Making the best of bad magazines: or: Re-purposing magazines.

A long while ago I got a large lot of HK-91 mags cheap all in various conditions. A few of the mags looked like they were dropped while fully loaded, the bottoms were blown out to the point the flanges that held the floor plate on were compromised. Seeing that the upper portion of the magazines were still in great condition I thought there was no good reason why the magazines couldn't be cut down into 3 and 5 round magazines for hunting and range use.  In one session and with the help of somebody who has worked sheet metal some before I cut up (down?) 6 otherwise ruined magazines and made them into stubby range/hunting mags. Shortening the spring and modifying some of the internals are required. I generally guessed at how long these mags should be and that got me a bunch of 6 and 7 round magazines. A quick weld job by a friend tacked on a piece of flat 1/8"x1/2" flat stock to the sort of "pelvic fin" of the magazine follower. Again I eyeballed the length knowing cutting off material would be easier than welding on more in the future if I guessed exact lengths wrong the first time.  Trial and error told me how much to cut off on the bandsaw and tuning them took little time. 

Followers for 2-5 round magazines and one 3 round.

It might seem a little over the top for some but I really wanted to pattern my modified magazines closely to the factory offerings as well as stay legal for any hunting I do in the future with my rifle. It seemed lazy to me to leave the magazines at 6-7 rounds especially when rifle restrictions in most states would have landed me in trouble with those capacity of magazines while hunting.

Range/field ready 5 and 3 round magazines!