Is it bad to keep mags loaded for a long time?

[prezzz]

I need to condense my ammo storage and the best way to do this is load all my mags with ammo. The reason I haven't done it is that I'm hesitant to keep the mags loaded for an extended periods because I hate to keep those springs compressed for months at a time.

Am I being over cautious with my mags? Is it bad to keep the mags loaded for months at a time?

Thanks

 

[Mastrogiacomo]

I keep them loaded because I feel I have to go into weight training just to get all the bullets in, and it saves time at the range. I think it also helps break in the springs a little so it's not so tough. I worried myself at first but everyone I asked told me it doesn't harm the mags at all.

 

[444]

Yes, you are being overly cautious with your magazines.
Keeping magazines loaded doesn't wear out the spring. Exercising the spring by loading and unloading is what wears out the spring. If the springs wear out, buy new ones. If you bought the gun for personal protection, it isn't doing you any good unloaded now is it ? As far as just storing ammo in magazines, I personally wouldn't do that. I don't think it would hurt anything, but I have far more ammo than I have magazines. If I loaded all 36 of my AR15 mags, I would still have 10x that much ammo left over.

 

[RGO]

Simple physics tells us that it is the cycling of springs that wears them out, not simply keeping them compressed.

 

[geegee]

There was an article in a gun magazine that recently addressed this question. The answers were consistent with what has already been provided here, but I think it also pointed out that the springs manufactured today (like so many other metal products) are produced at a higher quality than was available 25 or so years ago (or longer).

All that having been said, I still don't keep all of mine loaded, but choose instead to occasionally rotate them. geegee

 

[Feanaro]

The springs, in compressed form, will likely last twenty or more years. As others have mentioned it is more the constant movement than anything else.

 

[Art Eatman]

I know of pistols of my father's which had had loaded magazines in them for around fifty years. Of eleven pistols of various sorts (Mauser, Radom, Colt, etc.), eleven worked just fine.

As far as usage, if the mag springs are truly of "spring steel", how can they wear out in only one- or two-thousand cycles? The valve springs in your car, at idle, cycle some 500 times a minute...When parked, at least two valve springs are fully compressed--think about some cars that are parked for months, but they'll start up and run just fine.

, Art