S & W 9mm Magazine Problems

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gifbohane

gifbohane

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This has got to be an old problem but I found nothing on this site about it.

I have a dozen or so 9mm S & W 10 round magazines that are a not new. I cannot get the 10th round into them. I thought that eventually they would loosen up but no. I finally decided to do something about them so I plan to call S & W on Monday to see what they have to say.

Snipping the metal coils to shorten them seems tricky but....

Anyone here have a comments or solutions?
 
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Most of those 10 round magazines were made during the AWB. They had to pass BATF standards to not accept another round and not be "readily modified" to take another round, so they tend to be tight on the tenth round and manufacturing tolerances can drop them to nine.
I doubt that clipping the springs will help.
 
1K -

I have one of the Maglula loaders it will not force the 10 th round into the mag. Occasionally and rarely I can muscle the tenth one in with my (arthritic ) fingers.
 
gifbohane said:
1K -

I have one of the Maglula loaders it will not force the 10 th round into the mag.
Click to expand...
Betcha a nickel it will if you mash it down firmly enough. Don’t be gentle. You can also try holding the loader in place and smacking the bottom of the mag firmly on a wooden surface. The inertia of the 9 rounds in the mag will help slam down and make some space for #10.

Note that mags this tight will likely not seat easily into a pistol with the slide closed, and may cause malfunctions due to excessive pressure of the top round against the underside of the slide. It’s probably best to just carry 9 in the mag and one in the pipe unless you have thoroughly tested for reliability.
 
Right. I have a couple of Checkmate Hybrids that I did not order with the -EXT suffix. Oops. They will HOLD 8x.45 if you jump on the loader, but they will not seat under a closed slide.
I may have some AWB 10x9mm left, I will check when in the shop next.
 
gifbohane said:
dozen or so 9mm S & W 10 round magazines that are a not new. I cannot get the 10th round into them.

Anyone here have a comments or solutions?
Click to expand...
Same problem for Glock 9mm 10 round magazines. I just load 9 rounds in them and leave them loaded to "soften" the spring tension to later load the 10th round easier.

FYI, I found I can readily load 10+ 9mm rounds in "CA legal" Glock 40S&W 10 round magazines. Stupid limited magazine capacity laws. :rofl:
 
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Restricted Glock magazines have the worst reputation of the type.

Yes, gaining capacity with 9mms in .40 magazines was a well known dodge under AWB.

And not every restricted design was 100% effective in spite of BATF regulations. A friend's P229 ban clips would hold 11 .40s without a whole lot of effort.
 
And thanks to "Freedom Week", many CA gun owners don't need to fuss with stupid 10 round magazines and instead use "normal capacity" magazines legally obtained prior to end of "Freedom Week" while we wait on court appeals. (All of my 10 round magazines are collecting dust)

Really hoping for pro 2A ruling on magazine capacity limit before end of my retirement. Thank goodness for Duncan v Becerra and Judge Benitez :thumbup::thumbup::thumbup: - https://michellawyers.com/duncan-v-becerra/
 
1KPerDay said:
Betcha a nickel it will if you mash it down firmly enough. Don’t be gentle. You can also try holding the loader in place and smacking the bottom of the mag firmly on a wooden surface. The inertia of the 9 rounds in the mag will help slam down and make some space for #10.

Note that mags this tight will likely not seat easily into a pistol with the slide closed, and may cause malfunctions due to excessive pressure of the top round against the underside of the slide. It’s probably best to just carry 9 in the mag and one in the pipe unless you have thoroughly tested for reliability.
Click to expand...


1K

Tried whaling on the 10th round, to fit it into one of them. As I noted some of these were used quite extensively. Even put it in a vise, No Dice.

I took one of them out that had been stored loaded for a few years, same result. I gotta wonder if S & W did not "collude" with the Gu'mint in this boondoggle as cooperation with the lefties?
 
