious design inspirations for the UEMF version. The core design feature being the area where the the BB's rest against the follower. Instead of having a round arch design like a traditional airsoft follower which tends to function as a wedge driving the BB's apart - the UEMF has two cups designed to keep the BB's from spreading apart. Subsequently this is supposed to lend itself to better feeding.

What you get...

From left to right: UEMF, Real Sword AK follower, PTS M4 follower.

The UEMF's are the current Gen. 2 design and only come in packs of 10 for $23 + $6 shipping to CONUS. They're designed expressly for double stack magazines with a wide internal turning radius such as the M4 or AK variety. Hunter Seeker Armory reports that they have been confirmed to work in MAG, King Arms, Real Sword, G&P, PTS, Green Label, CYMA, TM, Core, Elite Force brand magazines. They are not recommended for MP5 magazines or those that have very tight internal turns. This is due mainly to the very long design of the follower itself. As you can see from the photographs, it is significantly longer than traditional M4 or AK followers. The end is threaded for the spring to thread onto if your design allows for such. My experience was that the springs tended to need a little crimping to get them to attach to the followers properly.

I do not know when the Gen. 3 will be released. I suspect you could find out if you entered the gated confines of AirsoftMechanics.com, but I'd rather not on most days unless I'm willing to take a couple of aspirin with a shot of something 100 proof to get me through the experience.

Because of the longish design of the UEMF, you will lose a little on capacity. This is reported to be around 5 - 6 rounds or so, but I would say it's actually about 10 - 15 in most cases. Unlike some standard AEG

While they look inflexible, they do actually bend.

followers, the UEMF does not have small grooves cut into the sides of the follower that are designed to ride onto the internally molded rails for alignment purposes - so it doesn't actually push fully to the top of the magazine - rather, it sits down there about a half inch. So figure on losing about 5 rounds or thereabouts for the length of the follower, and another 5 or so for the empty space that the follower can't fill. Then another 5 for the inevitable loss suffered through the feed tube when you change magazines. I'm currently experimenting with a Dremel to see if I can cut some grooves into the sides of the followers to get it to seat higher. If your magazines don't use these alignment grooves, you won't have to worry about this. Overall, it's not a real big deal considering 1 mid-cap represents almost an entire standard infantryman's ammo loadout to begin with.

Installation

Real Sword magazine fully disassembled and ready for cleaning.

I ordered up 20 of the UEMF's, with 10 intended for M4 magazines, and the other 10 destined for AK mags. Installing the UEMF is fairly simple for the most part. Since I wanted a clean baseline to test against, I decided to do a complete teardown and cleaning of the magazines I would be installing these into.

On a side note, I'm not a personal advocate of lubing my magazines. I typically prefer to run them dry to eliminate transfer of lube onto the BB's which can contaminate the barrel and potentially degrade accuracy. Provided you take care to maintain and keep your magazines clean, they will run perfectly fine without lube.

For cleaning, I use a little rubbing alcohol and a Q-Tip to clean out the channels. It can be a little surprising what you find inside your magazines after a full season of play. Considering I haven't cleaned my mags since the year prior just before Christmas, I found a little dirt, grime, some pine needles, and even a speedloader o-ring in one. Joyous.

You will need to make sure to remove the plastic flashing and tabs from the UEMF's before trying to install them. They come all attached to one another, similar to a parts tree for a plastic model. A razor blade works well for cutting off the excess and cleaning them up.

After cleaning, I reassembled the magazine halves and attached the spring to follower and inserted it into the feed chute. I did note that upon first install, the followers can be a bit tricky to seat fully. They tended to stop moving when they encountered the first internal radius. A bit of a smack against the workbench will work it free and you can get it fully seated properly. After having them in there for nearly a year, they're a lot easier now to remove and install having been fully "broken in" I suspect.

Performance

So how well do they actually perform? To be perfectly honest, it's hard to answer that question. I haven't actually experienced any problems with my stock followers in my Real Sword AK mags or my PTS M4 mags provided I used quality ammo. They basically ran fine, as should be expected from high quality magazines. So it was hard to actually quantify any perceivable change in performance or gains with the UEMF's. Where I noted increased performance was with a couple of DSG builds that had extremely high ROF. Standard mags seemed to have trouble keeping up with the demands of the gearbox, whereas the UEMF's fed without a hiccup. Now I do have a small pile of salvaged mags accrued throughout the years of various makes and models, many of which were quite failure prone and unreliable. Every one of them I tried the UEMF in seemed to work 100% afterwards, which was quite interesting to note.

Basically, after nearly a full year with quality BB's and a good gun, I've yet to experience a legitimate failure with the UEMF's. They just plain run. They do keep up very well with high ROF guns and this is where I think they might outperform standard AEG followers. That being said... your magazines are only going to be a good as the ammo you feed them. Don't expect the UEMF's to eat through a bag of WalMart special .12g Crossman's or anything issued by MilSim West. Buy. Quality. BB's.

Summary

Ultimately I would say that if your magazines are working just fine now, you do not need the UEMF. Where the UEMF seems to find its niche is in revitalizing crappy magazines or high ROF builds. Otherwise, it's basically a luxury item - similar to skeletonized triggers or the like. Kind of nice to have, but not entirely necessary unless you view it as good insurance (in which case, it is.)

At the price point they are offered at, I find them to be on the expensive side for what you are getting. Especially for a 3D printed piece of plastic. While this may sound partly negative, it's not that negative - just an observation. I'm a picky guy when it comes to my personal gear choices. I demand that things work, and that they must work well and be durable. Unlike some of Hunter Seeker Armories other items that I found to be a mixed bag of mostly rubbish, such as the Barrel Lockdown Kit, the UEMF actually does work. For the time being and into the future, I am pretty pleased with the performance and quality, and I plan to keep running the UEMF's until I discover a failure.
- Arkady

35 36 37 38