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Sidearms & Scatterguns Help with pistol magazine ID

enichols

Private
Full Member
Minuteman
Nov 18, 2010
337
335
Southern CA
Hello Hide,
Three years back, my Uncle who got me into shooting passed away. He left me and my brother with most of his gear. I was going through another box of his stuff the other day and found these four pistol magazines. I'm not sure what gun they're for. I suspect Browning Hi-Power, as he used to own one decades ago (sadly, he sold it not long before he passed). The only marking on any of the mags is a "Made in Italy" stamp on one of the three blued ones. Any help identifying these would be appreciated.

Thanks!
 

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Loading the mags is a good initial sorting idea.
The upper side profile of the magazines do not look the same in that series of 4; some appear to have raised bulge others a concavity.

The backside of the mags do not have any witness holes for round counts; both my Beretta 92 and Belgian Hi-Power do and the Beretta witness holes are marked @ 5-10-15 . Both have magazines imprinting their fabrication in Italy, as do many Sig's.

The lower side profile of my Beretta's have a bulge presumably to stabilize the mag in the mag well; unless it's a lighting trick, those in the photo's appear to have concavities in the lower magazine side walls.

Other guns have 13 round mags, like my HK P7M13

Uncle may have had more / different guns than OP knows, or swapped some mags for other stuff that have nothing to do with his final inventory.

Loading mags and fitting in pistols is the answer.

IMG_8666BROWNING BELGIAN HI-POWER MAGAZINE A.jpg
IMG_8667BERETTA 92 MAGAZINE.jpg
IMG_8668BERETTA 92 MAGAZINE A.jpg
 
MEC-GAR is Italian.

And they make aftermarket mags for just about everything.
 
A lot of them look similar , but the middle dimple at the bottom and that near parkerized finish one would make Beretta 92 my first guess. Which would be wrong. The mag latch hole is in the wrong place. High Power’s are up by the pleat, Beretta’s are lower.


I would buy 92, a High Power, A CZ75 and maybe a P226 just to be safe.
 
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