Photo Credit: Ed Brown Products

By Mike Keleher

This is such an unusual offer I thought I should pass it on to Guns Save Life readers.

Ed Brown Products is making a pretty amazing offer-if you mail them in your old 1911 .45 magazines, they will send you one of their brand new Stainless Steel (SS) mags with an updated follower for $10. Or their black Nitride finish mags for $15.

If you don’t know Ed Brown and the products he produced, here is the short description- he is good to go. The company has been around for 50 years and started out gunsmithing and producing parts for 1911 pistols and is well known for producing custom pistols and accessories.

This magazine exchange offer is pretty amazing. Send in your old and nasty and they will sell you a new shiny for $10! I am not sure how the company makes out on this one, but as they say- a fool and his money are soon partying and I jumped on it!

I was able to scrounge up half a dozen old .45 mags without putting much effort into the search. I have a lot of .45 mags. A lot. I formerly shot USPSA, the USPSA Single Stack Classic matches, and 3-gun heavy metal matches with Kimber .45’s- where it was impressed upon me how much fun that old 1911 platform is, and also just how often you have to keep reloading the thing! I dropped .45 mags along the 3 gun stages like bread crumbs so I could find my way back to the starting line. Following each stage resetting squad mates were always kind to help me find them without openly ridiculing me or the gun. “How many did you drop here?” “Um, about six.”

So digging out some old mags to send in to Ed Brown was easy-peasy for me and the decision was just as simple. Ed Brown magazines are well known for quality- many of my old gun show purchase and GI issue mags are mostly known for just cluttering up the bottom of a range bag and never see the light of day. I am more than ready to upgrade to a better built and modern magazine. for $10!

Another cool thing about the exchange, is Ed Brown Products will exchange you for several different types of their magazines-regardless of what type of 1911 .45 mag you send in.

You just go on their website www.edbrown.com/magexchange/ and download their order form and it lists the magazines they offer for the exchange including GI style 7 round .45 SS mags, Officer Model 7 round .45 SS mags, 8 Round .45 SS mags, 9 round 9mm SS mags, 8 round 10mm SS mags, 9 round .38 Super SS mags and Officer’s Model 8 round 9mm SS mags. The Stainless Steel flavors are all $10 each when you exchange your magazine with them.

They also offering at $15 each, Black Nitride coated magazines in 7 round GI .45, 7 round Officer Model .45, 8 round .45, 9 round 9mm and an 8 round Officer Model 9mm magazine.

What is going on here? Well the people at Ed Brown will be sitting on a pile of old magazines…I’m not sure if they will be using them as the new currency this time next year under the new Presidential administration, or just exactly what they are doing with all these used magazines…don’t care. Put my box of old dust gathering mags in the mail to them today for some new upgraded ones!



You do have to pay a shipping charge of $12.95, so it makes sense to send in several mags. For those of you good at math, or who try to explain the financial aspects of “Its just gun parts on sale” to your spouse, just bite the bullet and send in a bunch and get back a bunch to average less shipping!

I sent in half a dozen mags and the shipping only added a bit over $2.00 per mag (maybe you can do the math to the penny in your head-I can’t, and I touch a calculator about as often as I touch green salad!) You can send in as many as 20 mags to exchange.

The current order form said they had four of their new exchange mags on backorder-once again, I am good with that extra waiting period and will definitely be getting an upgraded product upon receipt.

It all makes me want to break out a 1911 style .45 and go shoot again. Maybe I can go hang outside of Bass Pro Shop and see if I can buy a dime bag of loaded .45 cartridges from a sketchy looking street corner vendor. I think you get three to a bag now for the price.