I've never been a fan of hi-caps for airsoft. Too much temptation to 'spray & prey'. Plus of course you need to wind them and they rattle. So i always use mid-caps. Unless i'm using the '60 which is a different story. The Snow Wolf/Matrix pulse rifle comes with a 200-round hi-cap which is similar in size to an MP5 magazine (note to you Americans; It's a 'magazine', not a 'clip'
). It also shares the same similarities to an MP5 hi-cap in that it doesn't always feed too well. Due to the shallow width, sometime the rounds don't fall down into the winding mechanism too well. Plus of course, having a 200 round hi-cap means the ammo counter becomes redundant, unless you stop/start it when it gets to zero.As far as Thompson mid-caps go you don't have a great deal of choice. It's pretty much King Arms all the way. The cheapest place i found these was Ehobbyasia at about £35 posted. They come in box of five by the way. The magazines themselves are actually really well made. They are solid ABS. They are however the 'wrong' size. They are the longer '30 round' Thompson size as opposed to the 20 round size the pulse rifle requires. They take 110 rounds but after cut done they should be close to the grail of 95 rounds. This gives you three options -
1 - Cut a hole in the base-plate or remove the base plate and use as-is. Protruding from the rifle
2 - Make a base-plate that is slightly longer to accommodate the extra length
3 - Cut the magazine down to the correct length
I went for the third option.
AT THIS POINT DON'T FORGET TO REMOVE THE SPRINGS !
So the first thing to do is to measure the magazines. Here is (left to right) a 200 round hi-cap. A 200 round hi-cap with a baseplate attached (Secured using fibreglass). a King Arms mid-cap :
Attachment:
2013-04-11 10.41.10.jpg [ 219.66 KiB | Viewed 7305 times ]
The first thing i noticed about the mid-cap is that it didn't actually lock in to the rifle. This is cured by grinding the hole in the back a little higher :
Attachment:
2013-04-11 11.07.34.jpg [ 104.99 KiB | Viewed 7305 times ]
In order to make my mid-caps the same length as my hi-cap (plus the extra length so i can glue a base-plate directly to the bottom !) i need to remove 32mm. You obviously cannot take that from the bottom of the magazine as the BB channel inside is 'U' shaped. Therefore you need to cut from the middle. So measure out your 32mm :
Attachment:
2013-04-11 11.25.00.jpg [ 123.88 KiB | Viewed 7305 times ]
To cut a clean edge i used a mitre block and a hacksaw :
Attachment:
2013-04-11 11.25.10.jpg [ 118.51 KiB | Viewed 7305 times ]
Once you've done all your cutting you need to make sure that all the internal edges are cleaned up. You can see how much swarf you get from cutting. Make sure it's ALL gone :
Attachment:
2013-04-11 11.52.18.jpg [ 117.24 KiB | Viewed 7305 times ]
. Didn't think about it