Hey all,

Just finished shooting a match with my 12.5" 6.5 Grendel. First time I've used it past zeroing it using 5x rounds at a time.

I heard good things about the E-Lander mags, but they absolutely sucked. I have 5x 17 rounders and 1x 24 rounder.

I have had all of them loaded for about 6 months with Hornady Black. When pulling the Hornady rounds out, and throughout the competition with my Wolf ammo, i saw the following failures:

-Rounds "nose-diving"
-Rounds getting stuck (roundd 1-2 were loose since there was no tension from rounds 3-4 being stuck)
-Fully loaded mag would rattle (not a failure but not normal)
-Bolt not being able to pull round from a fresh magazine (too much spring tension / friction)

Errors were pretty sporadic. Sometimes they worked great and sometimes they failed. I reloaded a magazine that had 2/4 failures and it ran all 17 rounds fine.

Any suggestions? Should I contact E-Lander for review, or is this something I can fix myself?

You are experiencing 100% of what I have experienced with E-lander mags.

Unfortunately I don’t know how to fix it, it is the only thing keeping 6.5 grendel from being my go-to gun.

I do hope you find a solution though, I’ve been trying for over a year now and no dice

tag.

I have tried e-lander, ASC and both perform fine "most" of the time (i.e. I don't trust them to not fail when needed).

I ran 17 rounders in my 18" SPR'ish Grendel for a long range class and had random problems.  Would run through a mag just fine, then I'd get failures next time through, same ammo.  Very frustrating.

I had to sand my feed lips a little bit and I sanded the front part of the mag down to keep the rounds from getting caught and preventing chambering. I worked on it so long, it's the only mag I use, but it's reliable now.

http://www.65grendel.com/forum/showthread.php?20500-E-Lander-magazine-problems&p=239319&posted=1#post239319

This is what the folks at 65grendel.com had to say. I think I am going to start by sanding down the feed lips and cycling the springs a good few dozen times.

E-lander springs are STRONG and either your mags need some break in or you need to either clip a loop or two in your mag spring or run a stronger buffer spring & heavier buffer.

Or try a CPD. Springs aren't as strong. I've had 100% success with both E-lander 17s and CPD 26s. No break in period running thru a PSA 12" build w/adj. gas block. Standard spring & buffer and running Hornady Black & Wolf steel.

Or load mags to half capacity til they break in. Was your failure rate getting better towards the end of the mag?

Personally, I don't think leaving mags loaded for long periods of time really does much to break them in, they usually need to cycle rounds to smooth out the feed lips and I'll either shoot em or load & unload mags by hand. I use a Maglula loader for 7.62x39 ARs to make it fast n easy.

And D&H just came out with their 10 round 6.5G mag a few months ago, PSA shows em in stock, I've ordered a few that I'm waiting on.

The very first 17 round eLander i purchased for my 6.5 was sticking. I took a wooden dowel and ran/ pushed the follower up and down fully probably 75 to 100 times and it smoothed out. Ever since then I have done this same method for each of the 10 eLander's that I have and never had a problem. However, unlike your situation my rate of fire is fairly slow as I mainly shoot BR or occasional tactical scenarios with double taps. I do not store my 6.5 mags loaded.

Agreed. I find it odd how many people over at 65grendel talk about "setting" magazine springs. Cycling can weaken springs, but compression doesn't.

For what it's worth,  I like my C Products Defense mags better than E Landers. They load and unload easier. I won't be buying any more E Landers.

I have a 12" & 18" Grendel and have only used eight 24rd e-landers I got from LaRue.  I load 20rds only and they have worked very well for me.  Drop free, no sanding required in my Aero upper and lowers.  Ammo has only been wolf steel, 220 rounds with no failures.  Not enough rounds to call them reliable but so far so good.

CPD have been running great for me.

Elanders have been fine except for one FTFeed a few years ago.

I see a lot of Grendels come through my DM courses, and we've had multiple guns burning hundreds of rounds per course without issues over the years.

I've had 100% function/reliability with CPD mags

I've had issues will every brand of 6.5G mags I've bought.  Not sure why the manufactures haven't figured this out yet but you have to dermal down the front lip of the magazines.  There's a few youtube videos that shows how to do this.  It takes about 1 minute per mag to do.  I tuned up all my magazines and they now run flawlessly.  I even took a few regular 5.56 GI mags and modified the front lips they also run perfectly now.  It sucks to have to do this but if you want a malfunction free range day it's worth the time.