Magpul Hunter Bottom Metal

I recently picked up a Magpul Hunter Bottom Metal to install in a Bell and Carlson stock.  The Magpul Bottom Metal is designed for their Magpul Hunter stock and allows it to accept the Accuracy International AICS detachable magazines.  I have been wanting to add a detachable magazine to my Bell and Carlson stock and most of the bottom metals require fitting in that stock.  The Magpul bottom metal was cheaper than most of the other options available and includes one 5 round magazine.  I ordered the bottom metal and an extra magazine.

Take a look at the unboxing here:


It took me a little while to fit the stock to the bottom metal.  I had to remove material from the stock, primarily towards the front of the magwell.  I would have had to remove some of the aluminum bedding material, but decided to trip the magwell itself instead.

Here is another video with the bottom metal installed and some of my early thoughts with it:


Overall I am pleased with the bottom metal so far.  The Magpul AICS magazines load and feed very smoothly.  The rounds have stripped and fed into the chamber almost without an issue.

The magazines are a tight fit in the magazine well.  I do have to make sure that they are positively seated until they click.  Also, due to the tight fit, they are not even close to dropping free.  In fact, the magazines barely even move when the magazine release is depressed.

The issue I have noticed is that occasionally the rounds will move forward in the magazine and catch on the underside of the feed ramp.  When I try to move the bolt forward it jams the round in place and prohibits the rifle from loading.  The solutions is to pull the bolt back, then reach in through the ejection port and pull the top case back towards the rear.  This was mainly an issue during testing once I initially installed the bottom metal.

I am curious to here from users that installed the bottom metal on an actual Magpul Hunter stock.  It is entirely possible that the issues I am having are related to modifying both the stock and the bottom metal to get it to fit.

This could be a huge issue if you were using the Magpul Bottom Metal for anything more than just a square range session.  When I took the rifle to the range to test out, I noticed that this only seemed to happen on the first round once, if it happened at all.  I never had a problem with recoil moving the rounds enough to cause a jam.

I will be watching the issue closely to see if it continues and to see what can be done to fix it.  At some point I would like to get into some long range precision shooting competitions and having a detachable magazine system that doesn't feed reliably would be a deal breaker.

Magpul has 10 round AICS pattern magazines listed on their website, but they don't appear to be available yet.  I will definitely get a couple of the 10 round magazines once they are available to use as well.

Overall I'm satisfied with the Magpul Hunter Bottom Metal.  I will continue to watch the feeding issues closely to see how much of a problem it is, but for around $100 for the bottom metal and two magazines, it is a cost effective way to add a detachable magazine system.



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