Even though most mega-capacity magazines have very limited utility for most gun owners most of the time, I’m not saying they’re all useless. I’m saying that this one is useless . .
The “Smiley Face Magazine” weighs more than six pounds fully loaded, and will turn your svelte Romanian under-folder or AMD-65 into a twelve-pound pig with all the good looks of a WWI Chauchat machine gun and all the quick handling of a canister vacuum cleaner.
In case you’re wondering, here’s what it looks like attached to an AK; I’m not sure how all that weight on the muzzle would affect your POI, or how you would rock the magazine forward to remove it when it’s (finally) empty. They might tell you that in the owner’s manual, if it includes one.
This mag certainly put a smile on my face, that’s the coolest mag I’ve ever seen.
It looks like a bat’leth. I wonder if this disaster in the making was invented by a Klingon.
I can think of one good use for this magazine: giving the Brady folks conniptions.
Seems like a juvenile goal in life. Let’s play our car stereos really loud and annoy the grownups. Maybe we could dye our hair green.
How in the world do you come up with comparisons like Brady Bunch and grownups?
Sarah Brady and Paul Helmke are the antithesis of grownup.
Agreed,
My first thoughts exactly.
The only reason to have these is to po the poed.
HA! That would give your thumbs the ultimate work out! I only play sometimes with the 75 round drum magazine for my RPK-it’s not very practical as it isn’t what I would call reliable. The 30 and 40 rd magazines, steel surplus only, are flawless in my RPK and on three different AK’s I’ve owned. Hell, with this 100 rounder I’d have to put the RPK’s bipod aside! Ted Kennedy would have flipped though.
Nice obscure reference to the Chauchaut from WW1. That was my first thought, too.
Funny thing about the Chauchaut is that it was fairly reliable in some calibers. I think it was the .303 Chauchaut that had the reliability problems, most likely because the .303 is a rimmed round which is why it required the ridiculous half-circle magazine.
BTW, does the bottom of that magazine hook onto the muzzle? That’s just bizarre. Also bizarre because AFAIK the Soviets had perfectly adequate 75 round drum magazines for these guns that were easier to load, carry and shoot than this monstrosity.
It’s got a pretty good ‘WTF’ Factor…ha
Yah, would prefer the 75 Drum or even the 100 C-mag over this. Those at least keep the weight in relatively small area near the center of mass of the gun. The smiley mag I would expect makes the balance go way forward making target aquisition and tracking harder. Not to mention you couldn’t fire from prone with this, and I would bet using it as a support (uni-pod?) is a very bad ideal.
Now if you put spikes along the bottom of it and maybe a tuft of hair near the barrel, it would fit right in a good sci-fi thriller. Well a good B one anyways.
What about when you are half way through the magazine? Shifting the weight of 40-50 rounds of 7.62 will alter the balance of the AK while you are trying to shoot it, requiring constant adjustment of your sights as the weight shifts from the barrel to the center of the firearm again. Seems useless to me.
All it really needs to get to 11 on the pure awesomeness scale is a sharpened edge along the underside. Now that’s a GUN!
And it would be almost as practical as those incredible Glock bayonets for sheer usefulness!
Can a bayonet still be used?
Not w/o duct tape!
They should weld on a sharp edge on the underside of those magazines!
-D
I think it was cheaper than dirt that was selling these a little while back.
From what I heard, they were 100% unreliable if you loaded it to max capacity-my guess is that it was sold as a novelty.
I got it! It doubles as a survival boomerang! It is all becoming so clear to me now…
The Chauchaut was originally in 8mm Lebel which is an even more tapered case than the 303. If I recall correctly the US Soldiers had the French Chamber first and later ones in 30-06 with a straight magazine. Probably the worst light machine gun in history, in 30-06 they basically shook themselves to pieces after a 1000 rounds or so.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/585/smileo.jpg/
🙂
Does it stay in/on well enough to use as a shoulder sling? If so, sorta awesome, if not, pretty useless.
Unless you were manning the top of a castle and wanted to use it as a rocking rest.
I thought that mag was designed for a light machine gun? Plopping the gun down on the bipod?
Other Chauchat problems, or so I read, is that the design was poor and the parts poorly made and prone to breakage.
I’m going to throw that on my AK pistol.
I picture it on fire and a bevy of tutu’ed chihuahuas jumping through it at the circus. Seriously though, I didn’t see it on the CDC’s Zombie apocalypse page, so I don’t need it!
Putting this monster on an AK pistol might turn it into an AOW! And it would definitely turn it into one freaky SOB.
Has anyone considered the heat created by firing that many rounds through the AK. If the barrel doesn’t melt the heat waves from the barrel will make it quite difficult the stay on target. On the other hand, if you’re going to fire that many rounds, you won’t have to aim for a specific target point. I’ll just change out my magazines and give my shooter a chance to cool, or shoot another one while it’s resting.
How are where can I buy this magazine?
Cheaper Than Dirt has them. If you buy one, can you tell us how it works?
PUT A BANNANA ON THE AK THEN I MAKE IT SMILE LADDDAAHHH!!
Dr. William Atwater, former head of the U.S. Army Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen, Maryland once memorably described the Chauchat as “the worst piece of crap ever foisted on the American soldier”. Not only was it poorly made with badly-fitting parts, the magazines were open on the side so that the unfortunate soldiers stuck with that hunk of junk could see how many rounds they had left as they tried to clear that jam-o-matic. The open magazines allowed dirt, crud, gravel, and all other manner of corruption unfriendly to weapons to be introduced into the chamber of the gun, with predictable bad results. Why we didn’t arm our troops with the Lewis gun, an American invention, is beyond my ken.