The MARS carriers are our answer to carrying magazines in a robust, rugged, and accessible method. Basically what you have is a .125 Kydex molded mag carrier. So it's very similar to our Ragnarok series with adjustable retention made for specific families or sizes of magazines. What we have are four different versions of MARS carrier. We have the pistol version, which has three inside of that, the rifle carrier, which has one for that so far. For the pistol, we have the G-model, which is a little CNC routed G on the inside. What this indicates is this mag carrier is a little bit wider, little bit fatter, a little bit thicker. That's going to accommodate your Glock magazines and other double stack polymer cased, you know, covered magazines. Other magazines on the market. They're a little bit larger so that you have good retention, but there's a lot of other magazines on the market that are that slimmer, more traditional profile like for the Beretta M9, CZ75, things like that.
And for that we have a S1 that is CNC routed on the inside of the mag carrier. So you can see which version it is. And that's for your slimmer double-stack magazines that won't fit so well inside of the G-sized mag carrier. And then you have the quite large 2011, which doesn't really fit in the G or definitely not the S1. And we have a special mag carrier for that with a 2011 that is routed on the inside there. So of these three types of pistol MARS carrier you will (you know) choose based on which handgun you have, and then you'll adjust the retention accordingly with the two screws on the side. We also have a 5.56 carrier. This fits all of your standard STANAG sized magazines, Lancer, Steelcase, PMAG. all sorts out there. It will not fit AR-10 dp… You know… SR-25 pattern magazines or Kalashnikov—for those of you out there who are communist—will not fit those magazines, but perhaps there'll be something in the future for you guys. But basically the main goal of this mag carrier is a mag carrier that you can wear on a standard belt. That is kydex, so it's extremely fast, so you're not dealing with pull tabs. You're not dealing with flaps. Something that can be, you know, worn either for like concealment or something on like a competition belt and it… There are some pros to having a Kydex mag carrier over a nylon mag carrier particularly in the speed area. And a lot of people when they see these think "Oh well the retention, you know, the magazine's just gonna fly right out." Well, you can tighten these mag carriers down so hard that the magazine won't come out at all.
So you can definitely adjust your retention accordingly based on, you know, the equipment that you're wearing or based on what you're comfortable with. And you can have it nice and loose for speed or you can have it nice and tight and that thing isn't coming out at all.
But what I wanna go ahead and show you guys is the mag carrier… One of the features of this mag carrier is just how modular it is. We have a hole pattern on the back that allows you to rotate the Blade-tech Tek-lok so you can get whatever angle you need. You can even go full 90 degrees on the front, which some guys like to do with the rifle magazines—for wearing armor and things like that—Or you could just give yourself a progressive cant based on (you know) having your man carriers in the front and as they work their way to the back, they start to straighten out just for that enhanced body mechanics and all that good stuff for efficient reloading and accessing those magazines.
So I'm gonna go ahead and show you guys the hole pattern on the inside. On the pistol carrier, you have all these little holes right here with a couple of them being a little bit elongated. This allows you to articulate the Tek-Lok— which is our recommended attachment for this mag carrier—to really get whatever you want these ship in a traditional straight up and down angle, which works well from, you know, right on your hip all the way to the back. But if you wanna start running these in the front, I highly recommend you do a little bit of a cant just to make the magazine a little bit easier to grab. And also put it at an angle, so if you're wearing armor, that magazine isn't jabbing you right in the plates. So I'm gonna show you guys how to articulate this. What we're gonna do is I'm just gonna use two screws. These come with three rubber washer-screw-post. Then I place the Tek-Lok. This is where I can start playing around. I have used a lot of these so I already know kind of where I need to put the screws. But right now I can see this is a little bit of a shallow angle. It's not gonna be super crazy. So this will be my second magazine. The first magazine's gonna be a little bit more angled and now I'm just gonna screw this down.
So there we go. We have just a little bit of cant, which will make the magazine a little bit easier to grab right here on the hip than being straight up and down where I'm gonna have to jack my elbow out a little bit. And now I can take other magazines, I can angle them accordingly and build out five pistol mags if that's what I want. Four… Three… Whatever it is. But I'm gonna go ahead and build these out to put on our speed belt, which is another one of our recommended ways of using this particular mag carrier. It's kinda what this mag carrier is sort of built around are those traditional… Traditional two piece competition style belts—which have now also entered the more tactical space out there—just because they're a little bit easier to modify on the fly than the nylon pouches as far as your angle and your cant. And the Tek-Lok just makes it really easy to change out different mag carriers. If you know you have a belt like this and you have a single rifle, two pistol and you're like, "Hey, I'm just doing pistol training, don't really need the rifle mag right now." Really easy to remove this rifle mag carrier
And then attach another pistol mag carrier. And that's one reason the MARS carrier and the Tek-Lok combo is just really nice if you are using a lot of different equipment out there and you're not constantly having to MOLLE, you know, you know… Little strips or the Fight Light, you know, Tactical Tailor MALICE clips. You're not constantly having to modify those. You can literally just open this up, shut it, lock it with the little lock piece here on the bottom and you're good to go.
