Speed Beez Lever Loader Review: 37% Faster Glock Mag Loading
Stiff springs and raw thumbs? Not today. We find out if Speed Beez is truly the fastest loader in the West. Here is what it fits, where it falls short, and where to buy it.
The Speed Beez Lever Loader filled a 17-round Glock magazine 37 percent faster than our thumbs did, took factory mags and PMAGs, and fed ball, steel case and hollow points without a hiccup. However, your hand still works for a living, and you need a different loader for just about every gun you own.
Reasons to Buy
- 37 percent faster than thumbs on average, 46 percent for one of us
- Scissor action needs no table: brace it against your body and go
- Rounds stop rolling and shoving each other around
- Took factory Glock magazines and Magpul PMAGs, and fed ball, steel case and hollow points
- Dense molded body, a hinge with no slop in it
Reasons to Skip
- Your hand still gets a workout: the last rounds feel like cutting cardboard with scissors
- The grip works better backwards: flip it and put your thumb through the yellow ring
- One loader per platform, and ours is labeled only G17, so you look up what it fits
- On the high side for a plastic accessory, and direct orders under $100 add $5.95 shipping
This Speed Beez Lever Loader review started with one question: is a $26 piece of plastic worth buying when your thumbs are free?
Speed Beez says its lever loader is the fastest, easiest way to fill a magazine. That is a bold claim for a scissor-shaped block of polymer, and exactly the kind of claim we like to check with a stopwatch.
So we did. Two of us loaded a 17-round Glock magazine ten times each, five by thumb and five with the loader. Then we ran factory mags, PMAGs, ball, steel case and hollow points through it, and let it ride along for a 300-round afternoon at the range.
What mattered most to us: is it faster, does it take the magazines and ammo you already own, and does it beat the free loader in the Glock box and the $35 universal loader everyone compares it to? Keep reading.
Specs
- Action: scissor-style lever with a magazine catch
- Material: molded polymer body with a honeycomb texture, polymer lever with a finger ring
- Made in: USA
- Price: $25.95 direct plus $5.95 flat shipping on orders under $100
Why You Can Trust This Review
Full disclosure: we bought this loader with our own money, direct from Speed Beez, in November 2025. It was $24.95 then, a dollar less than it is today, plus $5.95 shipping. We ordered the Glock 19 compatible model and the AR-15 one. Speed Beez didn’t give this to us for free, they don’t even know we exist, and they had no input on this review.
- Product Tested: Speed Beez Lever Loader LLG940 for Glock 9mm magazines
- Price Paid: $24.95 plus $5.95 shipping, direct
- Magazines: Glock factory 17-round and 15-round, two Magpul PMAG 15 GL9
- Ammo Through It: Federal Champion 115 grain ball, Magtech steel case, SIG Elite V-Crown 124 grain hollow points
- Timed Runs: five by thumb and five with the loader, per person, on the factory 17-round magazine, September 18, 2026
- Tested By: Justin Trump, CAT Outdoors founder, and Matt Wilkins, our reviews and photo lead
We tested with two sets of hands on purpose – Justin and Matt. While other sites like to have just one person doing everything, we try to bring you multiple perspectives. We actually like when there’s conflicting viewpoints. Justin bought the loader and has used it on and off for a year. Matt Wilkins, who runs our camera and review work and is the gear head on the team, had never touched one before the test session, which is exactly why he ran half the timed loads and held the stopwatch for the other half.
This review is based on our actual experience with the loader, both the good and bad.
First Impressions: A Label That Says G17 and Nothing Else
Out of the bag it is a black polymer body about the size of a Glock 17 magazine, a honeycomb texture on both sides, a hex-shaped Speed Beez badge, and a yellow lever with a finger ring, the only splash of color on the thing. It weighs next to nothing, and there are no instructions, because there is nothing to assemble.
We liked the look, and it felt well made, unlike some of the cheap speed loaders you find online.
The label was our first speed bump. Ours reads G17, and for the life of me couldn’t remember what it was compatible with. We bought it for a Glock 19, and a year later, standing at the bench, we had to look up whether the G17 loader takes 19 magazines. It does. Every double-stack 9mm Glock magazine shares the same body, so one loader covers the 17, 19, 26, 34, 45 and 47. Speed Beez knows this, which is why the product page lists all of them. The label does not.
