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Hit or Miss: Tactical Magwell
by Jessie Indracusin
Introduction
As always, we are on the search for various accessories for carbines/weapons that may be items you have not seen before. This week, we are talking about the Gripwell product from Tactical Magwell. The company's website can be found at www.tacticalmagwell.com . This item sells for a little under $50.00 and is in line with the type of products we like to review.
Product Design
This accessory was designed to assist with increasing the speed of reloading an AR and provide a better gripping surface in the front of t
he magazine well. These finger grooves are positioned to allow an AR operator to keep the gun in close and stable. As you can see from the photo to the left, this bolts around the typical AR magwell. You may need to file the top front portion of the device if your 4-point handguard rubs up against it (the lower rail). This device flutes out the bottom of the magazine well of the AR so that it allows "less than perfect" tactical reloads of the gun. This item is made of a light weight plastic and seems fairly sturdy. This item also has an option for a rail attachment on either side of the Gripwell product being showcased here. This allows attachments of any item that would fit on a standard rail. The most obvious, of course being a light, laser or laser/light combo.
If a person was very familiar or had a significant background in use of an AK and was transitioning to the AR platform, I think this is a quick way of teach someone combat reloading of the AR. Anyone who is familiar with how you "rock" the magazine of an AK in the magazine well versus more of the straight loading that you do with an AR magazine, can see the benefit of this.
Impressions
I feel this item has some viable usages. For people looking at shaving fractions of a second off of their reload time in competitive shooting or for training foreign forces quickly on the migration of AK usage to AR usage (a perfect example of this would be training Iraq Security forces using AR rifles), this is a pretty interesting accessory to consider. Tactical Law Enforcement teams may find some interest in this item. The key would be that this item would have to be adopted by every rifle on the team for maintaining consistance in training. For military use, I would actual discourage the use of this since the chance of every rifle having this would mean if you lean on this device to correct poor training/magazine reloading, someone could actually create more magazine feeding problems on an AR/M4 that did not have this. There are some limitiations of this product and I would like to end this review with both Pros and Cons:
Pros:
1) Cost -Very in-expensive
2) Increased Grip -The finger grips on the front of the magazine well helps with maintaining a solid grip for shooters that like putting their off hand on front of the magazine well
3) Reduces miss feeds of the magazine in the weapon
Cons:
1) Can create poor muscle memory reflexes when not using the product on an AR
2) If using Mag Cinch devices (device that straps two magazines together), you may need to attach the device much further down the magazine than you might normally
3) Beta-C Magazines will not work at all
4) Attachment rails on the side of the magazine well (Lightgrip) can cause a distraction/obstruction of where a person's finger would stay in when not on the trigger.
REVIEW:
PRICE:
FEATURES/DESIGN:
INNOVATION:
DURABILITY
OVERALL:
Overal, this product may be worth a shot if you have a problem with combat reloads. I do enjoy the forward grip assistance on the magazine well. If you are interested in purchasing this item, please visit www.m-aparts.com for ordering information. M & A Parts is an authorized distributor of this product. Their phone number is 417-993-5383.