Hokey - I've been building rifles on the Mini action since August of 2016. Would've started a month or three earlier, but somehow, someone at LSI sent me a 6.5 Grendel bbl'd action with a s/n prefix of 'XP', which I guess stood for 'experimental prototype'. When I let it slip that I had this action in a phone conversation with my former contact at LSI, he nearly went ballistic, and made it very clear that this action should never have left the LSI facility, and wanted it back, ASAP. That was in February of '16, and I didn't receive a replacement 6.5 Grendel bbl'd action until August of that year. I offer this info as sort of an explanation/justification for my opinion that the folks at LSI are not always sure what's going on. The people at Howa are most likely the ones that made the decision to go with the plastic trigger guard & magazines, and I've never really forgiven them for that. Whatever....pointing fingers seldom does much good, so on to my point & reason for this post.
Over the 14 years since I started building rifles, I've used a fair number of Badger Ordnance M5 DBM units on my own & customers' rifles. When there were feeding issues, we almost always looked at the magazine latch - if the bolt was rubbing on the magazine feed lips, we shortened the mag latch; if it was a case of bolt overriding cartridges, failing to pick them up & feed smoothly, we called B-O to order a longer mag latch. IIRC, they offer three different lengths of latches, and I've never had a feeding issue that a mag latch of the correct length didn't fix.
I emailed DIP over a month ago explaining this, after I'd had to cut the bottom metal inlet .035"-.040" deeper on a Boyds stock for the Mini. Maybe they don't have time to answer their emails, or maybe they thought mine was too whiney - I explained that I'd gotten to the point where my DIP DBM was perfectly flush in the Boyds' stock inlet, front & rear, so that I didn't really want to use the mill to cut the bottom inlet deeper, and was hoping that - especially since they'd announced & were making the new flush mag latch to work in their DIP DBM - that they'd consider making some latches with a longer latch nose that would hold magazines up a bit higher, thus fixing the failure to feed issues some of us were having. Never heard anything back, and haven't bothered to send another message. I suppose I could try drilling some very small holes in the nose of the mag latch & mixing up a dab of J-B Weld to build up the latch end of one of my OEM mag latches - in the hope that enough of the epoxy would go down into the drilled holes & reinforce the built-up engagement surface. But what I'd really like to see is for someone with your programming & fixturing skills to make some mag latches of extra length. A longer metal (aluminum) latch can easily be cut/filed shorter by the rifle's owner, and believe this would be a better fix in the long run. Would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Best regards,
Dennis
Over the 14 years since I started building rifles, I've used a fair number of Badger Ordnance M5 DBM units on my own & customers' rifles. When there were feeding issues, we almost always looked at the magazine latch - if the bolt was rubbing on the magazine feed lips, we shortened the mag latch; if it was a case of bolt overriding cartridges, failing to pick them up & feed smoothly, we called B-O to order a longer mag latch. IIRC, they offer three different lengths of latches, and I've never had a feeding issue that a mag latch of the correct length didn't fix.
I emailed DIP over a month ago explaining this, after I'd had to cut the bottom metal inlet .035"-.040" deeper on a Boyds stock for the Mini. Maybe they don't have time to answer their emails, or maybe they thought mine was too whiney - I explained that I'd gotten to the point where my DIP DBM was perfectly flush in the Boyds' stock inlet, front & rear, so that I didn't really want to use the mill to cut the bottom inlet deeper, and was hoping that - especially since they'd announced & were making the new flush mag latch to work in their DIP DBM - that they'd consider making some latches with a longer latch nose that would hold magazines up a bit higher, thus fixing the failure to feed issues some of us were having. Never heard anything back, and haven't bothered to send another message. I suppose I could try drilling some very small holes in the nose of the mag latch & mixing up a dab of J-B Weld to build up the latch end of one of my OEM mag latches - in the hope that enough of the epoxy would go down into the drilled holes & reinforce the built-up engagement surface. But what I'd really like to see is for someone with your programming & fixturing skills to make some mag latches of extra length. A longer metal (aluminum) latch can easily be cut/filed shorter by the rifle's owner, and believe this would be a better fix in the long run. Would like to hear your thoughts on the matter.
Best regards,
Dennis