Loaded magazine question 9mm

Bill DeShivs said:
Most people replace springs because they think they are supposed to. They aren't.
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I agree, and have never said otherwise. I have also never advocated changing recoil or mag springs on a schedule.

Bill DeShivs said:
Some springs are now designed to be sacrificial. The owner's manual should tell you if yours are. Some springs are now designed to be sacrificial. The owner's manual should tell you if yours are.
My contention is that properly designed and made springs do not usually wear out- unless corroded, detempered, or over stressed past their elastic limit.
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Except for some very small (sub-compact) guns, like the Rohrbaugh R9, spring usage or spring life is almost never mentioned in the Owner's Manual. I've got many manuals, from the guns I own or from manuals I've downloaded from various gunmaker sites. Spring life (recoil spring or mag spring) is almost NEVER mentioned. (Some of the newest guns I've purchased don't even have a parts list!!) If you know of some exceptions where spring life is mentioned, feel free to share them with us.

I agree that springs typically DON'T fail unless they're 1) crappy springs OR 2) they're overstressed. (You also mentioned detempered springs or corroded spring, but those are less common situations.) It's hard to know if a spring is overstressed until it fails. Wolff tells you how to avoid overstressing mag springs. Owner's manuals don't.

Bill DeShivs said:
Most people who replace springs don't need to.
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People DO replace springs without cause. But that behavior is NOT the fault of spring makers. When people replace springs unnecessarily, it's often because they think it's a "best practice" to do so -- one they heard about on forums like this. These forums offer more opinions than grains of sand in the Mojave Desert and almost as many experts. I remember one such expert on THIS forum, several years ago, who bragged about stretching coil springs in some of the guns he was selling, as a way of resurrecting tired coil springs. That works, briefly.

Gun springs have always failed. Most of us with a variety of guns or those of us who have shot competitively, or bought guns on the 'net without hands-on examination, can tell tales of mag springs that let rounds nose dive or just wouldn't feed rounds properly. I've read many comments here and on other forums where the shooter, when he has a mag problem, just throws the mag away and buys a new one. That, to me, is a far more foolish than changing mag springs on a regular schedule, which I also consider a foolish practice. Springs do fail. But, as Wolff suggests in their FAQ page, shoot the gun and watch for performance problems.

Bill DeShivs said:
No, I'm not a metallurgist.
I'm a cutler-specializing in the restoration of antique switchblades-among other things. I also make leaf springs for guns.
I do have plenty of experience with springs.
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I know you/ve made a lot of springs. But it seems that most of your work experience and expertise is with LEAF SPRINGS and most of the springs we're discussing are coil springs.

Coil mag springs -- which have long straight segments and curved half-coils on the end of each straight segment -- function like both leaf and coil springs at the same time. And, while the metal in leaf and coil springs may be the same, the two types of springs tend to function and fail differently. Coil springs in guns will generally soften (as a result of cascading micro-fractures in the steel) and lose their ability to let the gun function properly (i.e. feed the next round or chamber it) long before the springs deteriorate enough to break. Leaf springs will often function until they break. But, as we both know, either spring type can BREAK or SOFTEN/SAG.

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I am not a metallurgist and don't play one on TV. But my own limited experience contradicts the statements that springs never take a "set" and that springs will be good forever. I earlier stated that i had seen WWII GI magazines that worked fine 70 years after being made. I did not at that time say that I have also seen magazine springs that "set" after less than 10 years, to the point where I could turn the magazine upside down and shake the rounds out - almost no tension at all remained in the spring after years of loaded storage. That is why I wrote what I did, and will hold to it. Since I know of no way to test in advance what will happen to a magazine spring kept under tension for years, I can only say again that, like everything else, getting a quality product requires paying for quality and buying products from a reputable company.

Jim
 
James K-
I had a magazine do that once. It was a factory S&W 6906 magazine. Glad you reminded me of it. Only time I have ever seen it.
 
I do tend to leave larger capacity mags less than full. My only 30 rounders just seem more reliable if kept to 25 max. Seems like I always get a jammed round right away if I fill them up.
Since I also got them taped to each other, if I need that extra 5 rounds right then, no time to drop, flip and reinsert, the reliability already got me dead.
Got 2 50 round drums for that gun too, and they are far more reliable. Guess what stays seated... The two 30s with 25 each are the back up pocketable loads.

I'd be far more concerned with the overall storage than spring function. Humidity, security, just getting bounced around...

