Shortening 94 Winchester Magazine Spring

Reason is reliability when left loaded for and extended period of time (years, decades) or when the rifle has some age. John Browning designed it that way.

The issue is round 1, 2, 3.... Too loose.

Original spring or an aftermarket replacement? Replacement springs are often sort of "generic" and require fitting. If the spring is right at coil stack (coils touching) when pressing in the last round then it is a little too long. Not so much a reliability and damage prevention issue like a 1911 recoil spring, but still too long for the job. As noted it still must be long enough with enough strength to feed the last round reliably. So do not clip more than a tiny bit at the time when testing. I would set it up to be able to push in the last round maybe 1/4"-1/2" past the shell stop and no more. That way you can load it to capacity and still have enough spring to feed the last round reliably. Of couse if the spring is worn out you need to replace it regardless.

No experience with Winchester but I routinely cut Marlin mag springs. I believe I cut 6 coils off the last one I did.

maybe made it stick 8” past the end of the mag tube on a full length mag 20” barrel gun. Never had problems cutting them down. Never over cut one either. Make sure after your satisfies to bend the tip of the spring wire back so as not to let that sharp point stick out.

I would only use a lightened magazine spring in a competition gun (any type). For any gun that is going to stay loaded 24/7 that has to be ready for immediate action - no way. Stick with the factory spring on those. You might need those last two rounds to feed as positively as the first two did.

Then lighten it up.

So clip it off. If you take too much, a new one is $5.49 from Wolff.

I notice some of you think that leaving a spring compressed weakens it. This is not true, working a spring is what weakens it or overloading, in other words compressing or bending a spring beyond its design limits will change and weaken it but just leaving it compressed within its design limit does not weaken it.

Very true! Also the speed of compression matters.

I chuckle at newbies who " lock the slide back to break in the recoil spring"....

And how do you know if a spring is being compressed beyond its design limit? Or if it was actually made to a design limit that is suitable for the application you are putting it to? Or if it was actually made from high quality spring steel properly tempered and stress relieved? You don't but if your life depends on that spring working then you can't assume anything about it. I was taught in the military to only load 18 rounds in a 20 round M16 magazine for reliability. I kind of think they had a reason to teach us that. I have seen Rem 870 shotguns that simply sat in a cruiser rack fully loaded for a year or more and never cycled but they would not feed the last two rounds on qualification day. A new mag spring made the gun run 100%. Bad springs or bad theory?

In the early 1960's, the American Rifleman had an article about some "found" wrapped up US Army 1911 magazines that were loaded, and in storage for about 45 years. Those were found to function fine, and the magazine springs were comparable to new.

With exceptions, the rule of thumb for most of the springs we have in guns is that 100 percent compression (or very close to it) is part of what they ought to do. Extension is more or less verboten. I think that information is available on Wolff's website (it used to be, but its been years since I looked).

The likely cause of 18 vs 20 is the bolt forward speed, as manipulated by newbie, uninitiated shooters, and perhaps the lack of forward assist on early rifles.

The 870 story is .... well.. lets just say we don't know the state of the springs before they were put up for a year.

Drail said:

And how do you know if a spring is being compressed beyond its design limit? Or if it was actually made to a design limit that is suitable for the application you are putting it to? Or if it was actually made from high quality spring steel properly tempered and stress relieved? You don't but if your life depends on that spring working then you can't assume anything about it. I was taught in the military to only load 18 rounds in a 20 round M16 magazine for reliability. I kind of think they had a reason to teach us that. I have seen Rem 870 shotguns that simply sat in a cruiser rack fully loaded for a year or more and never cycled but they would not feed the last two rounds on qualification day. A new mag spring made the gun run 100%. Bad springs or bad theory?

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Would have to be that they were compressed to the point it stressed and changed them.

Example of springs being left compressed with no effect.... I've disassembled engines that have sat for years with no difference in the strength of the valve springs from valves that were left open with the springs compressed or ones where the valves were closed.

I also ran excavation business with one trailer that sat loaded all of the time. Exact same type trailer that was used a lot but not always loaded had to have springs replaced. Think of it like when you work a piece of wire until it breaks but you can put a slight bit of flex on it and it would still hold that memory indefinitely as long as you didn't push it to the point it bent it permanently.

I recently found a 1022 magazine in some stuff that had gotten misplaced and went missing 25+ years ago. It was fully loaded but it still functions fine.

Valve springs and magazine springs have almost nothing in common. If you overbuilt a magazine spring to the level that a valve spring is overbuilt the magazine spring would never fail. It also would not fit in a magazine and you would not be able to load it. It's pretty easy and not at all uncommon to overcompress a magazine spring (especially today when everyone just HAS TO HAVE a 15 round magazine). I have never seen a valve spring that was overcompressed - they just don't move enough to do that in an engine. Your 1022 magazine spring was still good because that spring was overdesigned and was not stressed anywhere near its elastic limit. That's the way Ruger designed things. His design rule was "How strong does it need to be minimum? Double that"

Drail said:

Valve springs and magazine springs have almost nothing in common. If you overbuilt a magazine spring to the level that a valve spring is overbuilt the magazine spring would never fail. It also would not fit in a magazine and you would not be able to load it. It's pretty easy and not at all uncommon to overcompress a magazine spring (especially today when everyone just HAS TO HAVE a 15 round magazine). I have never seen a valve spring that was overcompressed - they just don't move enough to do that in an engine. Your 1022 magazine spring was still good because that spring was overdesigned and was not stressed anywhere near its elastic limit. That's the way Ruger designed things. His design rule was "How strong does it need to be minimum? Double that"

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LOL! They absolutely have everything in common. They are both springs designed for an intended purpose made of steel. It's all metallurgy and design. What you just said about the Ruger spring is the case with any spring. If they go beyond their limit then it's a poorly designed application. There are literally millions of Winchester 94 rifles the OP mentions that are decades and some over a century old and the springs are still just fine and many have sat in gun cabinets fully loaded.

If you've never seen a valve spring overcompressed then you haven't been around much racing especially back in the day before you could custom order springs for about every application you can think of.

I do understand where you are coming from though and that is similar to what can happen when people insist on cramming as much into a magazine as possible but that really doesn't apply to the OP about a stiff 94 magazine spring and the point people were trying to make that just leaving one loaded was going to weaken the springs. If anything him weakening the spring by taking out some coils makes the spring less likely to reach its elastic limit.

Back to the original post. No I haven't shortened any 94 springs but have a bunch of 1892 and 1873 springs for cowboy action. What you have to be worried about is keeping enough spring tension so the last round feeds reliably. Otherwise shortening it actually makes it easier on the spring because the coils don't get compressed as much with a full magazine.

My apologies.