Desert Tech, formerly Desert Tactical Arms are known for some absolutely superb bull pup design rifle systems, in fact I have one on my list of must haves one day. They are compact with a reputation for accuracy however they do have a minor issue with the magazines, they are somewhat limited when it comes to OAL which means if you are shooting a .308 Win loaded long you end up hand feeding instead of using the magazine. This also means you are going to struggle to run a custom chambering unless you resort to using the .338LM magazine and attack it with an angle grinder or similar/more subtle. having built many T3 magazine conversions in the past I was interested when a DTA owner approached me and asked if I could help with the OAL issues so today was the day to make a start and here is the finished item.
The DTA .308Win magazine is restricted in OAL by a steel web spot welded in place towards the rear of the magazine, this acts as a back stop for the follower so some imagination was needed to remove the web, in fact not only do the four spot welds need drilling out you also need to carefully grind back some very small TIG welds which appear to have been used as tack welds. Once the web is removed you can tidy up the inside.
Next step is to machine a spacer to suit, the spacer needs to allow for the longer length of round yet also support the rear edge of the follower. I had considered building a longer follower however this was a prototype so I decided to use the factory fitted plastic follower (More on followers in a bit)
Supporting the rear of the follower is easy enough as the internal width of the magazine is such that I could add a spacer machined from 6082T6 with a 12,1mm slot which centralises the rounds and gives two lips for the factory follower to run up against.
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The spacer itself is fixed in place with two stainless countersunk screws at the back to keep everything in place so there it is, job done. This magazine will now accept loaded rounds to 80,5mm which gets you into 6,5×55 territory however this OAL is easily changed at time of machining and the magazine does not look so too different from a standard version.
Now on the subject of followers… the standard DTA/Desert Tech follower is a plastic affair and has a tendency to cant if care is not taken when loading and I think there is room for improvement, the thing is when to stop, the magazine conversion does take a while to do, for the future I would hard anodise the rear spacer and adding a redesigned follower would mean things were starting to get expensive plus to make the follower perform correctly would need longer bearing surfaces front and back which is going to make it a pig to assemble and reduce the capacity by one round. It is one of those things, do you want a full magazine capacity or a magazine that loads and feeds more reliably and being very honest the load and feed issues I saw may well be down to lack of experience with the magazine and in the absence of a rifle to test with I am wrong to comment further.
What I will say is I rate the DTA/Desert Tech very highly and I am sure I will own one eventually, meanwhile the conversion is done, I have revised my drawings and working notes and I am ready for the next one!