However, the extension tube for 10 round capacity on my win 1200 does specifically state that leaving loaded does mean spring should be periodically replaced. But thats over 20" of compression...(2 3/4 x 10)
 
James, a spring should never do that. Never. Generally speaking the wires are springsteel made of specific alloys. It's hardened to set the metal and a process tempers it to remove brittleness. Ordinary steel bends, hardened steel can break, but the right alloy and treatment method, along with the correctdesign work. There must be the right number of coils, the right gauge and thickness, it has to be the right uncompressed length, and other details. Stretching a spring is worse, you can pull it so far that the steel breaks down. Compressing it, as long as it's the correct design, well, that's what it's designed to do.

The funny thing is, there really shouldn't ever be a bad lot unless the quality control is worthless. The wire is purchased in lots measuring miles. It may be annealed first, but those springs are made and heat treated in lots of thousands. They will be tested every step, and most of these steps, like the heat treatment, are completely computerized.

This is how modern manufacturing is. If one buys third world springs, it's not done that way the steel isn't tested upon purchase. The design should be right, but they will be heat treated by a formula and qc isn't going to matter.

Material doesn't necessarily break down with age.million year old crystals are still sharp. Ancient gold may be dented, but it will remain intact.

Otoh, don't get me wrong. Steel magnets lose their magnetic properties over time as the individual atoms shift around, and a compressed spring will eventually have these same molecular level breakdowns over time.

Do we find springs in ancient mechanisms, like clocks, that still work?

There is a long running and really stupid argument about glass. Hand made glass from a century ago was irregular and sloppy. People notice this and believe that glass is fluid. Glassware from millennia ago hasn't melted, silica quartz and obsidian from billions of years ago are still intact.

I'm not an expert, but there are a few things that you can count on in science.
 
Btw, just to clarify something, the "set" that we talk about is actually the steel breaking down, losing its "springiness", nd when it reaches a certain level of breakdown, it will still have a certain amount of force that it can exert with what little integrity it still has.

Maybe it's just splitting hairs, but it's that simple, the integrity of the metal is gone. No amount of trading or other voodoo should prevent the steel breaking down at those tension points.
 
James, a spring should never do that.
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Maybe they shouldn't, but they do. I've been running loaded magazine tests for over 4 years and every magazine I've left loaded has shown measurable loss of spring strength. So far I haven't found one that weakened enough to quit working but they all weaken and the amount that they weaken increases with time although the progression seems to slow with time.

My current test will wrap up in about a year. It compares 4 magazines, one left fully loaded, one left underloaded by 2, one left unloaded but cycled as many times as the two left loaded and one left unloaded and cycled twice as many times as the other three mags.

The cycling of the loaded mags is required because they have to be unloaded and disassembled so the spring can be measured for length and strength.

All four mags show that the springs have weakened measurably at this point (over 2 years into the test) with the ones left loaded weakening the most and the two cycled mags weakening the least.
 
My operational experience with one Major Big Name Brand of 8x.45 was that the springs wore to the point of failing to lift the slide stop in about two seasons of IDPA matches.
Good follower and lip design kept them feeding reliably, the first sign of spring weakness was the slide stop. So they wouldn't "get you killed on the street" unless you got in an unusually long firefight.

Note that the issue is always magazine springs and recoil springs. Those are typically compressed deeply with a lot of stress and strain on the wire. On the other hand, the mainspring which is strong but not moved very far is usually a lifetime part.
 
Those are typically compressed deeply with a lot of stress and strain on the wire.
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Yup. There's a measurable difference in the spring strength loss between the mag left fully loaded and the one underloaded by two.

Apparently that last bit of compression is the hardest on the spring.
 
John, he was talking about rattling, falling out of the magazine loose. If that happened, the spring might as well have been a bent coat hanger.

In physics, everything has a cost. When we compress those springs we put stress on the metal, and it does fatigue, as you have noted. If you compress it to more mechanical potential energy,it will cause a higher rate of fatigue. As the spring loses strength, yes, that rate of decline will slow, until there isn't enough pressure to cause fatigue. You might compare it to a half life.

So, to just toss it in, it's perfectly logical that leaving a couple rounds out and compressing the spring a bit less will lessen the effects of fatigue.

I would really love to find out a set of standards, how much spring pressure one actually needs to push that last round in and lock the slide later.

The old magazines that have survived fifty or more years will have certainly lost some strength but retained enough to function.

My glock magazines have, over the last few years loosened up enough that I can load them by hand, but they are still strong enough.
 
