THE VEPR FORUM

Hello Vepr people I am new to Veprs ( mine should be here within a couple weeks) and very new to this forum. So, I have a question, while I have been reading and learning and discovering the many wonderful things available for the greatest weapon of all time, I have noticed that magazines, some more than others, are quite expensive. I also noticed that the magazines that are 10 and 12 round are quite lengthy, which is understandable due to the physical size of the round itself. I have seen several of the large 25/30 round drum magazines, and they too are quite large and bulky. So, here's the million dollar question... Has anyone ever seen an aluminum drum mag, for 10 or 12 rounds? ( I thought I saw one somewhere, but unable to find it by searching it) Question #2, has anyone considered building such a magazine, yes it would be way expensive, but possibly worth it for size and mobility?

I would like some opinions, any available data, possible negatives etc...

Thanks for having me...

I believe it's the Max Rounds from Europe. Every now and then you can find them on Funbroker.

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Guns are worthless if you can't feed them....

I’ll check out maxrounds, I did find some for Saiga only, and I believe that I read where you really can’t use Saiga mags in a Vepr, but you can use Vepr mags in Saiga. Thank you very much for the information!!

The Izhmash magwell mags will work fine in a V12. They fit into mine just fine. The OEM V12 mags took a small modification to rear lug to fit into the IZ 433a and 030 series with magwells.

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Guns are worthless if you can't feed them....

Right on, good to know. Thank you!

Maxxrounds drum is availible for Vepr 12 by special order at rusmilitary. It costs £599 british pounds which equates to roughly $809.00 U.S. dollars. Also its a 20rnd aluminum drum.

http://www.rusmilitary.com/html/ak_magazines.htm

Yes, I have seen these, thank you, and it's due to the size / form factor that I was interested in a 10 or 12 round drum. The 25 round plastic drums are HUGE, and the 20 round aluminum are slightly smaller, but in my opinion way overbuilt, and ridiculously expensive. Even a standard 10 or 12 round magazine are so long that they are difficult to use prone, my thought is that a 10 or 12 round drum could be easily made much smaller, and shorter than the standard magazines.

Since I have been unable to find anything, I am in the process of designing something and will post pictures of the prototype when completed... Wish me luck?...

Good luck! Hopefully someone will develop a mini drum.

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Guns are worthless if you can't feed them....

ah,
Hold up Brother before you post pic of ANYTHING FUNCTIONALLY COOL/NW that YOU truly develop. At thhat millisecond it becomes public domain and can flush your patent application, which you're gonna need to attract/protect investors. Unless your 're one of Trump's illegitimate sons with DNA-match paperwork/backing: injection-molding or stamping dies, and even CNC contract work are hellatiously expensive for privateers.
I'd love such mini-drums for my VEPR 12 and still see enough marketability to even maybe make a personal hard cash investment BUT YOU HAVE TO PROTECT IDEA/PRODUCTION INVESTMENT. PM me and I'll put you in touch with a TX buddy who's patent fn-savy and has a nearly 10-year old specialty aftermarket firearms parts business.
GDubya in Memphis.

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I've been high, I've been low. I've been yes! and I've been Oh HELL NO!
NRA LIFE & ENDOWED MEMBER

Honestly there is already a lot of established design work around for drums and shotgun drums that I don't think there is anything worth patenting.
The $10K to $30K is just flushing money down the toilet that could be used to actually make the thing.. But that is just my opinion.

Most of my magazine designs have small aspects that are technically patentable but what are the odds someone will ever copy them? Pretty slim. And if they did there is so much in public domain that they can just side step any of my "innovations". One of the ones I was pretty proud of was the preproduction saiga-12 follower.. Gunfun has one of those still I think. Sadly the part was too troublesome to make it into a production magazine, one of these days maybe it will be useful.

I have a couple things I'm sitting on, one of these days I'll either have to fork over the money to patent them or just make a bunch and dump them on the market to hit saturation before a knock off can be made. Patents only really give you the right to sue the thief for damages, so you still need the money to do that, and on something with a limited market like products for the Saiga-vepr there is not enough money in the market for a lawsuit to be viable.

Getting your first product made is the hardest part, you learn a lot, mostly you learn that a lot of people will give you all sorts of advice on all sorts of things that is totally flawed, like I had people suggest using water jet cutters for making sheet metal parts because the machine is cheaper, but actually cutting metal is 18X more expensive than a laser and a laser is only about 10% more than a water jet. Found out their pricing information was about 20-30 years out of date when lasers cost millions, I actually have a Fiber laser that we have been using for six months that cost under $50K, I think the machine is about halfway to paying for itself in six months..

Also got all sorts of bad advice on finishing, heat treatment, parts tumbling, milling machinery, milling tooling, milling cutters, coolants, welding processing. Basically every single subject on the machining forums has a ton of information that is not just flawed but seems to be intentionally misleading.
An example of this is people suggesting bridgeport mill conversions to CNC as a viable option.. I got a chance to see one work in person and a Haas VMC the next week, the difference was like comparing oxen to a semi truck.. The Haas was 40X faster, for not even 8X the cost.

By the way, if you think guns and target shooting are an addictive hobby, comparing it to starting your own business, it is basically like how chewing gum compares to crack cocaine, both in the severity and the potentially damaging effects.. Have fun.