I too have had problems finding definitive numbers for magnesium damping characteristics - I was researching for my class on fixture design (next one in February see: http://www.equipment-reliability.com/course6.htm
We know that magnesium damps better (that is, faster) then aluminum, usually 3 times faster as a rough estimate, but there is more to look at than the damping. If the fixture is solid and doesn't have any thin sections that will resonate in the frequency band of interest, then aluminum will probably be OK, although keep in mind that any aluminum fixture will be about 3 times heavier then magnesium. If you have some thin sections or elements in the fixture, then even the highly damped mag won't help.
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