Quantico Tactical is now offering SafeTacMag magazines through its website. SafeTacMag, LLC has developed an innovative, simple, M16/M4 5.56 training magazine specifically designed to fire blank ammunition.
SafeTacMag’s leadership met while serving in 2nd Battalion 5th Marines. During service, a close peer died from a gunshot wound sustained during an urban combat training accident, exposing the design flaw allowing live ammunition to become commingled with blank ammunition. This is how the Safe Tactical Magazine idea was born and is what drives SafeTacMag, LLC today.
Standard-issue magazines were never designed to fire blank ammunition; the much shorter blank ammunition cartridges simply do not feed properly from standard magazines into service rifles. During training exercises, blank ammunition often jams, causing service rifles to malfunction. As a result, realism is sacrificed and valuable training time is lost.
SafeTacMag’s blank-fire magazines feed blanks into service rifles seamlessly without causing jams. The blank-fire magazines require absolutely no modifications to the rifle and cost the same as a regular magazine. Most importantly, SafeTacMag’s blank-fire magazines make training safer because it’s impossible to load live rounds into SafeTacMag magazines.
Website Link: www.quanticotactical.com
SafeTacMag LLC link: www.safetacmag.com
Tags: Quantico Tactical
I’m surprised I haven’t seen these type of mags in the US before – I know the Brits have one for the L85 but this is something I could see being very useful for training in the US.
We do yes, built to the same spec as the Live mag but with a Doohickey that prevents ACCIDENTAL filling with live rounds but you still can if you try hard.
Ours are now a solid yellow in colour instead of yellow stripes.
Well Simunitions does make magazines that preclude the loading of a live round unless it’s the top round, so they’d work with the blanks also
I like the idea of precluding a live round from being inserted into a magazine loaded with blanks for training. I have seen that happen a couple of times over the years. Thankfully in those cases I have witnessed the only casualty was a blank adapter.
On the other hand, I actually do think there is value in blanks being more prone to jamming a weapon in training. Those situations give the shooter the opportunity to practice clearing those “real” malfunctions properly in order to get back into the fight or prompt transition to a secondary weapon.
TLB
Agreed on the malfunctions, but for basic training this is probably a good idea, and can easily be inserted into crawl-walk-run training methods.
This isn’t a “NEW” design. I have some at my house right now and the Army has used these on and off through decades. I think they are unnecessary however they do tend to feed blanks batter than the standard GI mags due to the fact that the rounds can’t slip-n-slide inside the mag.
I hope our units start using them; it’s clearly identifiable, won’t accept live rounds, and therefore reduces the risk of causalities/fatalities during training. Good update.
I was at Pendleton when 2/5 had that incident, and it was heart-wrenching, for both the victim, the Marine who discharged the live round, and the chain of command. We now have a mandatory cooling off period before transitioning from live fire to blank fire, as a result of the investigation.
While they should not replace deliberate safety protocols and engaged leadership, there’s no reason to not ad these to the tool kit.