Ordered New Springs today...

[Sheldon J]

For those of you that CC a semi auto. First off let me say my HK USP has been flawless these many years. I have cycled a great many rounds thought this pistol with out issue.

However on my last two tear downs (weekly) where I also strip and clean the mag the rounds would not (hand) eject clean. First time I just assumed it was some crud.

So this week I took a closer look...
No damage or apparent wear on the mag...
This mag has been under full compression near 100% of the time for over 8 years now (except when I MT it for cleaning or at the range)...
Reliability is of prime importance so I put in a call for new Wolf springs of all three (the other two are newer and do not exhibit this issue but why wait).

So here is the $25,000 dollar question how are your mag springs and when did you check them last?

 

[DoubleTapDrew]

So here is the $25,000 dollar question how are your mag springs and when did you check them last?

I've never had a spring-related mag failure. Springs are worn from compression and release cycles. I did have a mag that wouldn't feed from day 1 but that was a crappy pro-mag standard capacity (15rd) glock mag that didn't feed because the mag body looked like the surface of the moon and the follower couldn't get thru.

 

[ms6852]

It has never happened yet but I normally have about 20 mags for my 1911 and rotate them around. I always have a minimum of at least 10 mags for each of my semi autos. I know that magazines eventually become disposable and is one of the items in a handgun that has to be replaced.

 

[Drail]

"springs are worn from compression and release cycles.." AND from being compressed for long periods of time. I wish people would stop chanting this garbage about "only from compression and release". Just because you have never SEEN a spring fail from only being compressed for a long time DOES NOT MAKE YOU AN SPRING EXPERT. I have personally seen and replaced plenty of springs fail that did nothing but sat in loaded guns (my own and customer's). Ask ANY police or military armorer if springs will last forever if fully compressed.

 

[Ranger30-06]

"springs are worn from compression and release cycles.." AND from being compressed for long periods of time. I wish people would stop chanting this garbage about "only from compression and release". Just because you have never SEEN a spring fail from only being compressed for a long time DOES NOT MAKE YOU AN SPRING EXPERT. I have personally seen and replaced plenty of springs fail that did nothing but sat in loaded guns (my own and customer's). Ask ANY police or military armorer if springs will last forever if fully compressed.

My friend, I'm afraid your logic is a bit off. Springs do only wear from compression and expansion. I've done snowplow work and the plows that come back from the guys that always hit the curbs in parking lots are the ones that go through springs the fastest because of the repeated expansion and contraction.

If you have a piece of wire pulled taught, it retains it's initial strength no matter how long you hold it taught. If you start bending it back and forth though, it can only take it so many times before it either snaps or stretches apart. Hope this helps

 

[Drail]

I am afraid that analogy does not really apply to magazine springs my friend. I don't know anything about snow plows but I have spent enough years working on guns to have seen LOTS of magazine springs lose their original strength just from compression. Whether they were compressed beyond their design limits I can't say, but I have seen a very large percentage of 870 shotgun mag springs fail from spending most of their lives fully loaded locked into a rack in a police cruiser. When pulled out of the rack for qualification almost all of them failed to feed the last 3 or 4 rounds. Installing a new mag spring restored 100% feed function. These springs did not wear out from compression and expansion, just from a static load applied over time. I have a box in my shop full of worn out mag springs. I will say that if a spring is made from quality spring steel and carefully tempered and stress relieved it will take a very long time to wear out. Unfortunately the majority of mag springs being sold today are mass produced to a price point and are sold with no guarantee for spring life. The exception to this in my experience are Wolff and ISMI. If you want a high quality mag spring they have them. It is unrealistic to believe that all springs are the same and they will all behave the same. They are not. Many manufacturers use springs that are not suited for heavy loading in a high cap double stack pistol mag. I have seen plenty of evidence that if these mags are downloaded by just 2 rounds the springs last much longer when left loaded 24/7. The OP's post clearly demonstrates what happens if a fully loaded mag spring is left compressed for a long time. If your life is dependent on the performance of something like a simple spring you need to know if you have a quality spring or whatever someone stuffed in there. There's a lot of junk out there. Buy quality springs and the very first time it fails to feed the last 1 or 2 rounds replace it. If the mag needs to be left loaded all of the time down load it by one or two rounds. Those extra rounds aren't going to be much use if the mag won't feed stops feeding after 3 or 4 rounds.

 

[Ranger30-06]

Drail: In my previous post I did fail to mention another part of my point in my haste to get my post up.

Leaving a spring fully loaded for a long time is like leaving a 1000lb weight on a piece of chain rated for 1000lbs. It will hold it, and it will hold it for a while, but maxing out the capabilities on a piece of steel will shorten it's life compared to if you had only left 800lbs on that chain.

Leaving a spring 1/2 way compressed versus compressing it completely will not wear it out, but maximizing the spring's tension (like leaving 10 rounds in a 10 round magazine) will shorten the life of the spring when compared to only loading the spring to 1/2 of 3/4 of it's capacity (like leaving 5 or 8 rounds in a 10 round magazine). Sorry for the confusion there.

