I'll admit it up front - I'm 100% spoiled by the UpLULA for all of my magazine loading needs. Is there an equivalent tool / technique / system for loading the BDM mags? This is my first long gun, so please pardon the ignorance...
My UpLula has completely spoiled me. I didn't think AR-15 mags for the PLR-16 and SU-16 were difficult to load, but the MagLula loader for the AR-15 mags has completely spoiled me there, too. I was hoping there was a MagLula magazine loader for the Black Dog Machining .22LR magazines, but there isn't... yet. However, there is a $120 mag loader from Black Dog Machining. I haven't used it but it looks and sounds very nice. The .22 LR rounds are dumped loose into a bin and they're automatically oriented and loaded into the magazine. The price is so high because these are machined products. It looks like the demand is so high that when Black Dog Machining made a prototype to test, customers wanted to buy the expensive prototype, and BDM gave in to customer demand. They're working on a more manufacturable magazine loader that is made from less expensive injection molded parts. The market will be large (essentially anyone who must push those little .22 rounds into the BDM magazine), but it's not a huge market, so the cost of the injection molding tooling won't be spread over millions of units. Even then, I expect the magazine loader to be in the $40 to $50 range, and I'd buy one at that rate. Almost all of this was discussed in a recent SU-22 thread, starting at the bottom of my initial SU-22 range report. http://www.ktog.org/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1218851532/15#17 "Is there a mag loader?" is an obvious question to ask as soon as a PLR-22 or SU-22 is taken to the range. The topic definitely deserves its own thread.
Thanks for that thread link, L4E. Though it sounds pricey, I think a $50 loader, if and when available, would be a great addition in the range bag.
I have the Black Dog mag loader - very well made, very fast, very easy on arthritic fingers, very expensive, but..................it's now very easy to go the range with three magazines and spend more time shooting than loading. As I get older, it's much easier to "work smart than hard" and keeps this all fun. I justified the money MUCH easier than my wife did, by the way.
Thanks for the heads up on the BDM loader, jst4kix. I looked at the price and just couldn't justify it. After loading four 26 rd mags, justification came rather easily. There's a bit of a learning curve with it, but it certainly beats fingers and thumbs. I got mine for $113 shipped. It's a solid tool, nothing cheap about it. With another mag coming with my new PLR-22, it was an easy decision.
