My order from Black Dog Machining LLC just arrived.
I like the look of the smaller 30 round "skinny" magazine.
Here it is with the Christie's Products magazine loader, which is just a simple sleeve that fits over the outside of the top of the magazine with a little tab that pushes the rounds down into the magazine to make room for the next round.
Here's a closeup of the operation. Note the tab pushing the .22 LR round down into the magazine to make room for the next round.
I was able to load the new 30 round skinny mag with 30 rounds of ammo in 81 seconds. That was when I was seated at my desk, with 30 rounds in a pile on the desk in front of me. My impression was that it's a little faster than loading the rounds by hand without the mag loader, but the big advantage was the savings in wear and tear on my thumb. The mag loader (or magazine) seemed a little finicky and would catch every now and then, but overall it was a fairly smooth operation and quite a bit better than without the mag loader. Ten dollars seems a bit steep for a couple of cents worth of plastic, but this is a low volume injection molded item and the high cost of the mold must be spread over fewer sales.
If MagLULA makes a $30 loader for this magazine, I'll probably get it. I won't be spending $200 on the CNC artwork in the more automated and faster magazine loader.
The skinny mag didn't seem to manually feed as well as the blockier AR style mags. It seemed to be slow to feed the next round, especially for the first 10-15 rounds. I'm afraid that'll cause the bolt to cycle with a failure to feed. I haven't shot it yet with the new mag, so I don't know if that's true or not. It may have something to do with the offset of the rims in the skinny mag.