Thread: Flush mag for howa mini

I've spent some time thinking about how to make a blind or hinging internal mag. I reckon the hardest part is making it look presentable, especially if you had to remake the bottom metal and trigger guard. I played round with it at work, and by holding the magazine box/spring/follower out of a Zastava M85 in 223 in the Howa mag well with floorplate removed I could top load and cycle 223 snap caps just fine. Just on the off chance I rang the Zastava importers to see if they kept those parts as spares, but of course not. Would be easy to make though, bending maybe 1mm sheet steel with a press to make the mag box, a couple of spot welds, either 3D print a polymer follower or a couple of passes on a mill with a little block of aluminium to make the staggered steps on the top of it, I imagine you could even use the existing spring out of the detachable mag. For the floorplate I'd stencil the cutout on the bottom of the stock and just cut out a flat sheet of steel or ali the same shape, then glue or spot weld a trigger guard on the bottom and the mag box on top, countersink the holes for the factory action screws and done.
If someone could make them locally they'd sell like hotcakes if they could keep the price down, I'm tempted to make a couple at Polytech but somehow I think it'd be frowned upon

Originally Posted by tommygun

I've spent some time thinking about how to make a blind or hinging internal mag. I reckon the hardest part is making it look presentable, especially if you had to remake the bottom metal and trigger guard. I played round with it at work, and by holding the magazine box/spring/follower out of a Zastava M85 in 223 in the Howa mag well with floorplate removed I could top load and cycle 223 snap caps just fine. Just on the off chance I rang the Zastava importers to see if they kept those parts as spares, but of course not. Would be easy to make though, bending maybe 1mm sheet steel with a press to make the mag box, a couple of spot welds, either 3D print a polymer follower or a couple of passes on a mill with a little block of aluminium to make the staggered steps on the top of it, I imagine you could even use the existing spring out of the detachable mag. For the floorplate I'd stencil the cutout on the bottom of the stock and just cut out a flat sheet of steel or ali the same shape, then glue or spot weld a trigger guard on the bottom and the mag box on top, countersink the holes for the factory action screws and done.
If someone could make them locally they'd sell like hotcakes if they could keep the price down, I'm tempted to make a couple at Polytech but somehow I think it'd be frowned upon

I could make one but it wouldn't look or function anywhere near as nice as this and would cost 3thousand dollars at least

Yea it could be done locally CNC d and plastic moulded but our market is too small and then it would probably still be more expensive than than importing this part.