Is there much difference between the hinged floor plate and the detachable box mag. I understand the difference... but which is better or worse? Is there a benefit to the hinged floor plate.. I always had a detachable box mag. and now the gun i'm looking at has the hinged. Should I buy it anyways.. or is it just as good just a matter of choice. ??

Thanks Again,
Tom

PersonallyI prefer blind mags (where the stock is solid underneath) or floor plate. I hate fumbling with a magazine. I have also had friends that have had their mag fall out or slightly loosen making cycling difficult. I wouldnt NOT purchase a rifle because it has either. JMHO

Theydetachable mag haspostives and negatives.

Detachable Mag:
Positives. You can pop in another mag and be fully loaded in a hurry. If you need to do that then you may want to head back to the range, but nonetheless it is a fast reload.
Negatives:
It is one thing that could be left at home or lost, turning your gun into a single shot.
It can be ackward if you like carrying your gun with your hand on the foreplate.
I am not sure if this is a problem: I reloaded a 300 win mag Tikka for my brother and the detachable mag would only let me load out the bullets so far. The detach mag may not get me to the lands. Not sure about that though.

Another negative for the detachable that only comes into play if you are a handloader- it shortens the maximum OAL of the cartridges that will function with the magazine.

I prefer blind mag or floor plates also. For some reason mags tend to be shorter, causing seating depthproblems with heavier bullets. Ofcourse i had that same thing happen with an old style Ruger M77 in .300 win mag too. I couldn't load anything over 200gr. I barrowed my father-n-laws Rem 7400 in 30-06 a couple years ago. I had four big does walk out just before legal light was gone. I dropped two and the others ran about 50yds and stopped. I had readjusted my position to get back on them. Well my hand had touched the mag while it was kicking out the second round. The mag tilted and the bolt didnt pick up the round. I stroked the trigger like a lover. AND THE LITTLE HARLETT WENT "SNAP"!I hope that old man likes me as much as i do him. Cause i aintNEVER wanted to wrap up a gun like i did that one. I know it sounds gready, but it was the next to last day of the season. And i only got to hunt 4 days of it. But any who, i do not trust detachable mags.

Thanks Briman,

A much better way of saying

"I reloaded a 300 win mag Tikka for my brother and the detachable mag would only let me load out the bullets so far. The detach mag may not get me to the lands"

One of the reasons that I got rid of a Savage/Stevens 30/30 was because of the flimsy clip that came with it. It just didnt hold the bullets very well, so sometimes you would get a jamb up/ double load, and sometimes it would not feed a bullet at all. At the time, I was having hard time finding a new clip for it, and when I did find one they wanted $50 for it, well the gun was only worth $100 so I traded it in. Imho, hinged floor plates are the best. Reliable and you can drop the plate to empty your remaining shells rather than having to cycle them through the gun.

LOL, I didn't read the post before mine. I should try that sometime.

I have used the hinged floor plate on my Remington rifle for years but much prefer the detachable box ( clip ) on my Sako Rifles. They snap in place without any play and haven’t given me any problems in cycling in a new round when required...

Briman,

No. I am glad you wrote that. I think the readers will understand that more clearly than how I said it.