January 13th, 2020
5minute read
The concept of the drum magazine dates back more than a century.
An integral part of the iconic look of the full-auto Thompson was its drum magazine.
Those original 1921 Tommies fed from 20-round box magazines as well as 50- and 100-round drums.
Around the same time was Georg Lugers 1914 Lange Pistole, what we modern folk call the Artillery Luger.
It fed from a lyrically complicated 32-round contrivance called theTrommelmagazin.
This monstrosity required a dedicated loader and was overly complicated but did quadruple the Parabellum pistols onboard firepower.
The later streamlined M1A1 Thompson lacked the receiver cuts to accept them.
However, halfway around the world the Russians were churning out drum magazines of their own.
Desperate for armaments that could be mass produced by semi-skilled workers, theRed Army embraced the PPSh-41.
PPSh stands forPistolet-pulemyot Shpaginaor Shpagin Machine Pistol.
The Russian grunts who spanked the Nazis called it the Papasha or Daddy.
Around six million PPSh submachineguns rolled off the lines before it was supplanted by the SKS and Kalashnikov rifles.
Much like the Thompson, the PPSh drum loads from the rear and must be wound up to work.
Also like the Thompson, the drum is both bulky and noisy.
Arguably the state of the art hails from X-Products.
X-Products makes reliably strange yet undeniably cool stuff.
Their Can Cannon will launch a soda can filled with sand into the next grid square.
Ill just hold onto it for you until you come to your senses.
Their line of high-tech drum magazines will feed a bewildering array of weapons.
X-Products drums are cut from aircraft aluminum and come in two broad flavors.
The serious sorts have solid bodies to exclude grime and dirt.
All of them are wonderfully well-executed.
If you foresee using yours in a dirty environment, Id suggest going with the non-skeletonized versions.
Their drums will feed SAINT-pattern 5.56 and 7.62 firearms as well as the M1A and numerous other popular platforms.
All X-Products drums load and function identically.
I hold the drum in my lap with the feed tower leaning against a table.
Twist the wheel to lower the follower and drop in your rounds one at a time.
Loading a full 50 rounds takes a couple minutes.
Once you are done, the drum protrudes below the gun less than a standard 30-round box.
I run my X-Products drum on my trusty Springfield Armory SAINT rifle.
I was an early adopter, so I have pushed a lot of rounds through my copy.
The SAINT is a nicely tricked-out top-tier black rifle priced for the common man.
you might never really have too much ammo.
The combination of the X-Products drum and the superlative Springfield Armory SAINT rifle is simple ballistic synergy.
Go to forum thread
SAINT
X-Products
