Re: Let's solve this savage dbm problem
Well, I stumbled on this post just looking for Savage threads to read while my normal shooting site is down. I have a 10FCP McMillan to work with myself, and the guy I bought it from threw in one of the 9 round SSS mags.
He showed me when I bought it from him that the bolt drags on the feeder lips, and the mag box itself was a PITA to just load into the mag-well. This thread got me interested, so I racked it out and got to looking.
Here are the main problems I've noticed about my SSS mag(I may be reposting these, sorry if I missed them): The upper portion of the 9rd magazine body is the same as the stock 4rd magazine body.
The lower 9rd magazine body had too much material left on the corners, causing it to grab and not insert easily, as well as making it hard as hell to get out of the magazine well.
As far as making magazines to order, I think the following would work very well, and if I had a machine shop to try it in, I would certainly be trying.
I started my thinking in what seemed to be the easiest direction-machining it out of aluminum extrusion. Unfortunately, looks like it would be difficult to find extruded aluminum that would suit the magazine hard-body in those dimensions(Looking at McMaster Carr's website, which has just about everything known to man).
So I looked at bar stock, and a chunk of 6061 in 1.5"x3.5"x12", which would work dimensionally, runs $39.00(
http://www.mcmaster.com/#aluminum/=aqjosr). Allowing for cutting, you could get a minimum of 5 hard-body parts out of the bar(at 9rd dimensions of 2"). If you went about it the same way as the SSS body, there's not much left. Dimensioning the body to a print and machining it. Don't forget the small amount of taper or cant from the front to the rear of the hard body.
The body isn't what's holding the the magazine in(at least I'm basing this off of, looking at mine apart and in the well), it's just keeping it snug and quieter. You'll just want to make sure your exterior dimensions are a few thousandths under the internal mag-well dimensions to assure you have a smooth slide in without excessive rubbing.
With that, there are two problems left, as I see it. Machining the length you want for the desired round count, and ensuring you have a spring that will stand up to it. The top half of the magazine is the easy half, just buying a regular 4 round magazine and using the feeder portion on the top of the SSS type box.
I'm not engineered enough to figure out the length vs round count, one of you guys that uses Solidworks may get that easier than I could.
The springs in the 9 round mag I have are just two normal springs that are heat-shrink wrapped together at the common base, but I'm not sure how getting up around 20 rounds would stack up and work on the spring. I could see maybe needing a follower plate in between the bottom and 2nd spring to keep the follower from flipping internally.
I hope this helps, especially those of you that have access and free time on milling machines. I'm just now going into milling operations in the machinist program I'm in, so I was just trying to contribute a little thought to the problem. I'll try to take some pictures to add to this if you all want, to try to better explain the parts at the stages I mean.
I just can't see paying $80 for the parts from one standard 4rd mag and 1 chunk of aluminum with milling that I think I could come close to pulling off at my noobliness, even after labor.