Patent ID: 8028455

Claim:
A firearms magazine for retaining and feeding firearms cartridges comprising: a housing having a base capable of vertically stacking a plurality of firearms cartridges, the cartridges having a cartridge base, a cartridge nose, and a cartridge shoulder between the base and nose; opposite side walls above the housing base, at least a portion of which are non-parallel and taper in the direction of longitudinal axes of the cartridges from a greater internal width adjacent the cartridge base to a lesser internal width adjacent the cartridge shoulder, the non-parallel tapered opposite side wall portions being capable of retaining and feeding the firearms cartridges; and feed lips at an open end of and extending from the non-parallel tapered opposite side wall portions for engaging a firearms cartridge as it is loaded from the magazine into a gun, the feed lips having ends adjacent the cartridge base and cartridge shoulder, the ends of the feed lips adjacent the cartridge base extending inward from the side wall portion toward the cartridge a greater distance than the ends of the feed lips adjacent the cartridge shoulder, the feed lips having substantially parallel upper edges between the end portions for simultaneously maintaining contact with at least a portion of the length of the cartridge between the cartridge base and the cartridge shoulder as it is loaded.