Although functionally the same, there appear to be at least four variations of magazines I've found for the Model 6906.

Some have the round count on both sides (even on right and odd on left) . . . others only on the right. Some have the mag release notch on both sides, others only on the right side. Some have what appears to be a plug in the heel of both sides of the magazine . . . others do not. All have a letter S on the right heel but only some have a letter O on the left heel. And the followers seem to have two different contours that don’t correlate to any of the other variables.

Are these simply production variations over time or is there some significance to a specific version of the model 6906 pistol that I should be mindful of?



Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Imgur: The magic of the Internet

Russ

i figure that you got 1 or some of those mags from me.
they're all factory mags, the difference is as you speculated different production runs from different points in time. they will all work in all regular production variations of the 69 series.
why they changed from one type to the other, i don't know, maybe someone else can answer that.

all normal production variances based on time and who(who S&W jobbed the production out to).
The 2 with the magazine catch slot on both sides are later production.

Actually, I think you've got that the other way around. The first one appears to be a 2nd Gen magazine. The second one appears to be a very late 2nd Gen magazine or a very early 3rd Gen magazine.

I always thought the magazine catch slot was a later addition so that magazine release button could be reversed for ambidextrous function.

... except that the 6900-series pistols never had that feature (reversible mag release) added. That was a TSW thing. The 6900-series pistols never made it into the TSW ranks.

But to back up a bit, there were lots of variations to the 6900-series magazines over the years. Some 2nd Gen 6900-series magazines had twin mag release cuts just as some 2nd Gen 5900-series magazines had twin mag release cuts. The first magazine in line is a 2nd Gen magazine. The second one in line is probably a late-2nd Gen magazine, but no way to be 100% positive about that. It could be a 3rd Gen variation and could even be a post-Federal AWB magazine. I'm assuming none of these four magazines are LEO/Export marked.

You are partially correct in that ban period magazines... both 10 and 12-round LEO/Export... had twin mag release cuts. There is still some mystery about 6900-series 12-round magazines sold by S&W after the Federal AWB expired. I'd like to explore that topic further sometime.

The topic is also complicated by 3rd party lookalike 6900-series magazines (made to copy OEM exactly).

There's also another extremely rare variant...
Performance Center marked 12-rd double stack magazines.

As I am away from my goodies at the moment, I could be mistaken, but I believe a 12-rd PC marked magazine was included eith the rare Stocking Dealer SD-9. I do know that PC marked 356TSW 12-rd'ers exist for the 3566 compact, and I believe those magazines are dimensionally the same as the 469/669/6906 12-rd'er.

Your assumption is correct . . . there are no such markings.