If you own a Yugo M57 Tokarev pistol, you probably love it for the extra round it holds (over other TT’s) and the low price you paid for a gun in such nice condition. On the other hand, you probably dislike that spare magazines are unavailable or priced at nearly half the cost of the gun…
Well, Custom Classic Sporting Arms is producing a reproduction magazine for the Yugo M57. Now personally I hate having to sift through a boring write-up to find out if the reviewer deems the product of interest worthwhile. So I’ll save those folks the trouble by say YES, buy these magazines. Buy them in confidence that the company selling them is doing everything they can to make these magazines equal to or better than the original magazines. I own 2 M57’s that came with 4 original magazines and purchased 6 of the CCSA spares. That doesn’t make me an expert, but it does give me a large enough sample (of each piece) to form a reasonably educated opinion.
I’ll go on to say that it’s very costly tooling up to make a high quality pistol magazine for a surplus handgun (of which a finite number of are in circulation) is a risky proposition. These magazines are currently $28.95 each – which at first glance seems a bit pricey. Consider that the custom tooling required to make them costs thousands of dollars and there are only so many M57 owners out there. Out of those who have M57’s, how many of those will find 2 magazines per handgun insufficient? Now you start to see my point. As much as I’d have preferred to see them at a price lower for me to have picked up a few more, I’m just thrilled that they are even available at all.
So lets talk about the M57 mags. If you’re not sure what works best to carry or store them, consider USGI surplus molle magazine pouches. ACU seems to be the current issue, so if you’re willing to buy what’s being phased out (woodland or 3-color desert camo) – you can get them for ~$3 a piece. Instead of carrying a single 9mm double stack mag, you can easily slip a pair of M57 mags in the same space. Simply weave inside the lower molle strap and the pouch will work just fine on pretty much any belt you might be wearing.
Usually when I compare a reproduction magazine to an original, I’m noting all of the shortcomings of the re-pop. Not this time. CCSA didn’t cut corners on building the best magazine possible. Even the blueing was well done and I’d rate them on par (or better) than the factory magazines in materials, workmanship, and finish.
Please note that in all subsequent photos, the original Yugo magazine is on the left and the CCSA mag is to the right:
Here’s a closer look at the finish to the edges of the metal of both magazines. IMHO, the CCSA mag is much cleaner on all edge finishing. Does those small details matter? Maybe – maybe not, but it’s sure one less issue that could cause a problem
Taking a look inside and at the finish of all major components, I feel confident in my appraisal of the CCSA’s magazine quality. While they lack a lanyard loop, some would consider it redundant as the pistol already has it’s own lanyard attachment point. If you want to lash your mag to your pistol, you’ll just have to use one of your original mags for that.
The only real departure in the way these magazines compare is the direction that the magazine spring is wound. They are reverse from each other. I’m not an engineer and I haven’t had a chance to compare function at the range just yet. Using a chopstick to depress the follower, both magazines seem to feel about the same, but that’s about all I can say in the absence of live fire testing.
Without speculating on the function of the CCSA mags v.s. the originals, most folks are aware of the fact that there are some annoying quirks with factory magazines. Of my four Yugo originals, one of them will occasionally slip the follower past the slide lock. Anyone that’s had that happen knows what a PITA it is to have to tear the gun apart to get the magazine loose. None of my CCSA mags has done that so far. I did note that one of my CCSA mags made it nearly impossible to depress the slide release (on an empty magazine) to close the action. When I spoke with Michael at CCSA, me mentioned that if that happens to just twist the top two coils slightly away from the step in the follower so that it can feed down the magazine body instead of getting the spring loop caught between the follower step and the opening in the mag body. Easy fix for sure and I only had one of my CCSA mags do that. Copying a magazine so exactly tends to copy its faults as well, but I know from following news on CCSA’s website that they are tweaking spec’s to solve problems that could have been carried over from the original design.
Anyway, speaking of dealing with CCSA, I had e-mailed them quite some time back before they had the new updated followers delivered. I had a question about ordering and I received a prompt reply letting me know that the “cart” charges your credit card right away when you check out and they had no control over that, so I might want to wait until they announced the new parts had arrived. I always appreciate honesty, and it freed up my money in case something came along that I couldn’t pass up in the meantime. When the new followers arrived, I ordered and my mags arrived about a week later. I actually thought they got them out to me pretty fast, as I knew that they had a lot of magazines that were in to be fixed with the new followers. They arrived in a USPS priority mail carton and IIRC, shipping was a reasonable $5.
I had a couple questions that I called and asked about (leaving a message and my number). Michael was prompt in returning my call and took the time to give thorough advice on the magazines. All in all it was a real pleasure dealing with the folks at CCSA and I have 100% confidence in their commitment to making customers happy. That can be a rare thing to find in today’s world and as such deserves mention especially since they didn’t know I had planned to write about my magazines in this level of detail.
Wrapping this up, I will say that all 6 of my CCSA mags fit identical in both of my M57’s. It took a good bit of effort to seat them (until they catch) unless the slide was open as the engagement notch is cut on the “tight side”. This condition is WAY better than being too loose – because then there’s nothing you can do about it. For me, I elected to use a jeweler’s file to take a couple light swipes across the mag-catch notch to make them easier to seat with the slide closed. Now my CCSA mags actually fit nicer than any of the originals and are now just as easy to seat fully. If you feel your CCSA mags fit a little too tight on the catch, you might want to take a “sharpie” and blacked the metal lip so you can easily avoid removing too much material. If you do that, you’ll ruin the magazine instead of making it easier to catch. In the end and having seen the product as up close as I have, I think $29 for a magazine of this quality is a bargain.
That’s it, I hope this information helps someone else in the same way I’ve benefited from all the stuff that others post. I’m not affiliated with CCSA in any way and I bought these magazines out of my own pocket. I can also say that if it weren’t for the availability of these magazines, I might not have been as open to buying a pair of pistols in a caliber that I own no other firearms in.
