Sevens, you are probably onto something there. Possibly you get a bunch of plastic ones for the cost of a single metal follower. I will try to see if I can spot any difference in the two while shooting.

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USMC 69-93 Combat Pistol Inst.

Hey Fastbolt, thanks again for that MidwayUSA notification posting. They arrived this past Saturday. All 3 load great and drop free quickly. Can't wait to try them out. Thanks again!

News about mag availability came too late for me... I'd already paid for a total of 5 more mags at the best prices I could get in the last year (still pretty expensive. )

On the subject of plastic vs stamped steel followers, IMHO the plastic followers should be somewhat better functionally since they don't bend or rust and are somewhat self lubricating. OTOH, the stamped X-type followers seem to work perfectly fine and after the first one I got just to have another mag, I made the effort to find a couple more... they're just cool!

As I've asked before, if I say anything about adding to my mag stash, please, please, please stage an intervention! By any reasonable standard, I have enough now.

Froggie

Careful what you wish for! Intervention could lead to confiscation by other S&W forum members...LOL

Hello Mr. frog, just admit it, your hooked. On the subject of steel vs. plastic. Now when we were kids bikes and car bumpers were all made of steel, remember! I have replaced broken plastic followers. The long tale usually snaps. Plus, I have never seen a rusty steel follower that did not have a rusty steel mag body.

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Mike 2796
SoFo Bunch member

Beretta is currently manufacturing 92 Compacts. S&W stopped making a single stack that uses 39 series mags prior to Y2K.

You folks thinking it is easy for Mec-Gar to make mags. LOL

The tooling costs alone will make it unprofitable. The Model 39 is not a in demand gun in the general sense of the market. They aren't stocked at FFLs across thr country or at your local Base Pro, Academy, Big 5, or Cabela's. It is a used collector's piece and a fairly smaller niche gun at that in collector circles. It isn't like a Luger P-08 or a 1911 that is popular world wide. Mec-Gar has a world market to support.

Mec-Gar is an OEM manufacturer and right now, the Beretta 92 mag body is used in a number of different guns. The 92 Compact magazine is simply a 92 mag, cut short. There's no additional investment for them. So they make it. Same reason why they made the XD9 magazine and magazines for the Canik, and other guns. They all use the 92 magazine body.

If making Model 39 mags were profitable, S&W themselves would be making them right now and they aren't. That says something.

I have five 3906 mags for my Model 909 nd I consider myself lucky. But I understand why things are the way they are.

Prices are up for three reasons.

Scarcity of product
Increase in demand
No profitability for nee manufacturing

But the people buying Model 39 mags aren't the masses. It is a small dedicated group of folks. No different than HK collectors. Try and find a SL7, Model 770, or SLB 2000 ten round mag right now? You'll consider it a deal if you can find one for $250. Why no aftermarket? Because those guns are such a small niche market, there isn't any profitability in making new mags.

While demand is up. It isn't high enough for a company to make new mags and make a profit off the investment costs.

Lastly, the idea that the country will abide by a new AWB like we did in the 90s under Clinton.

Not happening. Americans are far more open to civil disobedience now. Additionally, gun grabbers aren't going to be done and leave folks with guns under 10rds. They'll go for those too. Look at NY with the SAFE Act. They originally tried to cleave it down to 7rds.

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GOA FL Dir. & Nat. Spokesman

Try finding some current model desert eagle 44 magnum magazines. I recently paid $160 each for a couple. Many things guns are out of stock.
Mags for my S&W model 52 are going for $300+ now.

As I stated Mec-gar might start to make 39 series "If" the nation went to a <10rd mag limit.

IIRC there are well over 300,000 39s out there........

To my recollection Mec-gar never stopped making 10 and 13rd 92 Compact mags even though they were out of production for over 10 years..... they just added a 15 round version. The 92 Compact was never a great seller and the F/FS version were only offered from about 1988-2000.

Gun sales are up ..... 30% in Pa over last year.

