Magpul PMAG 27 GL9 27-Round Glock Magazine Review

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By Doc Montana •  6 min read

The Magpul PMAG 27 GL9 is Magpul’s seventh Glock-specific magazine offering. While there have been a few magazine hiccups for Glock in the past, it is not something that anyone points at a laugh as they do to some other unnamed companies. So what warrants an aftermarket magazine for what is arguably the world’s most solid pistol maker made by what is arguably the world’s largest and most respected magazine manufacturer? Well, with a mission statement like, “Providing innovation to the individual in the shortest time” there is little that Magpul cannot improve upon. And Glock mags are just the latest target in the sights of the great polymer innovator.

The Magpul PMAG 27 GL9 is a 27-round double stack 9mm magazine that fits any double stack 9mm Glock ever made from the “baby Glock” 26 to the long slide 34, and all the 19s 17s, 45s and 48s in between. In fact, of the twenty-three Glock models that shoot the 9×19 cartridge, only two are not traditional double stack and thus cannot use the Magpul PMAG 27 GL9 mag. So I guess it would have been much easier to list the 9% of 9mm Glocks that cannot shoot the new Magpul mag.

The Magpul PMAG 27 GL9 is a new round count for Glock mags. There was a gap between the 21 round Magpul 21 GL9 mag, and Glock’s own offering of it’s 33-round so called “happy stick.” So what’s magic about 27 rounds that 21 or 33 couldn’t cover? Well, several things. The big one is a procedural issue that limits mags in competition to a total length of 170 mm. How 170mm was arrived at is a fist fight waiting to happen, but 17cm is the length of a 10-11 round .45ACP single stack mag. And for this Glock fanboypreppersurvialist, I don’t view 27 rounds as an increase or a decrease. I view it as an option.

Related: Survival Gear Review: Magpul PMAG D-60 Drum Magazine

The lens through which you may view magazine capacity varies. It can be cost, concealability, anticipated need, gun limits, ammo storage, and even something as practical as weight. Well, of course there are also those location-specific limitations, but I can’t help you with that. In the case of the Magpul PMAG 27 GL9, it is to fill a very specific need that just happens to make sense to anyone who wonders about how to best prepare their 9mm double stack Glock for unconventional times.

The Magpul PMAG 27 GL9 is built of plastic polymer composition as we would expect from Magpul. However, the PMAG 27 GL9 does not have that softer feel of an AR PMAG. Rather, the feel is a harder, sharper plastic, er…polymer. In fact, the traditional Glock-branded magazines have more of an Magpul AR PMAG feel than that of the PMAG 27 GL9. The reason is simple. In Magpul’s testing, the traditional softer polymer swelled too much thus getting stuck in the mag well. Further, Glock-brand mags have a steel case wrapped by the black plastic we all know and love. The Magpuls on the other hand, have no such steel insert and therefore must retain the perfect shape with plastic alone.

The controlled-tilt follower is a welcome bright orange color making the end the line absolutely obvious. And pushing up the follower from the easily removable baseplate is a corrosion resistant stainless steel spring. And speaking of the floor plate, it has a pair of dot matrix panels that make easy recessed marking-up possible to keep your mags organized.

MTM TMCLE Tactical Mag Can Multi Mag for 223/5.56 Magazines and 9mm to 45...
  • Designed to hold 10 223/5.56 magazines and 10 9mm to 45 ACP single/double stack handgun magazines in...
  • Stackable design and triple padlock tabbed for security

Last update on 2024-11-08 at 01:43 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API

Also Read: Severe Gear Test: Magpul PMAG

For some backstory, I’m old enough to remember the launch of Glock Inc. And being who I am, I waited until the Gen2 Glock 17 came out before jumping on the polymer bandwagon. I figured that even “Tupperware” should evolve. I’d been through the ringer with other first-gun firearms, and even back then there was reason to hesitate. I thought the Gen2 Glock was the bomb until the Gen3 was released with a small under-barrel rail section. Until that time, there was little to put on a rail, but the timespace between the Gen2 and 3 allowed other gear to evolve putting tactical into the household vocabulary. Suddenly I needed a rail. Shortly after I needed a 33-round magazine. You know. Because. And several of them for the same reason.

But back to the future. We now have the Magpul PMAG 27 GL9. It is a competition legal length that provides a full 27 bangs of 9x19mm prepare-for-war (or parabellum for those Latin-challenged). But there’s more. The Magpul PMAG 27 GL9 offers a few surprised that Glock should have included if only they listened to their customers. For one, there is a full mag indicator on the Magpul PMAG 27 GL9 that’s visible from both left and right sides. Additionally there are windows that show remaining round counts of 10, 15, and 20 bangs left.

Another feature of the Magpul PMAG 27 GL9 is that either full loaded or empty or anywhere in between the mag drops free from the pistol when the dump button is pushed. Other Glock-branded mags may or may not fall free because a former feature of Glock mags was that they were designed to swell when loaded and resist gravity even when the mechanical magazine connection said “get the hell out of here.”

In the past, one feared a rogue mag more than a resistant tactical reload. Now in the 21st century, Glock just got the memo that if we want a pistol that goes bang without an active safety switch messing up the works, so too do we want our Glocks to drop the mag when the eject button is pushed. No hesitation, no questions asked.

Currently, there are three different sized Magpul mags for Glock in my kit. All have performed without a single hitch, hiccup or hangup. Glock sets the survival bar high, so whenever anyone else treads into Glockspace, there is an immediate skepticism and exceeding low tolerance for anything but perfection. And I could just as easily substitute Magpul for Glock and say the same thing. So complete interchangeability between loyalty is not an issue. Or in other words, if price is an issue, get the Magpul mags. And if the price is not an issue, get the Magpul mags.

Doc Montana

Doc honed his survival skills through professional courses, training, and plenty of real-world situations, both intentional and not. Doc lives to mountaineer, rock climb, trail run, hunt, race mountain bikes, ski, hunt, and fish. Doc Montana holds PhD’s in both Science Education and Computer Science and currently teaches at a University in the northern United States. Read his full interview here.