Surfire put up a video last night showing their new 60 and 100 round magazines in action. They show reserve Marine (and Surefire employee) Corporal Greg Linn rolling through 200 rounds first with 30 rounds mags and then using 2 100 rounds mags. It took him 37.51 seconds and a whole lot of reloading and time off target to get to 200. Using the Surfire hi-cap the time was reduced to 18.50 seconds. The time difference is impressive, but look at the amount of muzzle control he was able to maintain when he could get into his firing stance and stay there, uninterrupted for those 100 round bursts. I’d say that accuracy improvement is just as almost as valuable as the diminished reloading time.

Surefire filmed a group of the most well-kitted out operators you’ve ever seen encountering an ambush in the desert. Even if they were firing blanks (and wearing non-ballistic helmets, look for the Ops-Core Base Jump) they still showed a few things about how the hi-cap mags works in the field. Going prone on uneven ground with the 100-rounder looked mildly awkward. It showed having that much firepower on tap is certainly worth the slight inconvenience of having to angle a weapon in the prone. For precision shooting, it’s a drag. But, for supressive fire it’s not an issue. And, I didn’t see anyone doing any yoga poses to get lower using the 60-rounder.

The video says everything it needed to say by about 5:00. After that they have Bill Murphy, veteran police officer and Lead Instructor for the Surefire Institute, show the 60 rounder. He related his own experience as a patrolman using mag couplers as an inefficient alternative to something like the High Capacity Magazine. Dean Caputo, former cop, instructor and armorer grins after blowing through 60 rounds of Surefire’s marketing budget without a stoppage.

All good to see, but it’s still a marketing video. We’ll buy into the hype when we have a chance to get our hands on a few production mags.