Abstract: The proposed invention relates to small arms, specifically to charging devices for charging magazines with cartridges and to meters for cartridges in box magazines. The technical result consists in providing a universal charging device and meter for cartridges in box magazines which makes it possible to achieve rapid charging and discharging of cartridges to and from said magazines and visual and tactile monitoring of the number of said cartridges in box magazines which have been withdrawn from and inserted in a weapon. The device has a minimal weight and can easily be built into any box magazine of an automatic machine gun or a pistol having a spring-loaded cartridge feed mechanism.