37 Magazine in a 39

[chad745]

Well Gap Bretheren,

I may have made a mistake. I ordered a G37 magazine from Midway thinking, "YEAH I'm gonna get 11 shots in my 39"!

Nope.

The angle that the bullet makes in the magazine is less steep, which burries the lead head into the bottem of the ramp when I close the slide.

Dad Gummit.

My question is, what if I open the front part of the mouth of the magazine in attempt to orient the bullet to point just a hair upward? Anyone here think that would be a mistake?

[Tampico]

Would you trust your life to this mod, or are you just doing this for range use?

[Lazarus63]

I shoot my 37 mags in my 39 regluarly and haven't had any feeding problem... have you tried a different bullet shape?

[DannyR]

What are you using for ammo?

[chad745]

No, I wouldn't trust this mod to my life. It would only be for range, and camping use.

I've been using hollow points because, at the time of purchase, that was the only box of 500 they had that was reasonably priced (I reload).

I've been thinking about the bullet shape, and if it were ball ammo, it probably would feed reliably.

This is good though. Some folks do what I'm trying to do, so it may simply be a matter of widening the front of the "fingers" of the magazine a micron or two.

I may do that, and let everyone know how it goes.

[tpr7304]

I also shoot my 39 with 37 mags and have never had any feed problems.

[chad745]

Thanks for the input, bros.

I took a calliper and compared a G39 lip width to the new G37 magazine. There was a difference, the G37 mag's lips were a tad narrower at the front. This was causing the bullet to sit at a more horizontile orientation.

So, I took a pair of pliers, covered with cloth, and gently moved the forward part of the lips out. Logically, this would "tilt" the bullet up a bit in the front and keep it from nose-diving into the bottem of the feed ramp.

And it worked! Now, I get reliable feeding when I cycle it manually. Of course, the real test is seeing how it does at the range, but I'll take my pliers with me to make tweaks if nesessary.

Thanks!