Oooohhh.. an ACT mag thread. :twisted:
While I've done it in numerous other forums, I don't think I've ever gotten the chance to grind my axe here.
IIRC I've only bought two ACT/PSI 1911 mags, they were for my father. Since he only shoots his 1911 a couple times a year, and rarely loads more than the one factory magazine, he's had no problems and probably never will.
ACT's SIG P220 magazines on the other hand, I've owned about 6-7 of them. Every one of them eventually split. I originally noticed it in an IDPA match when my mag wouldn't drop. After the blown stage I checked the mag and saw it was split. I checked the rest of my mags and saw two others were as well. They functioned fine at this point, but wouldn't drop free from the gun.
At the time I didn't know that this was a common problem. I contacted PSI (the importer of the mags) to ask themif there was a problem in general, or just with mine, did they know about this? etc etc. They were great, they said send them back and they'd replace them, which was wonderful because I had a big important match coming up and needed the mags. I sent them priority mail wanting to get them back ASAP, giving them more time for the return.
Well the big match came and went with no sign of the mags. I contacted them and got the "Oh so sorry, don't know what happened, they'll go out tomorrow."
Of course they never did. Contacting them again yielded the same thing. "Don't know what happened, they'll go out on monday."
We went through this routine 3 or 4 times over the course of as many months before they just stopped responding.
My gripe is, had they told me "too bad, so sad" or "sucks for you", I'd have been angry but would have gotten over it. At least I'd still have range mags that worked, but just didn't drop free. Instead they lied to me, had me waste more money sending in the old mags and basically stole them from me.
Between the three mags and the shipping I'm out about $70.00
There's your "customer service", liars and thieves.
The other four ACT/Novak/PSI mags have all split since then. All my SIG factory mags, some considerably older with much more use are all fine. So they may be $15+ more a piece, but it's money well spent.
The ACT mag thing is a rather polarizing thing. You will hear from tons of people strongly defending them and recommending. Saying "I have some and have never had any trouble!" Yup.. I used to be one of those people. I thought they were great too until they all crapped out. So now I never miss a chance to share my experiences with ACT magazines and the good people of PSI. :roll: