If you are new to airsoft you may be wondering what capacity magazine is a right pick for you and there are low cap, mid cap and high cap magazines to choose from.
Each magazine has its purpose and in order to determine which one is the right pick for you, you will need to see what fits your play style the most.
Airsoft magazines are quite simple to understand and you will not need long time before you get to know them quite well. You can refer to my article about magazine care for purposes of maintenance, it’s cohesive and on point, so it won’t take you much time.
We will go through each magazine and mention the important information that you should know about it and after that you will leave with a complete airsoft magazine knowledge.
In short this is the most significant difference between mid caps and high caps, but not the only one!
Mid cap on average holds 100-130 BBs vs high cap that holds 300-600 BBs, mid cap is also more realistic than high cap and high caps need to be constantly winded, while mid caps use a spring and all you need is a speed loader.
If you are looking to buy a magazine for M4/16 or AK47/74 platform, I have reviewed a few great magazines from good brands.
What is a high capacity magazine
A high capacity airsoft magazine is a magazine that fits high amount of airsoft BBs, which is often between 300-600 BBs, but sometimes it has even greater capacity. They use a coiled spring to push BBs and thus feed the magazine.
It Is basically created with a purpose to support great amount of BBs, so that players who like to shoot a lot do not have to worry about the ammo and reload every minute.
This however, comes with a great cost and I do not mean it in money. High capacity magazines have a different mechanism that can not be found neither in mid or low capacity magazines and therefore it requires „winding“ each time to feed BBs.
Flash magazines may be a better pick for high cap magazines
In order to get rid of some disadvantages that high capacity magazines come with, I recommend that you read my introduction to Flash magazines instead, they are as good as high capacity magazines because they are the same type, but they use different mechanism to operate which you may find helpful.
What is winding in magazines and how does it work?
Winding is an action that a player must perform in order to feed the high cap magazine with BBs after inserting them in. Winding is done by manually rotating the small wheel at the bottom of a magazine and it causes a spring steel coil to rotate with it and feed the BBs into the section that keeps BBs fed and ready to fire.
Winding can also be done by rotating a small wrench at the bottom side of a magazine which makes it a bit more practical, but you got to carry a wrench to do it and insert it each time, so at the end the difference may not be that significant at all.
What is a mid cap airsoft magazine
A mid capacity airsoft magazine is a magazine that fits a medium amount of airsoft BBs, which is between between 100-130 BBs and they use a simple spring action to push BBs.
Mid cap mags are the most common magazines you will probably see in your field. They have lesser capacity, but do not come with disadvantages of high capacity mags which we will mention soon.
Mid capacity magazines are a perfect balance between realistic, effective and efficient which is the reason why they are the most common mag type. In order to feed BBs into a mid cap magazine you will need a speed loader because doing it manually would be like rolling a boulder up a hill.
Speed loaders often come with magazines when you purchase them and they are really affordable.
Do you have to wind Mid Cap Mags?
Fortunately, you do not have to wind mid cap mags because they use spring system, if it were so I think more people would simply use high capacity mags instead.
Only high capacity magazines need to be winded and flash magazines instead use a string that you pull a couple of times and in a matter of seconds the whole magazine is fed.
What is low capacity magazine
Low capacity airsoft magazine is a magazine that fits a low amount of airsoft BBs, which is often under 70, they also use spring just like mid caps to operate, but they are not very common in fields.
Although they are not common, nor popular you will still see them time to time and we will talk about them as well.
Advantages and disadvantages of magazine types
High capacity magazines
The biggest advantage of high cap mags is the amount of BBs it can handle, however whether this advantage is something you really need depends on a few factors such as:
- Do you like to shoot a lot, I mean really a lot? If so, high cap is great because for every spray lover medium mags will hardly make it.
- Do you care about realism? This affects everything from more realistic replication of real magazines ( although they still differ, medium cap mags are closest to it by many factors) to the actual game play where it may bother you if you or your enemy never runs out of ammo. If you just want to have fun and do not care much about tactics and realism and everyone on the field agree go for it.
- Do you mind about extra noises that high cap magazines may produce due to the increased amount of BBs within it that are known to rattle? It’s not necessary a game breaker, but can be quite annoying.
- Have you checked does the field where you will be playing airsoft games allow the use of high capacity magazines? Some don’t, some do.
After you answer these questions yourself, you will have a clearer indication whether you want them or not. Bear in mind that Flash magazines do not have the winding problem and are often bit more silent while keeping almost every advantage of standard high capacity magazines, so check them out.
