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Would the design of two magazines in one work? One stacked in front of the other in the same magazine well.... In any weapon system? I was thinking about traditional high capacity magazines (not drums) and they extend pretty far down (Surefire 60 and 100 round magazines) but what about one that is horizontally stacked and not vertical? I am sure you could make a weapon system around it.

Lastly you think you could use a regular magazine in it as well? Like a secondary way of taking ammo like how a M429 can also use a regular 30 round magazine as a secondary to its box magazine?

See attachment, it will make more sense.

Why would you do this? You add a lot of mass to the mechanism, the only advantage I can see is to carry two different types of ammo at once, and that could be better achieved by having a compartmentalised magazine.

Eh I don’t care if it’s practical I’m just curious if you could do it. It kinda makes sense for ammunition capacity and the length of the magazine. If your in the prone position having an over extended magazine could expose more of the shooter then necessary.

But again I’m just curious if you could theoretically do it.

It'll slow the fire rate, since the bolt has to travel further.

I guess like drum magazines you could do it, and if you do it well then it might even work well enough in the field. But also like drum magazines, people are probably only ever going to do it once, as the advantages don't really count for much compared to all the hassle.

usmcmidn wrote:
Eh I don’t care if it’s practical I’m just curious if you could do it. I

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

usmcmidn wrote:
It kinda makes sense for ammunition capacity and the length of the magazine.

There have been attempts at extra wide magazines before to increase capacity without affecting strength. The problem is, like with a drum magazine, the mechanism to properly move the rounds and keep it feeding properly as it the magazine narrows to one round at a time is less reliable and much harder to make than any standard magazine would ever be. A alternating double stack magazine is fairly simple and straight forward. Try to make it three or four stacks, and the whole feed process is suddenly that much more complicated.

A fore/aft arrangement like shown in the picture would be even more complicated on the gun side as well and the potential for 'hilarious' misfeeds seems pretty high.

If I’m understanding you correctly and the picture you want to have two rounds in the chamber and fire them at the same time ? That’s not going to work. I’m no expert on guns but what happens when the first round is hit by the breach block and explodes forward into the second ? The only way it would work is using a switch to swap between mags so only one round in the chamber at a time. Even then its still going to complicated as your breach block will have to travel a different distance.

This:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungle_style_(firearm_magazines)

Is the home done version of increasing capacity while maintaining magazine length (side-to-side, rather then fore/aft).

It works, it's not been formally adopted, so something is clearly missing.

A magazine double forward would also be fairly unwieldy and cumbersome.

usmcmidn wrote:
Would the design of two magazines in one work? One stacked in front of the other in the same magazine well.... In any weapon system?

I remember exactly one thing like that, an early 1900s pistol in a rather small caliber. It kept the complexity down a bit though: you had to eject the first magazine, slide the other in place and rack the slide before you could continue shooting. The only reason this works in a pistol is that the caliber really is pretty small and people can still hold the weapon.

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/sunngard-automatic-pistol-50-rounds-in-1909/

A system where you don't have to switch magazines in some fashion? Very unlikely since that would make the weapon much more complex and add possible problems. Whether hunting, law enforcement, sports or war, you want a weapon that malfunctions as little as possible when it comes to the basic task of firing shots at your target.

There seems to be a good reason not to do stuff like this:
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/experimental-triple-magazine-henry-rifle/

There are side-by-side magazines or tubes, mostly for curiosity guns, but while those avoid most of the reliability problems they instead add weight because all of (or a lot of) the action is also present in duplicate. Unless you have a really specific reason to want one (elephant hunting, maybe) there's really little need for a hunting rifle with twin barrels, bolts and magazines.

not with any practicality... you'd need something to stop the rounds in the fore magazine fouling the action, until that mag was emptied, which would then release somewhere in the fire/unlock/extract/eject sequence of the last round of that mag.

then you've got the issue of each set of rounds having a different return spring length which could affect any part of the sequence.
you'd need a double wide ejection port, increasing the risk of fouling from empty cases or other debris.

The whole thing would be jam city. I'd rather just execute an unload/load. would probably be more reliable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
why does the picture look like a chainsaw?

The picture is from the Gears of war Lancer Mk2 which uses like 4 magazines at the same time.

I don’t want two cartridges loading into the chamber at the same time just one. I was thinking a cylindrical style of bolt to grab a cartridge from the first magazine, blow back once it has been shot and then cycle through grabbing a cartridge from the second one somehow?

Again this is purely if you can do it, a “fun” concept.

Ah haha..that makes sense! completely unfeasible chainsaw bayonet aside...

yeah, so a standard bolt. the issue you'd have there is that you'd need an even more complex mechanism built into either the receiver, or the magazine itself to stop every alternate round from each magazine being caught by the returning bolt.

I'm sure you probably could design some sort of mechanism, but my initial thoughts are that it would be super complex, and super complex in firearms means problems..jam city, as I said.

now a concept that I have an easier time envisaging, is a receiver with the capability to be loaded with 2 magazines fed into the same space, but from different angles..like the M249 or minimi with its standard box mag capacity, but featuring a magazine selector, so you could change between say, ball and AP rounds with the flick of a button. I guess this could work with your design too in fairness.

Simple answer, yes, but you would make it side by side and slide the magazine left/right.

There actually was a gun like this, I believe, but of course it's much simpler to have a good, reliable single magazine you can swap quickly.

An easy way to get more capacity is to use a smaller cartridge. The P90 has a 50 round box mag.

Could you? Sure. Would you? No. It accomplishes nothing.

That magazine design won't work because you're trying to feed two bullets at once. You'd still need the magazine to feed rounds one at a time. The M249 can use normal .556 magazines because it can quickly be converted to accept them, but it does involve altering the firearm in the field. IE: You can't belt and mag feed it at the same time.

The only way to have extended magazine capacity without using a drum magazine and also not having the magazine just be longer would be to increase the stacking of the rounds sideways. Most rifle magazines are double stack(2 rounds side by side). So you'd need to increase them to 3 or 4 stack.

This is a Quad-stack 60 round 7.62x39mm magazine.



I own one of these. Its alright. Pain in the butt to load it, especially the last few rounds, and the feed lips are a little soft, but its fun for plinking at the range. The big selling point is that loaded with 60 rounds it is lighter than two 30 round steel magazines and its overall length is the same.

From a practical standpoint, the concept could work, but it would need a little tinkering.


The only reason you'd ever want two magazines in one gun is if it was double barreled.