Don't be afraid to clip the spring, one link at a time until you can get 10 and a half rounds in them. Of course there is no half round, but that's the capacity you're aiming for to easily load 10, but not get an 11th round if your life depended on it. I've fixed a few mags that way for various firearms. I don't have any 10s for my S&W. They're all 15 and they load exactly 15. I've been lucky with my semi-auto pistols.
 
May be a combination of the parts aside from a spring. Some followers and/or base plates have a wee bit more plastic in them so combined with the spring thickness when compressed, they are physically unable to load 10 as specified.
 
RA40 said:
May be a combination of the parts aside from a spring. Some followers and/or base plates have a wee bit more plastic in them so combined with the spring thickness when compressed, they are physically unable to load 10 as specified.
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Empirically I find this to be true. Some youtube guys recommend shaving the bottom of the follower and/or cutting out a spring loop or two. I am hesistant to do this.
 
This problem is bugging me again. My hands are only getting weaker by the years. I did have numerous conversations with S & W. I complained that they were selling 9 round magazines and of course they do not recommend any magazine modifications.

At one point they sent me a bunch of new springs that contained 2 more levels of spring than the springs (they were longer) than the ones that I had. I could not even get them into the body of the mag and attach the baseplate. They seemed to be the wrong springs. Nope S & W confirmed they were the correct item number.

By the way, shaving the follower down to almost nothing did not help. Tossed that one. Might just cut off two rows of springs on one of the "new springs"to see what happens...
 
It almost seems like an engineering issue. My wife just got a new S&W Shield Plus. It comes with a 12-round and a 10-round magazine. Yes, the magazines hold 12 and 10 rounds, respectively. EXACTLY 12 and 10. As in, it takes everything I have to get the last round in. Then what? There is no way to insert the magazine in the gun due to the stripper rail, so the 12 "+1" is a lie.
 
get some replacement springs you will be happy and your pistols will be happy too.
 
gifbohane said:
1K

Tried whaling on the 10th round, to fit it into one of them. As I noted some of these were used quite extensively. Even put it in a vise, No Dice.

I took one of them out that had been stored loaded for a few years, same result. I gotta wonder if S & W did not "collude" with the Gu'mint in this boondoggle as cooperation with the lefties?
Click to expand...

Before ya whale on em, or clip springs--

Take the base plate off, and just use finger pressure to control the spring & follower, and see what happens when you carefully load ten rounds in.

See if the follower will even go deep enough in the mag tube, to let the tenth round in.
 
gifbohane said:
This problem is bugging me again. My hands are only getting weaker by the years. I did have numerous conversations with S & W. I complained that they were selling 9 round magazines and of course they do not recommend any magazine modifications.

At one point they sent me a bunch of new springs that contained 2 more levels of spring than the springs (they were longer) than the ones that I had. I could not even get them into the body of the mag and attach the baseplate. They seemed to be the wrong springs. Nope S & W confirmed they were the correct item number.

By the way, shaving the follower down to almost nothing did not help. Tossed that one. Might just cut off two rows of springs on one of the "new springs"to see what happens...
Click to expand...

Now that you have some extra springs, may be a good time to try my suggestion in my post from September... clip one of the springs that came in the mags one link at a time. I've fixed a few aftermarket mags by clipping no more than two links. That's all it took to make them work like they should.

Springs are normally one of the easiest spare parts to find at vendors like Midway USA, Brownells, and others, so a spring would be the last thing I would worry about ruining. By the way, what model S&W pistol are these magazines for?
 
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starnbar said:
get some replacement springs you will be happy and your pistols will be happy too.
Click to expand...

Please note that I DID get replacement springs from S&W and they were longer by at least two inches than the originals and extremely tight to the point where I could not close up the bottom of the mag.
 
It is an M & P 9mm standard size

Steve and Beck- in other words load it from the bottom up. Put in 10 rounds, insert the spring and follower and see how far I get?
 
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