The old magazines that have survived fifty or more years will have certainly lost some strength but retained enough to function.
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For whatever reason, it does seem that decent quality single-column mags don't have as much of an issue with this as similar quality double-column mags. I suspect that there's less of a design margin built into double-column mags and that the springs tend to be stressed more when fully loaded. It might also be that the double-column mags tend to have sharper bends in the spring coils--or it might be a combination of both of those things and/or other factors I'm not aware of.
My glock magazines have, over the last few years loosened up enough that I can load them by hand, but they are still strong enough.
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Yes, this is one of the semi-amusing facets of this ongoing debate. People who claim that mag springs don't weaken from being left loaded have no problem with the typical advice given to those complaining that their new mags are hard to load. Of course the advice is to fully load the magazines and let them sit long enough to weaken the springs sufficiently to allow easier loading.

So far I haven't had a mag spring weaken enough in one of my tests that it quit working but the percentage of spring force lost over time due to being left compressed can vary significantly from one manufacturer to another. I suppose whether or not they weaken enough to actually quit working depends on a number of factors having to do with the design/quality of the spring/magazine and also, to some extent, on the design of the associated firearm.

I don't see this as a huge problem that people need to worry about. I do see it as an issue that gun owners should be aware of. Besides the possibility of a malfunction from a weakened spring, there's also the issue (admittedly more of an issue with tubular magazines) where the spring fails to deliver the final round in the magazine and the shooter who doesn't carefully check the magazine may believe the gun is empty. A subsequent cycle of the action (often after the gun has been sitting awhile) can deliver that round from a gun thought to be empty. I've had this happen personally when a friend was showing me one of his firearms. Fortunately I checked the action one more time and the round popped out.
 
any reasonably dependable company will also build in a very strong amount of over capacity. In theory, at least in MY theory, the springs will have been designed to provide far more pressure than is necessary for proper functioning to compensate for the inevitable amount of fatigue. It's referred to as being over built.

The american automotive industry didn't participate in that in the past, especially in the budget automobiles. in fact, some of the things that I have seen just in my own short life have been absolutely criminal. I went through two water pumps in my EXP, and every water pump blew the timing belt, causing hundreds of dollars of damage, because the water pump was a plastic part, with only a single bearing. the fan motor was a steel can with a plastic cover staked into place, and that plastic cover was brittle. Jeeze, man, that plastic plate broke up, and the entire armature came flying out into the engine.

A car, like anything else, is dependent on every danged part. Brittle firing pins or weak springs will leave a guy in a bind. So, the heavy trucks didn't have plastic fan motors or small brakes, they were built to standards for heavy use. The wolf or even just OEM springs built in reliable factories should be made to far higher standards than are actually necessary. If you buy a spring made in backhairastan, it may have been tempered by joebobba using a kitchen range.

the guys who make cereal will set up the machinery to drop an extra ounce or two as it's packaged, it's far better to over pack by a few cents than to let underweight products out. There is always some guy who weighs his sixteen ounce box of corn flakes, and will file a complaint if it comes up short.
 
briandg said:
any reasonably dependable company will also build in a very strong amount of over capacity. In theory, at least in MY theory, the springs will have been designed to provide far more pressure than is necessary for proper functioning to compensate for the inevitable amount of fatigue. It's referred to as being over built.
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That's a practice that many companies follow -- but when the customer demands greater capacity in a magazine that fits in the same space as before, or a much smaller barrel firing the same round as larger guns, something has to give. The gun maker may still use the best steel and designs possible, but they will often have to do more with less metal than before! Spring life is the most likely loser.

Gun makers build the guns that some customers demand -- and in recent years that has been guns with capacity magazines in the same grip length as prior models, or a shorter barrel in a gun firing the same rounds as full-size guns. About the only way to get that is to use springs that have a shorter service life -- springs become renewable resources. Causing smaller springs to do the work of larger ones was arguably the the most practical (and certainly the least expensive way) to meet design objectives.

The Rohrbaugh R9 was (and probably still is) the smallest quality 9mm money can buy. Recommended spring life for that gun was 250 cycles; the springs would still work after that, but were best used for practice or range sessions. LONG SPRING LIFE was not a design objective for the R9; small size not long spring life was what buyers sought. The springs were relatively cheap and I've never heard from an R9 owner complaining about the short recoil spring life. There's no free lunch.

You can't blame the gun makers or the spring makers for buiding what the marketplace demands...
 