The problem more so with leaving a spring fully loaded is not that you will de-spring it, but that you will reshape the spring by doing so. (Although this happens more with pulling springs than pushing springs).

 

[Walt Sherrill]

I've never had a spring-related mag failure. Springs are worn from compression and release cycles.

You're a lucky man. And it's simply not so. There's plenty of evidence available online and form other sources to show otherwise. But even then, the answer isn't simple. Here are some links from another forum, first posted by a member there, named danez71. I deleted one of the original links, as it no longer works. These all do.

Ex:
http://www.spring-makers-resource.net/support-files/fig_37.pdf

Also:
http://www.spring-makers-resource.net/compression-spring-design.html
http://www.spring-makers-resource.net/spring-designs.html


And
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasticity_(physics))
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasticity_(physics))
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viscoelasticity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creep_(deformation))

Just a snippet:
Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viscoelasticity
"All materials exhibit some viscoelastic response. In common metals such as steel or aluminum, as well as in quartz, at room temperature and at small strain, the behavior does not deviate much from linear elasticity. Synthetic polymers, wood, and human tissue as well as metals at high temperature display significant viscoelastic effects. In some applications, even a small viscoelastic response can be significant. To be complete, an analysis or design involving such materials must incorporate their viscoelastic behavior. Knowledge of the viscoelastic response of a material is based on measurement"​

In summary -- it's not as simple or as black/white as many would have you believe. It depends on the mag and the spring design. If a 10-round 9mm mag in a full-sized gun is kept fully compressed, chances are you'll die long before the spring does. The same is true of 7-round 1911 mags. But a hi-cap mag kept fully compressed will be a little different.

Working the mags WILL slowly degrade the springs, but if they're designed properly, it'll be a long, slow degradation, and they could outlast the gun or magazine. (That's why tappet springs in cars seem to almost never fail; they never operate outside of their design envelop, and compressions alone don't kill them. They've built in some margin into those springs. Car springs seem to have almost the same life -- but some do fail, especially coil springs.)

Some of my Hi-caps mags have been used a lot, and the springs have had to be replaced. A year or so ago I had to replace 8 springs for a Kahr P9 (compact) after I sold it -- they all died at about the same time. With new springs, the gun was 100% again. (In fact, I had to buy the gun back and later resold it.) I had tested it right before the sale and it seemed fine, but the buyer had no faith in the gun.

In the FAQ of the Wolff Spring website, a major gun spring maker, they recommend downloading a round or two for long-term storage for hi-caps and compact mags. They acknowledge that springs from WWII when left in 1911 guns may still work like new even though they've been fully loaded for 50+ years.

Wolff talks about problems arising when the mag's design and use keeps them loaded at or near their "elastic limit." (This seems to be the case with many of the new sub-compact guns, or guns with very high-cap mags.)

With a high-cap or compact mag that is kept fully loaded ( he spring is nearly fully compressed), being fully loaded stresses the spring: that spring is trying to push up and lift a lot of weight even when it seems to be doing nothing. If the spring isn't fully compressed, the stress is much less great.

At one time I had a number of CZs. The 10-round mags and the 16 round mags used the same spring. Guess which mag spring will wear out most quickly? Guess which use of the spring puts more stress on the spring when the mag is kept fully loaded? Same number of rounds shot, same springs, different spring life? Why?

Note: rotating mags doesn't let the stressed mags heal. Rotating mags just spreads the wear over a larger number of mags. My suggestion? Keep using the same mags, keep them fully loaded if you need to (at least while carrying), and just shoot the gun periodically, to assure that the springs are still working properly. That's the only REAL test that matters. And at the first sign of mag spring problems (failures to feed are a good sign), replace the mag with a low-mileage backup, and get replacement springs for the one that failed.

Don't buy new mags -- you'll spend a lot more and the new mags won't work a bit better than the old ones with new springs installed.

 

[Greg528iT]

Thanks for the links Walt.

It's been 25 some years since I've gone thru a spring selection / design criteria guide. I knew from distant memory that loading up a spring will cause it to loose it's strength. Yeah, our normal room temps, and that most magazine springs are not fully compressed, they do live quite a long time. BUT it does want to relax. So why subject it to an increased load.

 

[Steve C]

I bought a Glock 19 in '86. The magazines where kept loaded and the gun was shot a lot. Around 14-15 years later the original (non drop free) magazines springs became weak enough that they would no longer reliably engage the slide stop to hold the slide back after the last round though they still fed ammo reliably. Bought new springs and that fixed the problem, later updated the followers.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

. Yeah, our normal room temps, and that most magazine springs are not fully compressed, they do live quite a long time. BUT it does want to relax. So why subject it to an increased load.

A fully loaded mag spring isn't resting. It's working. It's trying to PUSH a full column of relatively heavy rounds up against the bottom of the slide. If the spring is doing this when it is at it's elastic limit, it's trying to lift a load when the spring is less able to deal with the task at hand.