Does a CS9 magazine resemble a 3913 magazine except for length and number of rounds? I once picked up a mislabeled 7 rd single stack magazine at a show, and this thread made me think of it b/c someone mentioned the CS9. Doing a search online turns up similar pics. See first pic below, and second pic (left) with a 3913 mag (right).

Attached Images

	39xx_mags_6.jpg (56.7 KB, 8 views)
	39xx_mags_7.jpg (57.9 KB, 9 views)

. . . for me is that I've only a Chief's Special in SW40 and JMB .45 ACP.

The good news for you is there were a few more CS9mm's sold than the above (comparable single-unit sales).

A bit of sales advice, if I may be so bold: Given the current environment, don't limit the price and you may well set a new single-magazine CS9 sales record because there really aren't altogether too many CS "Anythings" floating about.

And should you not set that new sales standard, you'll have given a chap - perhaps someone like me 40-years ago - a clean and ever-grateful break.

Although, quite honestly, I doubt the latter will be the end result.

Oh, a word on prices as a whole: The Federal Reserve, a wholly member-bank-owned corporation (The "Federal" part? A name is a name and that is that), is printing money because our Congress is spending it.

When money is printed whilly-nilly and therefore not even WORTH only the ink, paper and anti-counterfeit measures on/in each, inflation ensues. Such cannot be otherwise.

The latest, most grotesque example: Venezuela.

Our "best friends" (Biden, not yours truly), the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), most assuredly wishes to issue the world's "reserve currency."

A reserve currency not only has stable value, but has a special place in the wallets of people everywhere. We, the Good Ol' USofA are, for the moment, THAT reserve currency. Oil is priced in US Dollars. Gold is priced in US Dollars. Slaves (yes, they still exist, everyday) are bought and sold in US Dollars. The list goes on.

Yes, clearly part of the reason our prized items - handguns, long guns, magazines and etc. - are head-spinningly increasing in price is the crazed society in which we currently reside.

Another reason is that thing called "inflation." The spectre of such arising again in the future did cause great concern among our country's founders. Indeed, do the research and you shall see the primary reason for those two summertime closed-door Philadelphia meetings from which a US (Federal) Constitution sprang was a matter between Pennsylvania, a prim and proper State, and Rhode Island, The (once) "Pirate" State: the latter wishing to pay debts in worthless, printed currency to the former, which had a stable, wholly metals-backed currency. (See: Novus Ordo Seclorum: the Intellectual Origins of the Constitution
A Book by Forrest McDonald - which yours truly first read, oh, about 35-years ago, give or take)

War was about to begin between the two over money and its value. And we couldn't have that, now could we?

And so, in the original US Constitution, only "coined" money was to be minted by the US, not printed.

Sadly, the US Congress and two-thirds of the assembled states sought fit to rid us of that cautionary provision back in the first half of the 20th Century.

And the result? You're seeing it; living it. As am I. Nobody then thought we'd ever see what is being witnessed today.

I'm to soon meet my Maker. My children and succeeding generations of us all aren't running on the same schedule as this sorry soul.

Such deeply saddens me.

Later.

Yes, the CS9 and original 3913TSW magazines were 7rd mags, and the 3913/908 are 8rd mags. The original 3913TSW mag had a wide/flat buttplate, instead of the curved or narrow/flat buttplate, though.

They all used the same follower, mag spring and buttplate catch inserts.

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Ret LE Firearms inst & armorer

Ah DCW, great to hear from you and your words of wisdom.
You do paint a rosy future! Stay safe. best, Mike

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Mike 2796
SoFo Bunch member

Bought 2 rifles from a guy at a flea market last fall. On the way out I stopped by his table and there was a grab box on the ground. I told him that I had been a good customer and he told me to pick something out of the grab box. I saw a stainless magazine and grabbed it and put it in my pocket. Didn’t notice until I got home and it was a 3906 mag. Glad I have a 3906.

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SSG Ret.
TN & TX ARNG 66-06