The only springs I change in guns (unless there appears to be a problem)
Is the recoil spring in semi's, things like bolt actions, pumps, levers actions, revolvers I do not change any springs unless there is either a break or something indicating the spring is no longer sufficient to do it's job.

On semi's absolutely change the recoil spring.. each gun is gonna have a different maintenance schedule.

On my Beretta 92 style guns I usually change at least every 5k rounds, this is not a hard number as I do not keep exact round count.

The springs are only a few dollars and a weak recoil spring will mean excess frame batter (not to be confused batter they put on deep fried foods)

My current carry gun is a circa 1988 Taurus pt99.
The previously owner must have never changed the recoil spring it was intact but very visibly worn out.

as a result both the locking block and the area of the frame where the barrel meets showed excessive wear.

yet the mag well was almost pristine.. you can usually judge round count simply by mag looking at the mag well on these guns (soft aluminum frames)
Internally it looked like the gun had seen at least 4x as many rounds as I would have suspected.

Other then the Recoil spring nothing else gets changed unless it gives me reason to.
I've never changed a mag spring, The only mags I've found weak springs are on cheapo brands that barely function out of the box new to start with anyway.
 
JoeSixpack said:
On semi's absolutely change the recoil spring.. each gun is gonna have a different maintenance schedule.
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In the section from which the quote above was taken, you seem to be saying that FOR MOST GUN SPRINGS, IF IT'S NOT BROKE, DON'T FIX IT. I agree. And I'd argue that recoil springs are no different.

Why? Because most gunmakers don't really tell you when to change recoil springs or mag springs. Spring makers typically say watch how the gun performs and change what needs to be changed when it doesn't perform properly. For the last 10-15 years, I've used how the gun functions as my guide -- not a specific round count or a fixed maintenance schedule. That simply means that you must periodically shoot the guns you use for self-defense to assure yourself that they function properly -- and not wait for one to fail when you really need it!

With most guns, the recoil springs aren't there to limit recoil or to protect the gun, but to store enough force from the round just fired to strip the next round and chamber it. (With the 1911, JMB called the spring we call the "recoil spring" a "reaction spring" -- and his patent documents called the guns using that mechanism a "recoil-operated" design.

As long as the recoil spring can strip the next round from the magazine and chamber it, the likelihood of damage to the gun or frame is probably going to be very limited. If the spring is so weak that the frame can be damaged, it's not likely to store enough force to strip and chamber the next round -- the gun just wont work right!

That's not to say with some gun designs that key parts can't be worn or damaged from high round counts -- but that damage isn't necessarily caused by springs not functioning properly.

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Hey man, do what you like.. don't really care it's not my guns.
People with far more knowledge of the 92 platform then my self explained why you should change the recoil spring and after the Taurus 99 I bought used I believe I've seen it first hand for my self.

I believe the standard recoil spring in a Beretta 92 is 13#, if you have worn recoil spring that's say #8 pounds that's going to lead to extra wear as the slide is going to be coming back at increased velocity.

The gun may very well operate just fine at 8#

If you think the slide and or barrel slamming back is trivial then why do some model guns have recoil buffers as standard?

The springs run a few dollars, replacing them every 3-5k, even if im some how wrong (really don't think so) cost for this maintenance is negligible.

In the end, do what ever you feel is best for your self and your guns.
I've explained why I do what I do and that's about all I can say.
 
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Lol, yes a heated subject for sure. I truly believe magazine do set, and do wear out. I also am a avid Air Gunner, have been for years. I especially enjoy the top quality German/English Spring rifles. Absolutely beautiful rifles of top notch materials, tight tolerances and top springs.
The question of Springs is and has been a common thread for years. Many like myself will get a $7-800 rifle with a great spring and yet purchase a after market spring, like Vortek or Macarri etc.
One question asked all the time is "Will my spring degrade if left cock over night? Now some of these springs come preset some don't.
Regardless, they did a study that measured rifles with the guns cocked for one day to one year. Yes, they degrade over time.
I always load a new Mag and let it set for a few days. I have worn out springs in some guns and you can tell when this happens. I also never load a magazine to full capacity. And I rarely get failures with my Pistols.
Some will tell you that you never have to replace a spring. I personally do not buy that, all things wear over time. A Magazine spring is not some kind of device sent from the Gods to never wear out. It is just physics. I replace my Mags on a regular basis. The old one's go to just range work or in the trash.
Especially my CCW pistols, will always have a newer spring. I don't like to gamble when I can't pay the price of losing.
 
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