The Importance of Magazine Rotation

My magazines are just fine. Girlfriend/wife rotation however, maybe a topic we should discuss. :-)

Solution in search of a problem.

Yep, that LuckyGunner dude does a zillion videos for them and acts like a know-it-all in all of them. In some videos he has said things I know for a fact are incorrect. In others, he parrots age old myths as facts. Anybody can say anything on YouTube.

Slowhand said:

My magazines are just fine. Girlfriend/wife rotation however, maybe a topic we should discuss. :-)

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Hahahaha !!

Pinecone said:

If the springs are defective, cycling them will not make the last longer.

It WILL give you a chance to determine their might be an issue.

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Indeed. As others have observed, cycling eventually wears out even the best springs. Great springs last longer, bad springs will wear out from cycling/constant load prematurely, and the worst springs will fail simply due to constant load. Only time and usage will tell you if a spring is any good.

Man I was thinking Penthouse magazine rotation. Sigh

Bohemian said:

Magazine rotation? Yes, like any mechanical device, a magazine is prone to wear. Particularly, if loaded consistently, the springs can soften and eventually lead to a failure to feed. In turn, it’s important to give the magazines a rest and call a fresh one into action. Firearms instructor and member of Colt Combat Unit Ken Hackathorn goes over a simple magazine rotation system...
https://gundigest.com/gun-videos/gundigest-tv/video-importance-of-magazine-rotation

Do Loaded Magazines Wear Out Magazine Springs?
https://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/magazine-springs-and-ammo-cycling/

Two key Terms to understand with respect to magazine or other springs...

1. Spring fatigue
Spring fatigue occurs when a spring has been repeatedly compressed and returned to rest. Basically, fatigue is the eventual loss in some spring stiffness and force or metal fatique failure (breakage) because of repeated use.

2. Spring creep
Spring creep describes a spring’s permanent loss of stiffness from substained compression over a period of time.

E.G.: Take two brand new magazine springs for any semiauto; measure them, photograph them, put one in a magazine, fully load the magazine, put it in a drawer for a month...
Unload that mag, pull out the spring and measure and photograph it against the unused spring...
There will be a visible difference between the two...
Too much of a difference to ignore...
You can add a 3rd test by using a 3rd new mag spring and load, fire, repeat several hundred rounds and disasemble and measure & photograph the 3 springs...
The fully loaded, but unused magazine spring will be the shortest of the 3 by far...
Does not seem to matter whose magazine springs they are, the result is the same, long gun, shot gun, handgun.

To paraphrase Forest Gump... Magazines are like a box of Chocolates, you never know what you're going to get or how long they will last even from the same manufacturer.

Some folks will go their whole lives without a semiauto fail to feed which may or may not be due to magazine spring weakness. I'm not one of those people. No matter how fast you can recover from a fail to feed, that may be time you do not have to spare.

For home defense & hunting I prefer revolvers to eliminate the possibility of a magazine spring failure and or a fail to feed a problem unique to semiautomatic firearms.
With respect to hunting it's for bear defense mostly or when I don't have a chance to use a rifle. Like fishing in Alaska.

For EDC CCW I'm a semi auto guy, and rotate my magazines daily.

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Rotating magazines isn't a bad idea at the range to make sure that they are reliable. Leaving a magazine loaded does not affect the spring, that's complete nonsense.
Rotating magazines daily for your EDC CCW seems insane to me, but you do whatever makes you comfortable.

3paul10 said:

I've only had spring fatigue once. After I apologized profusely to Outrider, I told him its never happened to me before. I was kinda embarrassed.

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LMAO

Sounds like the mags you got were all made in China during the Qing Dynasty if theres terrible spring problems

Bruh

3paul10 said:

I've only had spring fatigue once. After I apologized profusely to Outrider, I told him its never happened to me before. I was kinda embarrassed.

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Bruh that is eff’d up. Lolololol. Cannot unsee this

This seems like something that would appeal to people who overclean their firearms to the point of causing premature wear.

I do think it’s important to use your mags enough to be confident that they aren’t defective. Beyond that, train to clear malfunctions and get back in the fight. I’ve never been issued a firearm that didn’t malfunction occasionally (typically during training classes with heavy courses of fire and not as much cleaning time as probably should have happened). Maybe I’m lazy, but learning to deal with that seems more pragmatic than structuring my life around not having a malfunction ever.

Count me in the "not too worried about this issue" group. Bigger problem for those that keep magazines loaded and one in the pipe is initial round compression. If you clear the gun and put the initial round back in the top of the mag to be rechambered over and over, you can, over time, compress the round, shorten the OAL, and increase the pressure of the round. Even this is probably not a huge issue in most modern firearms, but it is something that I do try to pay attention to.

