Designed to allow quick visual and/or tactile differentiation of up to three different ammo loads, even in the dark, Magpul’s new Tactile Lock-Plates (sold as Type 1 and as Type 2) are an easy and inexpensive solution. Featuring one or two bumps — 1/8″ raised nubs — whereas the standard Lock-Plate is smooth, the user can touch the base of a magazine and literally feel what’s up.
Type 1 has a single hump.
And Type 2 has two humps.
Both are sold in 5-packs at an MSRP of $9.95.
Both types are available in black and in gray.
Whether it’s quickly identifying between 300 Blackout supersonic and subsonic, or 5.56 vs. 300 BLK, or M195 vs M855 vs tracer, the Magpul Tactical Lock-Plates provide three loadout-identifying options in black and three in gray.
Okay. Something I doubt I’d ever have a need for, but okay. I have to wonder, though, how well (if at all) they would work with the magazine pull tabs that made Magpul’s name, literally as well as figuratively.
DUMB! Use the same ammo and you won’t have to identify anything.
sometimes you operate with sub-sonic ammo, sometimes no-tracers, sometimes IR-tracers, sometimes AP rounds.
I would think that, as long as you are carrying enough ammo for it to matter, that you’d be using some sort of taco / chest-rig and you could better ident what’s in what pocket, but when SHTF all bets are off and it’ll still be important to know what you’re ‘slingin’. If enough of us buy them, then MagPul will stay in business if the Feds don’t implement any contract for what MagPul was hoping to ‘solve’ for them. Hate MagPul for Colorado, not because they are attempting to innovate to help our warfighters.
I’m like what?
If you have a dire need for which these are even a remotely plausible solution, then you have a problem that demands a superior solution that these provide.
These strike me as something like a skydiver carrying a pogo stick in case his parachute fails to open. That’s a big problem, in need of more than a pogo stick to deal with it.
I agree with the above. If life and death in the dark of night is the game, then you need to consolidate to one caliber, or use entirely different platforms with entirely different magazines (like an AK-47 or Glock mag PCC) as a complement to your AR. For the casual shooter, I prefer simple colored labels or tape to differentiate magazines for whatever reasons.
That said, God bless the boys and girls in R&D at Magpul. In any field, it is very, very difficult to come up with new and market winning products. I’ve done some NPD in my day, in industrial equipment, and it’s tough. The vast majority of new product development leads to dead ends, but you never know where it might lead or what else valuable you might learn along the way. Keep it up, Magpul.
If you watch the promo video, apparently they were asked to create the product for “Professional customers who work nights” where they can’t see colors.
3nd Shift non-racists. Nice.
That would be an exceptionally professional customer operating on exceptionally dark nights, in places far from anywhere and lit only by the heavens. In that case, you aren’t going to be carrying two different rifles, anyway.
Sounds more like another marginally useful toy for mall ninjas, being marketed as something the pros use.
The same customers that asked for 300BLK specific mags for better reliability with all ogive types asked for a tactile method to determine subs from supers that would be lower profile than ranger plates or Magpuls. This is what we came up with, and the customer is exceptionally happy with it. If it doesn’t suit your particular needs, that’s fine. If you’re not running 300BLK using subs doing CQB on NODs until things go loud and then switching to supers, then you may not have the same application for these that the customer did. Or you may find another use for them, such as differentiating between 77gr SMK and ball for 3-gun when the loaded mags are stuffed in the range bag without pulling them out and looking at each, or identifying frang for shoothouse loadouts, or whatever you had in mind. Or maybe you never have a use for them. That’s fine, too. We had a request from a customer that supported the contract with them, and we figured some other folks might have a need for them, too. If you don’t, cool. We make a lot of other things. 🙂
I placed such markers on some of my magazines.
You can’t always see color because of lighting conditions, and the same caliber can have very different ballistics.
My SS109 rounds are smooth bottom, my 77 grain rounds have a bump on the bottom. While this doesn’t matter much mag placement on a vest, if mags are in a pouch, and you need a specific load, it makes it much easier to find.
to help distinguish between .223 vs .300 blackout? works for me
Yeah that’s why I’d run it. Nicer than slapping tape on the side of magazines or putting a caliber-marked ‘livestrong’ bracelet on them (which I do currently have on a few mags reserved for 300 Blackout). I could see leaving the flush, standard lock plates on 5.56 mags and then using one of the tabbed ones for 300 BLK mags. Possibly even going one step further and doing single tab for subsonic and two-tab for supersonic, but now we’re getting a bit fancy haha. …at any rate, I don’t have a need for the “Operator” aspect of tactile identification in the dark, but I do like differentiating between 5.56 and 300 BLK mags to avoid a kaboom, and this serves the purpose in a cleaner manner than tape or rubber bands.
I did the live string bracelet method. It’s not so much for me, but if I have someone else there with me. I like to live dangerously and bring 5.56 and 300blk guns to the range at the same time. I also have a 6.5 Grendel. The dots probably wouldn’t help for a leisurely range day with a bunch of newbies, like the live string bracelets would.
Yeah, I don’t operate operationally enough to need these.
So much for mags standing on the counter ready for slamming empty mag wells down on top of them! The Woody reload’s days are numbered if these take off.