Surely it's not a new concept as there have been quad-stack magazines released previously. But Surefire is getting into this area and they have released two magazines: 60-round and 100-round STANAG aluminum AR magazines. These will be displayed at the Shot Show 2011 which is almost around the corner. Having high-capacity magazines would surely give the US infantry more sustained fire before changing magazines.

It is said that these magazines would give the infantry an anti-ambush capability as in the first bursts of fire in an ambush, the ambushed soldiers would be able to fire back, suppressing the area where the ambushers are located. This also gives the squad time to fall back and regroup as the ambushers would wonder what just fired back at them.

The advantage of this quad-stack magazine is that it provides lesser weight than having two STANAG AR magazines taped together. This also avoids the feeding issues of those "banana-type" AR magazines which we usually see used in some old movies and old photos of guerilla warfare. The 60-round magazine's length is 8.7" while the 100-rounder will be 12.2" just a little bit over a foot and surely that's a long magazine.

As for issues, it still needs to be field tested outside of Surefire by military and police organizations. We wonder if it will gain acceptance from the operators out there in the field.

The design is surely interesting, as it may provide inspiration to a new generation of high-capacity airsoft magazines. There are already 450-round high capacity magazine for AEGs, if a design based on the Surefire Quad-Stack, how many rounds would you think it would be? For starters, we'll assume that a standard high-capacity AEG M4 magazine is 300 rounds, while the standard AR magazine is 30, we double the capacity to the equivalent of the 60-round quad-stack magazine, which means an airsoft version of the 60-round quad-stack can be 600 rounds. The 100 round quad-stack airsoft version should roughly give you around 1000 bbs or the equivalent orfa little bit over 3 300-round high capacity AEG magazines. Bring at least 3, and you can be a support gunner for your airsoft squad. Anyway, we're just speculating here.

Some issues of course will need to be resolved, such as how the feeding mechanism will be for the airsoft replica. It might need a motor for electrical feeding, since the overall length of the spring will be longer and manual winding would be a chore.

If an airsoft replica is made, many milsimers would have their days ruined when someone carries one of these to a game. But for the casual airsoft gamers, they would love going rock and roll with such magazines. They will need a bigger BB bottle with them to refill their magazines while in the field.