The action makes sense the second you try it. Slide a magazine up into the body until the catch clicks. Drop a round in the window at the top, case first. Squeeze the yellow ring toward the body, and a lever pushes the round down and back under the feed lips. Let go, drop the next one.
There is no pushing down on a table or your thigh, which is what most other loaders need; the scissor motion works against itself, so you can do it standing up with the loader braced against your stomach. Matt called that the best part before he had loaded ten rounds.
How We Tested
Both of us loaded a factory 17-round Glock 17 magazine ten times: five by thumb, then five with the loader. The clock started with the first round in hand and stopped when the seventeenth seated.
Justin may have been humming to some Beach Boys during his timed run.
Here were our results:
- Justin, thumbs: 41.07 seconds average
- Justin, loader: 22.31 seconds, 45.7 percent faster
- Matt, thumbs: 36.55 seconds
- Matt, loader: 26.28 seconds, 28.1 percent faster
- Both shooters: 36.9 percent faster with the loader
Averaged across both of us, the loader was ~37 percent faster. You can see the difference.
While the two results are not the same, the difference showed us something. Justin found a grip he liked and his times fell by nearly half. Matt kept the factory hold, spent his runs finding the tempo of when to squeeze, and came out 28 percent faster. More on the grip below, because it is the difference between liking this thing and loving it.
The comparison everyone asks about is the free plastic loader that comes in the Glock case. We have used it for years, and here’s our take: while it is easier on your thumbs, that is all it is. It does not make you faster. The Speed Beez does.
Magazines and Ammo: What Fits
It fits every double-stack 9mm Glock magazine: 17, 19, 26, 34, 45 and 47, and Speed Beez says the 33-round sticks too. We loaded factory 17-round and 15-round magazines and two Magpul PMAG 15 GL9s. All of them locked in, loaded and released without a hitch.
Speed Beez lists Glock, Magpul and Extar magazines as compatible. Metal aftermarket magazines like Men-Gar do not fit. We did not test a 33-round or extended-baseplate magazine.
Ammo did not matter. Round-nose ball, steel case Magtech and SIG V-Crown hollow points all fed straight through a full magazine. Nothing tipped, nothing hung up, and the rounds came out looking the way they went in.
The Grip Is Backwards (and Your Hand Still Works)
Here is the thing nobody tells you: the loader does not eliminate hand fatigue. It changes it.
Thumb loading wears out the pad of your thumb. The lever wears out the muscle at the base of it, because the squeeze gets stiffer with every round as the magazine spring stacks up, and by round fifteen it feels like cutting cardboard with a pair of scissors. Different fatigue, not the absence of it.
Load magazines this way every day and you will have Arnold Schwarzenegger thumbs.
The factory grip made it worse for us. As designed, the yellow ring is for your index and middle fingers, with the body of the loader in your palm.
Justin flipped it: thumb through the yellow ring, fingers wrapped around the body, and squeezed it like a hand exerciser. His hand stopped complaining and his times dropped. Matt stuck with the factory hold, kept losing the tempo of when to squeeze, and that is our best guess at the 18-point gap between our results. Try both in your first magazine. The loader does not care which way it is held.
One more limit: this is a two-handed tool. One hand squeezes, the other feeds the rounds, and there is no way to brace it on a table and do both with one hand. If you need a one-handed loader, this is not it.
Build Quality: Plastic, in the Good Way
The body is a dense molded polymer with a honeycomb texture that gives your fingers something to hold when they are sweaty. The lever hinge has no slop in it after a year, the magazine catch still clicks with authority, and the whole thing has ridden loose in a range bag with brass, tools and a tourniquet without a scratch that matters.
We did not drop it. Nothing about it feels like it would care. Made in the USA, if that moves the needle for you.
Value: One Loader Per Gun, and the Math
The price is on the high side for a plastic accessory, and the buying math is a little annoying. Direct is $25.95 plus $5.95 shipping under $100, so $31.90 delivered. Amazon is $29.95. Amazon wins unless you are stacking a direct order past $100, and not every model is on Amazon: the AR-15 loader, for one, is direct only.
The bigger cost is the one you do not see at checkout. Speed Beez makes a different loader for every magazine family, and this one fits Glock double-stacks and nothing else. One Glock, one loader, done.
Three platforms in the safe means three loaders at $26 to $30 each, and at that point a universal loader like the Maglula UpLULA, about $35 and built to fit most double-stack pistol magazines, starts to look reasonable. We have not tested the UpLULA. It fits more guns; the Speed Beez needs no table or thigh to push against and has more leverage. The math changes with every platform you own.