So let's go ahead and take this speed belt that's bare and add the appropriate mag carriers to it. Because this is a two piece belt and I have hook velcro on the inside. Once I actually put my Tek-Lok and position my Tek-Lok on the belt that's going to be eating up some of that hook space. And so what we are offering as well, cuz, and I highly recommend this—especially if you're just layering Tek-Loks here on the side, because that's gonna mean this entire side of your belt isn't adhered to your inner belt—is taking one of these velcro patches—You can also buy a roll of adhesive loop velcro and then you can cut the hook into sections—But we've got this to just make it a little bit easier for you guys. Take one of these sections, peel it off, and then literally stick it on the back of the Tek-Lok ensuring that it properly sticks. And so now it's not going to interrupt the hook velcro that you have going on so that your entire belt can actually stay stuck to your waist. So I've got the 90 degree mag carrier here all the way at the side, which is what I want. And I'm gonna have two angled mag carriers here in the front, which will make them a little bit easier to grab.
When you're setting retention on the MARS carriers. It's best to be experimenting with the retention with a full magazine so you have all the weight and also on your body as well. But just right here, I could start messing around with it. This one's pretty tight back here. Just gonna loosen the two screws on the side slightly.
Oh, come on.
So that's pretty good. I might want it a little bit tighter than that. This one's pretty good. That one's pretty good as well. So you could really tighten it and adjust it on the fly. You know, maybe want it tighter in the front and it's a little bit looser back here. Just whatever you want, you'll be good to go. And then if you want to add in the rifle mag carrier, no problem, just open up the Tek-Lok, drop it on. And as far as the rifle magazine carrier compatibility goes. So on this particular one I've got a PMAG, but they can also accommodate STANAG 20 round traditional M-16 magazines just fine. This is one of the QT… QT you know, the expensive ones or that that some companies call it the 042 Q4 Magazine, Steelcase magazines or STANAG… Steel Mag… STANAG magazines Fits well Scar-16 magazines specifically. Probably loosen the mag carrier just a little bit. PMAG, that's fine. Lancer with .300 blackout, not a problem as well. And then of course, if you want to get a little wild, you can do something like this PMAG 40 and that's the the clearance you're gonna get on that bad boy.
But as you can see, 20 round magazines still fit really nicely in this. If that's something that you're doing. If you're wearing a bunch of kit and you just want your little speed load mag on the side to be a 20 so it doesn't interfere with your plates. The kydex doesn't go up so high that it, you know, prevents you from getting, you know, a good, good purchase on the magazine. And that was something that was really important to us when we were designing the MARS carrier, ensuring there's just enough, you know, height in the kydex to give good retention on the magazine, but it's also exposed enough, (the magazine's exposed enough) that you can actually get to it and grab it. And kydex can sometimes… I remember years ago, people would see, you know, a MARS carrier like this and go, "Well, so much of the magazine's exposed, there's no retention."
Well, no, you can actually get a lot of retention even on just the very bottom part of the magazine to the point that the magazine won't even come out at all. So that's something that was really important to us with the MARS carrier. Accessibility is a huge goal of ours, which is why it's scalloped in the front. That's why it also has an enlarged opening. So it's easier to tac-reload into if you are doing something like that. So if you're looking for a rugged, robust mag carrier solution out there that's also very fast, that offers good accessibility for whatever type of pistol you have or for your standard STANAG type of magazine for your rifle definitely check out the MARS carrier, especially if you're running something like a two piece belt like our speed belt.
I don't necessarily recommend you put MOLLE straps on this and try to put it onto a MOLLE belt. I recommend you use the Esstac KYWIs for that instead. There's just a little bit better real estate on those. They work a little bit better with MALICE clips or with, you know, a MOLLE solution. But if you're running a two piece belt, that's where the MARS carrier really shines. Or if you're just throwing it onto your pants belt just real quick… Keeping… No velcro on the back. Open it up, throw it on, clip it into place. Now I have that magazine for wearing my Ironside holster. Maybe I have a Sidecar on. So that could be really fast. It allows some efficient training on the range. So if you have any other questions about the MARS carriers in general or their compatibility with other products on the market, go ahead and email us [email protected].