Damage to springs in handgun clips?

C

ChrisMkIV

New member
Does having your magazine loaded to capacity with ammo, damage your spring over time, due to the constant compression of the spring?



------------------
"Who are the militia, if they be not the people of this country? They consist of now of the whole people, except a few public officers"
George Mason
Second Amendment lover? www.2ndamdlvr.homestead.com/home.html
Support H.R.347 Citizens Self-Defense act of 1999! Sign petition at: www.petitiononline.com/protect/petition.html
 
Not really. Most opinions expressed here at TFL state that constantly loading/unloading your mags is far worse on the springs than leaving them fully loaded. If it concerns you, download by 1 or 2 rounds.
HTH
 
Good springs should not be damaged. There are many instances of .45 magazines left fully loaded since WWII and the springs were as good as new. I have left magazines loaded for years with no problems. But note what I said about GOOD springs.

Jim
 
This topic just came up in another section, and my answer remains the same. Quality springs in a properly designed magazine should not be damaged by loading to the rated capacity.
 
Didn't we have a metallurgist a while back - please coorect me if i'm wrong. Steels - actually all materials - have certain behaviour acording to how they are stressed - in this case, springs under compression. Up to a certain load, they behave 'elastically', they return to the shape they had before compressing. At a point that is quite clear in lab tests some 'dislocation' in its molecular structure starts to take palce - this is called 'plastic' deformation.

A good designer would be sure that the type of steel, the wire diameter, its heat treatment, in the coil spring in a magazine (yes you may also call them 'clips' but magazine is better) can not be compressed beyond the 'elastic limit'. Those from most factories, Meg-Gar, Pachmayr, etc would ensure this. Of course there may be some that wind a bit of fencing wire around a die and there would be no guarantee.

The fly in the ointment in this little lecture on materials science is metal fatigue- any metal under a constant vibration, or frequent change in stress would start to get 'micro' cracks - could lead to deformation but more often, to breakeage - this may be seen from time to time in full auto mags.
Peter Knight
 
Well, I was given in the late '60's a few military 1911 magazines that came home in a duffle bag full of ammo sometime after WWII. Everything worked just peachy keen as it were.

------------------
Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
"If there be treachery, let there be jehad!"
 
A fair number of my Gummint mags date from at least Korea, if not WW II. For sure, they're over 30 years old that I personally know of.

They worked just fine a few days ago...

For that matter, they work just fine with a "Z" cut out when turning a 7-round mag into an 8-round mag. Much less force against the last two or three rounds, of course, but it doesn't seem to matter.

:), Art
 
Remember those stories you hear of 1911 mags loaded since the stone age are of standard capacity magazines.

That one extra round in 8rd 1911/7 rd officers mags has a large % effect on the compressed size of the spring. The spring isn't as shoehorned in as the springs in some 17 round glocks etc.; but it's still different to the situation a 7-round "original" 1911 mag finds itself in, so it may be apples and oranges.

IMHO.

Battler.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top