so as far as i understand the base pad is there to give you more to grab if your mag gets stuck and also to protect the mag if you are doing something where you drop your mag to reload and you let it hit the ground. The mags that seem to work the best for my colt are wilson combat's 8rd w/ low-profile basepad. as far as reliability goes the basepad should play no part in that.

for my colt i have tried the 7rounders that came with, wilson combat 8rd, tripp research 8rd and 10rd, and Pro Mag 8rd. the only one that didn't work was the promag, however that could have just been my colt i hear that some guns just seem to prefer certain mags.

Good luck and have fun

thanks Ponzer, appreciate your help

Stick with the standard pad for starters, there's a reason it's the standard. As for the service mags, they don't have the polymer follower and while the removable floor plate/pad don't really have to do with reliability, they do make it a heck of a lot easier to clean and change springs.

PS. Promags SUCK.

I use WW2-vintage G.I magazines in mine. They all work.
See if you can find any at local gun shows, unused if possible.
They should be relatively inexpensive, since there were so many of them.

Of course, I last bought some maybe 20 years ago...

thanks, everybody!