On Weapons ammo and their magazines is it safe to keep loaded to the Max capacity or will that harm the spring

Answer 1

You pose in interesting question and I have wondered about it myself. Several years ago I purchased a Colt 45 auto from a friend that his grandfather had brought back from france in 1919; cleaned it and loaded the magazine; put it in his desk drawer and left it there; removed and sold to me in 2005; that figures out to be 87 years. I checked it over and then took it out and fired the seven rounds from the magazine without a hitch; reloaded it and fired from the same magazine until I had used a box of shells. From that I have sort of concluded that if a good quality spring will retain its zip for 87 years then I am not going to get too exicted about a couple of weeks or months.

Answer 2

that's an ongoing argument. Some say yes, some say no. On any of the older magazines, it is a definate yes, the springs were not as good as they are now. I keep a loaded magazine at all times for my AR15, I keep the magazine in my ccw pistol and a spare for it loaded at all times, but a long time ago I got myself into the habit of unloading and rotating my magazines on the 30th of every month. I have never had a magazine spring go bad since I started that schedule. In addition, my home protection firearm is a Mossberg 500 12 gauge with a 20" barrel and an 8 shot mag tube. I have 3 rounds of slugs and 2 rounds of 00 buckshot in a sleeve on the buttstock at all times. In addition, I keep 1 round of buck shot in the mag tube and 1 slug (buckshot up first) I keep another 6 rounds on the shelf ready to load. That way, if I need the firearm in a hurry, all I have to do is rack the slide and it's ready to go bang. If I have time to load more rounds, I do so with the ones on the shelf. That still leaves those on the buttstock in reserve. If the emergency happens quickly, I can go into the fight with the two in the firearm, and combat load with those from the buttstock as I go. That way I never have to worry about too much tension on the spring causing any type of problem.

Answer 3

It may cause the spring to loose a little tension and over time that could result in a feed problem, but most modern mags hold up very well. I have several handguns that I keep fully loaded, as well as their back up magazines. I usually change the ammo once a year in all mags. I have yet to experience a misfeed due to loss of spring tension. Several of the mags have retained their spring tension so well that I still have difficulty getting the last few rounds in the mags. I believe this issue got started back in the early days of the AR (m-16) When the G.I.'s fully loaded their mags (even new ones) the spring was too weak to properly feed the last few rounds and that caused some feeding problems. This was more true with the 30 rd mags. This was more of a factory issue-using too weak a spring in the first place. That issue was corrected years ago but many still cling to that belief.

Answer 4

The constant carrying or transporting of loading magazines causes shells to vibrate and roll in the mag housing and this wears the magazine overall more than any spring compression. The housing get wear marks on the interior walls and this eventually causes hang-ups when mag cycling is utilized. Mag springs have a very,very long life and improper removal or handling upon inspection ruins them more than compression or age.
If you keep magazines loaded and stored the springs compression is not wearing the spring. This is a myth. Some feel that leaving just one round out on a stored magazine helps, but I doubt it. What would be bad is to constantly carry or transport a loaded magazine that IS NOT loaded to capacity as it would encourage mag housing interior wear even quicker.

Answer 5

Modern springs are not going to fail when left under tension for extended periods of time, compressing and releasing is what wears them out.
According to the logic here, if springs wear out under pressure, when you park your car you should park it on jack stands so the springs aren;t under pressure! Do you know of anyone who does this? Of course not, the same logic can be applied to magazine springs.

Answer 6

At home I only load my mags up to ten rounds and switch out magazines every other week. I also every so often will stop by my favorite gun store and can usually find a used magazine for cheap and will pick that up and use that so my originals do not get to bad.

Answer 7

loading and unloading mags (the compressing/decompressing of the spring) will wear the spring out much faster than leaving a mag loaded

Answer 8

It will harm the spring eventually. I usually switch my magazines and test out the springs before carrying so i can avoid problems wtht the springs. IF you do this you should be fine.

Answer 9

I always ( unless cleaning or transporting them ), keep my guns loaded. I have 3 rifles, that i have owned for 40+ years & have never had a problem with them.
I have other , newer guns & have had no problems with them either.

Answer 10

load your mag all the way and leave it that way. repeatedly loading and unloading causes much more damage.