Question on loaded magazine

[Scott23]

I'm a new XD 45 pistol owner and had a question on leaving a mag fully loaded for long periods of time. I have it for the range and for home defense. What I was wondering is, would leaving the mag loaded all the time cause the spring to become weak over time and possibly develop feeding issues? Thanks, Scott

 

[REAPER4206969]

No.

 

[Jorg Nysgerrig]

This is a pretty common question and while there is some dissent, the majority of folks agree that it is compression/decompression cycles that affect the performance over time.

 

[mcwjr13]

Agreed I did my own test(six months compressed) on this and found there to be no issues with leaving magazines compressed.

 

[bottom shelf]

I've had Beretta mags fully loaded for more than 10 years, and they feed just fine.

 

[MR.G]

I havn't had any problems with good quality magazines springs. I use Wolf +10% springs in most of my magazines.

 

[Walkalong]

All of the above.

 

[The Foo]

Springs wear out when they are functioned (IE: Compression and Decompression.)

Leaving them loaded causes no damage. If you are that anal about it, then leave them fully loaded minus one round.

 

[Scott23]

Anal, no. Just wanted your opinions and thoughts.

 

[Boba Fett]

To quote The Foo (great name btw):

Springs wear out when they are functioned (IE: Compression and Decompression.)

This comes up a lot. Unless the magazine manufacturer is crap, no. Supposedly, and I've never had it happen to me, the "lips" at the top of the mag might warp due to the pressure of the bullets on them and could cause problems.

Again, never happened to me. But I have heard of it happening to others. And to reiterate, it shouldn't be a problem unless the manufacturer is crap.

Best thing to do is a Google search for your XD mag and see if there have been any issues, complaints, recalls, or problems that others have had. If you start to see a recurring problem, then you might (and this is the internet we are talking about so might) want to be more concerned.

 

[CDH]

Anal, no. Just wanted your opinions and thoughts.

You might even think of disregarding the opinions and thoughts and go with just metallurgical science.

I found this interesting link doing just a quick google, and while it doesn't specifically address gun magazine springs, note that the OP question is asking about spring failure, and the ONLY question that concerns the engineer is "how many cycles before a spring fails?", not "how long in a compressed state before a spring fails".
There's a reason for his concern for the one question and his total disregard for the other question.

http://www.engineersedge.com/wwwboard/posts/2550.html

The point is, leaving a magazine loaded in no way shortens the life of, or weakens, a spring; it's the number of cycles that matters. And in a gun magazine, you'd have to be one hell of a frequent shooter to wear one out (I imagine the IPSC and other competition shooters eventually manage to do so, however).

So load up your mags and stick 'em in a safe for as long as you want.

But keep in mind that this discussion does not address actually damaging a spring by stretching it beyond it's design limits, however, gun mags are all in a closed system designed for their use, so it's virtually impossible to damage them.

 

[rcmodel]

Looking at it another way.

Do you jack up your car and put it on blocks every time it is parked to keep the weight of the car from wearing out the compressed springs?

Thought so!

rc