I have a few comments to make about the 18 and 15 round magazines that came with my FN Reflex XL. Perhaps my experience might help someone else – I have read that many have problems fully loading and/or cycling issues when they are new.
I fully loaded and unloaded both magazines daily for weeks prior to going to the range with them. Getting that 18th round in felt like the Uplula tongue was going to break off! The trick I found was to lean the Uplula forward to make the tongue parallel to the 17th round compressed down into the magazine. At the range I could not rack the slide after inserting the fully loaded 18 rounder on a closed slide. It also did not cycle when fired with one in the pipe and the fully loaded 18 round seated. The 15 round worked perfect from day one even loading to 15 +1 in the pipe.
Things had not gotten any better with the 18 round magazine after months of loading and unloading. So, I finally thought of a couple of things that seem to have loosened it up enough I can rack the slide with 18 in the magazine and 1 in the pipe. The 1st thing I did was empty the magazine and fully depress the follower with an unsharpened pencil. I repeated this 20 cycles up and down, rested my hand, and repeated until 100 cycles. That made the first 17 rounds go in easier, but that 18th was still stubborn. I still couldn’t rack the slide with a full magazine. I took it apart just in case to examine and clean it. Parts went flying when I removed the base plate. I have no way of knowing how it was assembled from the factory, but there is a feature in an internal plate (not the base plate) that needs to thread onto the spring. It now cycles by hand racking the slide after reassembling with the plate properly threaded onto the spring. Was it the pencil cycles, or the assembly, or a combination, I don’t care, it seems to be working. BTW, the plate will only go into the magazine threaded from the proper side, but it will go in either way if not threaded onto the spring.
