Mossberg 500 Persuader magazine spring - light

[christhetoolman]

I have a Mossberg 500 persuader that I bought for Home Defense. It has a 7 round magazine. The magazine spring just seems to be light, what I mean is there doesn't seem to be much pressure on it when you unload the magazine. I have only fired it a few times but store it loaded and have not had any problems with it, but the spring just seems light, I would prefer to have more pressure on it and was wanting to know if a stronger spring is available and are they measured by LB. ( pounds, like a 15lb. spring, etc. ). What poundage of spring would be standard for this shotgun ? and can you have too strong of a spring?
I am prior military and law enforcement and most of my tactical experience with shotguns is with the Remington 870. I do have the Remington Express but bought the Mossberg because it was pretty much setup already with short barrel and pistol grip & w/extra stock. I do prefer the 870 hands down and have put a few thousand rounds of duck loads and skeet loads and dove loads and everything else made. I have abused my 870 from being in rain, the bottom of the boat, not cleaning between hunts while camping for weeks and she kept on shooting. Just so I don't seem to be to much of a shotgun beater, I do give her a good cleaning a couple of times during duck season.
If this Mossberg works as well as my 870 I can't complain.

 

[juk]

Does it cycle reliably? If it does, I wouldn't even worry about it. A few weeks ago, I dug into my 500 thinking that the spring was way too light. I took off the mag tube and removed the follower and the spring. The spring itself was permanently bent about midway. I have no idea how it happened, but it's there.

I cleaned the tube out with Hoppes on a bore brush, lightly oiled, and ran dry patches down it to remove any puddles of oil. Did the same for the follower, and even cleaned the spring. I reassembled to test function, and the spring feels MUCH better. I guess all that junk in there was slowing down the follower. You might try to do something similar before you go buy a new spring.

As a side note, my mag tube was on there pretty good. I used a pair of slip-joint pliers with rubber cusions to hold the end of the mag tube (where the barrel nun screws in). I had to get my brother to turn the receiver off the tube. Once the tube was unscrewed, the follower and spring launched out. be sure to remove it slowly.

 

[ArmedLiberal]

Wolff Springs are what you need

http://www.gunsprings.com/index.cfm?page=items&cID=2&mID=103


My new 590 was a little touchy feeding from the magazine. Took it apart and the magazine spring was unaturally bent. Got a pack of three and put one in my 500 also. Got two happy shotguns now.

 

[BADUNAME37]

While at it, you might want to consider replacing the follower with one that has an extension into the spring. The follower I am thinking of is a Choate Follower in bright orange which is also good -- as a quick glance in there to see if there are any more shells remaining in the tubular magazine and the orange stands right out, even when not real brightly-lit (sun, lights on in house, etc).

As for the kink in the middle of that one spring in the previous post (post 3), I bet it was from buckling under pressure when someone inadvertantly tried to push one-too-many shells into the magazine. That is just what that orange follower is supposed to prevent!

Here, from MidwayUSA for $4.99 each:
http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduc...n - (Aftermarket)-_-PriceCompListing-_-218305

 

[BADUNAME37]

As for removing the magazine tube, I think I carefully clamped the tube between pine boards (softwood) in my vice and I used another piece of pine carefully placed in the receiver opening - I believe it was the bottom, to turn the receiver off of the magazine tube. I had to first heat the area of receiver surrounding the magazine tube using a heat gun, to the point of being too hot to touch, but no hotter. The receiver easily came right off. I believe my receiver was completely dismantled when I did this, with only the magazine tube and receiver together and everything else off the receiver (floor plate, rear stock, bolt out, etc).

If you do use a piece of pine board - either in the bottom of the receiver or in the side opening, make sure you are NOT pressing against the left and right inner side pieces if they are still in the receiver - in other words, only turn out the receiver in a way so as to not ruin something that may be hard to see. A 500 watt quartz work light shining in there is a big help with jobs like this!