Not all mag springs are close to their elastic limits when fully loaded. Some of the links above will explain that the closer you get to the spring's elastic/design limit, the shorter it's life will be. But, if the design allows the spring to be used without getting close to that limit, there'll be enough "spring" there to last a long, long time. That's why Wolff recommends downloading hi-caps for long-term storage.

A non-hi-cap mag seldom gets pushed to its elastic limit, and other mag springs may get pushed to their elastic limit BEFORE they're fully compressed. It depends on their design, how they're intended to be used, etc.

Most folks who discuss springs have experience with leaf springs. With a leaf spring (or simple clothes hanger wire,) if you bend it enough it eventually break. It'll also get hot, but the "hot" isn't what messes it up -- it's the bending. The metal starts to break a little bit here and a little bit there. Most of the bending occurs in a relatively small area. Bend it enough, and the metal will break in a relatively small area and there will be a catastrophic failure. It'll be a break you can see. Leaf springs in cars, trucks, and trailers break that way.

Coil springs are different. Most magazine springs are a combination of leaf and coil spring: they bend and twist. The areas of the spring doing the work, unlike a traditional leaf spring, are spread ALL OVER the spring, at every corner or through the coil spring's body, etc.

When the metal in a coil spring (or mag spring) starts to degrade with overwork, it'll break a little at a lot of different spots. That's why coil spring tend to soften before they break catastrophically -- a lot of little breaks that attack the spring's physical integrity, rather than in a smaller area as with leaf springs.

Coil springs that start to degrade are generally replaced before they break in ways you can see -- because they quit doing what they need to do. There are always exceptions, based on the application, but you almost never see a BROKEN coil spring; you see a lot that get soft.

I've had mag springs and recoil springs that never failed, even though they've been used a lot. I've had a number of springs in hi-caps and compact guns that failed relatively quickly.

Recoil springs in small 1911s typically have a functional life that is MUCH SHORTER than recoil springs in full-size gun. (If a full-size gun maker recommends changing recoil springs every 3000 round, they'll probably say change the sub-compact recoil springs at 500 or 1000 rounds.)

If cycling is what kills springs, why do the sub-compact springs last less long that full-size springs? Same bullets, same loads, fewer cycles, but shorter service life.

 

[HKGuns]

Leaving magazines fully loaded IS wearing out your springs. The only time a spring isn't working is when it is in a relaxed state. It is pretty much common sense.

 

[gunnutery]

Here is a pic of my Glock 22 mag springs. The top spring is the new 11 coil spring, and the bottom one is the old 11 coil spring. This particular magazine and the other five like it, I bought used 8 years ago. I can't comment on their use before I bought them, but I believe they were LE trade ins. I too am in law enforcement and the springs have been under tension a lot for long periods (although I shoot a heck of a lot more than my coworkers). As far as I can figure, I've put about 3000+ through my gun (not sure how that breaks down for each mag though), which is a relatively small amount compared to other users here. I personally attribute the load on the springs wearing these mags out IMO.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

Almost any recoil spring or mag spring will take a "set" when first installed. It will, within a day or two, be somewhat shorter than it was before installation -- if put under load or caused to do a bit of work. This is a normal part of spring life. Any recoil or mag spring that has been put under load will do this, but the actual amount of "set" will vary on how the spring is intended to be used.

This IS wear, but it is considered a normal part of spring life -- and not a sign of EXCESS wear. Whether it degrades farther will depend on the application, how it is used, etc.

 

[1911Tuner]

Back in 1990-aught-one, I got a call from my stepfather to come and have a look at a 1911 pistol that his aunt Emma had left instructions for him to have on her death. The pistol had belonged to his uncle Will, and Aunt Emma had found it in the nightstand the morning she found him expired in bed. Not being much of a gun person, Emma stored the gun in a hat box the attic, wrapped in an old diaper.


Uncle Will had been a town constable and railroad detective in a small North Carolina town.

I hurried on over, and he handed me a circa 1922 commercial Colt Government Model...cocked and locked with 6 rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. I cleared the piece, and gave it a quick inspection...reloaded the top round into the magazine and stepped outside.

I fired the gun to slidelock without incident.

The kicker?

This was in the early fall of 1991. Uncle Will died in the late spring of 1929.

 

[Walt Sherrill]

No surprise there, Tuner. Wolff Springs, in their FAQ area, cite 7-round 1911s as having mag and recoil springs with very long lives. I've mentioned that very common example time and again, when discussing this topic. It's even mentioned in some of earlier responses in THIS message chain.

The problems arise when springs aren't first quality, when the guns in question are compact or subcompact guns, or when hi-cap mags are kept fully loaded for long periods.

Any number of police armorers participating in this type of discussion mention having to replace mag springs in duty guns that are kept fully loaded. (Interestingly, we hear this less often from Glock armorers than other guns; those springs/that mag design seems to be particularly effective.)

Many compact or sub-compact guns need to have recoil and mag springs changed much more frequently. The maker of the Rohrbaugh sub-compact 9mm handgun recommends changing out that recoil spring every 200 rounds. (It's in the owner's manual, which is available online.)

There are springs and there are springs. How they are used makes the difference.