The conclusion is the following:
Advantages:
- High BB capacity that let’s you spray a lot without too much thinking about ammo management which let’s you focus on having simple shooting fun experience.
Disadvantages:
- They are loud and if you are not careful and have high ninja skills, they may sometimes reveal your position to the enemy
- They break the realism
- Not all airsoft fields allow them
- Winding is a devil’s invention
Mid capacity magazines
Mid capacity magazines are probably the most awesome and realistic type of magazines for airsoft games. It is not that everyone prefer them, but the statistics in fields show that most people are keen of them. Answer the following questions to determine whether they are a right pick for you or not:
- Do you really appreciate the realism in airsoft? This is important in almost every airsoft game and more significant in MilSim airsoft games due to the role playing requirement. With mid cap mags you and your enemies can take advanced tactics based on the ammo you and they can hold before someone needs to reload. This is pretty realistic because real guns need to be reloaded often and it allows the opponent to take advantage of it. Unless you are Chuck Norris, he only uses high capacity magazines and does not care about R in Realism in any of his movies (no insults Norris, just my observation and mere opinion).
- You do not mind having lesser amount of ammo before you reload? You will have to reload more often, which means that 2 high cap mags are equal to like 6 mid cap mags. Do you want to carry 6 mid cap mags? It is not really that hard, trust me.
- You want to enjoy the sound of silence when you move? I mean you do not want to produce any additional noise than the footsteps and like to something capitalize on a more sneaky approach?
- And of course, you do not like winding, right? It can be quite annoying to be honest.
The conclusion is the following:
Advantages:
- Realism is on point
- They are big enough, but not too big and handle a golden avarage amount of BBs
- They are silent
- They use spring instead of winding coil
Disadvatanges:
- You need to care multiple of these
- Some people do not like reloading at all
This are the reasons to go for mid cap magazines, as you can see they are pretty reasonable and there is no wonder why they are so commonly used.
Low capacity magazines
You may wonder why would you ever use low cap magazines after realizing that everything you may ever need is already in high caps and mid caps? Well, low cap magazines are also used in some situations such as in:
- Some guns only support these magazines (pistols and snipers per example)
- They are even more realistic in some scenarios for MilSim than mid caps
- They are little brothers of mid cap mags, so they are not bad if we forget about the low capacity fact.
Mid cap vs high cap: which is the winner?
As I hope you could realize by now, there is not a clear winner out there. If you need the advantages of high caps you go with high caps, if you need the advantages of mid caps you go with mid caps, simple as that.
Perhaps, you should get one high cap or a flash magazine and a few mid cap ones, so you have an optimal arsenal. Sometimes, in some games and in some fields you may want to change the type of a magazine, so having a ready-to-go collection is a big plus.
Is it bad to leave Airsoft mags loaded?
In order to preserve the magazine’s health it is not recommended to keep magazines loaded because it can lead to a damage.
It puts a string under a constant tension that wears it down over time.
The consequences of this is worse (slower) feeding of BBs and other possible issues such as dry firing in the middle of a combat if you turn your replica to full auto for instance. So, additional pressure is not really welcomed for longevity.
However, gas magazines are an exception because they operate differently and the seal may actually be maintained if kept pressurized.
What ever the case is, just make it sure that you remove BBs instead of leaving them in and your mags will thank you.
Are all same-type magazines the same and can fit every gun?
It is important to mention that even though there are low,mid and high capacity magazines out there, it does not seem that they are all the same and quite often you may run into a problem where the top of the magazine has a different shape or width, thus not making compatible with every airsoft gun.
Sometimes you may have fun with medium or high cap magazine that perfectly fits your replica, but then you decide to buy almost identical magazine and realize that it does not fit your replica.
Therefore, it is always a must to check the compatibility of a given magazine with the gun it actually needs to fit in.
Sometimes players forget this and then they realize that one brand creates similar stuff, but it varies in some details that can mean a game break matter.
If you want to minimize the research or unnecessary troubles you should know that m4 airsoft replicas happen to be the most compatible guns in the market for further upgrades and it welcomes variety of all different size cap magazines in the market.
It is also known that well known and branded airsoft replicas happen to support far more upgrades and magazines out there.
Are all airsoft M4 mags the same?
To simply say that all M4 mags will fit your M4 is probably inaccurate, so I won’t, but I have found out that most M4 mags do fit M4 without difficulties.
Let’s say for instance that many AK replicas have a problem with magazine sizes and while you will easily find a low capacity mag for M4, you won’t be able to find the same for AK because they simply do not manufacture them.
It is always recommended to think about this stuff in advance when you are purchasing the airsoft gun that shall serve you for a very long time.