Against free thumbs: if you shoot a box a month, your thumbs are fine and so is the free Glock loader. If you load six or eight magazines a session, this pays for itself in range time inside a few trips, and your thumbnail will thank you sooner than that.
Other Speed Beez Lever Loaders
Same scissor action, different magazine body. Amazon carries most of the pistol models; the rifle loaders are direct only.
- Glock 43X, 48 and Shield Arms S15
- Sig Sauer P365
- Springfield Hellcat
- Sig Sauer P320
- AR-15 (223, 5.56 and 300 Blackout), $34.95 direct from Speed Beez. We own that one too.
Who It’s For (and Who It’s Not For)
Buy it if you shoot one platform a lot, or your thumbs have started filing complaints. Anyone who loads six or eight Glock magazines a session gets the cost back in range time, and anyone with a 33-round stick and a PCC gets it back faster. We used it when we reviewed the Glock 19 Gen 5, and it was a thumb-saver.
Skip it if you own three or more platforms and have not priced a universal loader yet, if you need a one-handed loader, or if you shoot a box a month and the free Glock tool has never bothered you. It makes a chore shorter, not gone.
Speed Beez Lever Loader (Glock 9mm)
Faster than thumbs on every magazine we own, for exactly one family of guns.
Our Verdict
Faster than thumbs on every magazine we own, for exactly one family of guns.
That about sums up the whole Speed Beez Lever Loader. The long version: it cut our magazine loading time by 37 percent, took factory mags and PMAGs, and fed every bullet shape we own without a hiccup. It works your hand a different way instead of not at all, it fits one family of magazines, and it costs a little more than it should. We would buy it again for every Glock in the house, and we bought the AR-15 version in the same order, which tells you where we landed on it.
Where it lost points:
- Your hand still gets a workout: the last rounds feel like cutting cardboard with scissors
- The factory grip is backwards for us; flipping it fixed our load times
- One loader per platform, and a label that says G17 when it fits six Glocks
- On the high side for a plastic accessory, and direct orders under $100 add $5.95 shipping
- Two hands required
Final Score: 8.0/10
Still deciding which Glock this is for? Start with our Best Glocks guide. Your thumbs can wait one more article.
FAQ
Does the Speed Beez Lever Loader work with Glock 19 magazines?
Yes. The Glock model, LLG940, fits every double-stack 9mm Glock magazine: 17, 19, 26, 34, 45, 47 and, according to Speed Beez, the longer factory sticks. We loaded 15-round Glock 19 magazines and the 17-round Glock 17 magazine with it. The label on ours only says G17, which is why we had to look that up.
Does it work with PMAGs?
Yes. Our two Magpul PMAG 15 GL9 magazines locked in and loaded the same as the factory mags. Speed Beez says Glock, Magpul and Extar magazines only, and no metal aftermarket magazines.
How much faster is the Speed Beez loader than loading by hand?
About 37 percent on a 17-round magazine, averaged across two shooters and five runs each. One of us went from 41 seconds by thumb to 22 with the loader, the other from 37 to 26. The gap is widest on the last five rounds, where thumbs slow down and the lever does not.
Will it damage hollow points?
We ran a full magazine of SIG Elite V-Crown 124 grain hollow points through it and every round went in straight, with nothing tipped or hung up. Steel case Magtech and Federal ball did the same.
Should I buy it on Amazon or from Speed Beez?
Amazon lists it at $29.95 with Prime shipping. Direct is $25.95 plus $5.95 flat shipping on orders under $100, so Amazon is cheaper delivered unless you are stacking an order. Not every model is on Amazon; the AR-15 loader, for one, is direct only.
Is it better than the Maglula UpLULA?
We have not tested the UpLULA. It is about $35 and fits most double-stack pistol magazines. The Speed Beez is $26 to $30, fits one family of them, and does not need a table or a thigh to push against.
Have questions? Want the AR-15 loader timed the same way, or a 33-round magazine run through this one? Drop a comment and let us know what you want tested next.
Justin Trump is the managing editor and owner of CAT Outdoors. The son of a Vietnam veteran, he’s a Certified Glock Armorer, an avid gun enthusiast and 2A advocate. He holds two firearm patents for the CAT M4 and Talon tools. When not managing CAT Outdoors, he enjoys spending time with his family and friends, rooting for Michigan sports teams, and serving his church.