I take my springs out and soak them in lavender scented oil it helps them to decompress.

Muleskinner said:

Spring fatigue? My stepson has a 1911 that was made in 1938. It was given to him by his grandfather a few years ago before his death. He got it issued to him in the Korean war. The magazines had never been unloaded since 1951. We took it to the range and the firearm fired and cycle flawlessly with ammo head stamp from 1943.. sorry, I just don't buy into that whole line of spring fatigue. I've never seen it happen although it might personally I'm not too concerned with it

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I bet none of the internal springs that make that 1911 function were ever rotated either

Bountied said:

I take my springs out and soak them in lavender scented oil it helps them to decompress.

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OK... I LOLed at that one.

Lots of articles warn about problems that don't exist, people love "proving" conventional wisdom wrong. Mags can wear from use, not really from storing loaded, springs take a set after full compression a couple times then keep that tension for a really long time. If the spring is weak it's replaceable, if the mag lips get worn or bent, replace the mag.

If you are "rotating" your mags by loading and unloading them, you are probably causing more wear than just leaving it loaded. Should also replace that ammo too, keep loading and unloading ammo and chambering rounds and they can get damaged or the bullet can be jammed deeper into the case causing overpressure. If you have a lot of mags and rotate them, you also need to run whatever mags you carry from time to time to ensure reliability. IMO the article makes a better case for just loading a couple good mags with good ammo, and leaving it alone till you need to use it, or at least practice with it. Pretty much what I do, load up a couple mags with defensive ammo, and leave it. I'll shoot whatever mag is loaded in the pistol for practice from time to time to practice with carry ammo and replace beat up rounds, but no need to overthink it.

joppaj said:

I don't discount the fact that there is SOME compression from loaded mags. My old mags are easier to load than brand new ones. I do question whether the compression is of any amount that matters. My own experience with GLOCK mags has been that in 21 years I've never had a FTF due to a mag spring.

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This.

One of the things of note, is that yes, there is some amount of "spring creep" where a spring takes "a set" when you compress it. However, this is in first use. Or I should say, early use. There is generally, with the correct metallurgy and not exceeding its compression or extension length, no progressive set attained by the spring.

IE a spring that has never been used will somewhat weaken upon first compressing it and holding it in that position. However, that loss in spring strength/unloaded length is no greater than if you loaded it for a few minutes or hours at a time for several days worth of being compressed.

So in general, fully loading a magazine for a few days sets it to basically its expected lifetime strength and is no worse than leaving a quality magazine spring compressed to a normal level of compression for years or decades.

Older magazines (like early 1900s) might not have as good metallurgy, but it is still more of an issue of repeated cycling. AND/OR you can have issues where some magazines are designed to accommodate a certain number of rounds, but can actually squeeze in more. Those magazines are NOT designed to have their spring compressed that far and it can much more rapidly wear them out either loading them repeatedly past "max" or leaving them loaded past max. But you are still likely talking about hundreds of loadings past max.

Example a Cz50 is designed as an 8+1, but most magazines for it can be loaded to 9, which shouldn't be done. Some SKS can be loaded to 11, which shouldn't be done.

Is it is that much of a concern, pickup a 10 pack of magazine springs for the stuff you leave loaded or use a ton. I use the same few magazines over and over and over again. Granted, I've only been shooting a few years, but I've yet to wear any of them out. I use the same 2-3 Glock 17 mags. The same 1-2 Glock 21 mags. The same 2-3 AR mags, etc. Sure I've got plenty more, but I don't bother to rotate them. I haven't owned one for enough years, but my bedside Glock 17 I'll take one of my loaded mags with JHP in it to the range when I take it along with plinking ammo and run it through, load it back up and back in the bedside table. Only been doing that a couple of years, but the mag is still tight and I need a mag loader to get the last 2-3 rounds in unless I don't mind my thumb getting sore quick. My AR gets the same treatment. Every once in awhile I take one of the mags in my safe to the range with me and shoot it, then load it back up with M193 and back in the safe. No issues so far, including with Aluminum GI mags (with the newer follower), over the few years I've been doing that.

Yeah at some point I need to pickup some spring packs, but that is as much in case we go full stupid and even replacement parts for standard cap mags get banned or something and I need maintenance parts for lifetime use (which fingers crossed is a good 50+ years more. I plan to live to be really old and keep a lot of my guns till my kids are going through my safe after my passing. Though I am sure I'll divest a lot of them to my kids well before that point).

fbi_surveillance_van said:

This seems like something that would appeal to people who overclean their firearms to the point of causing premature wear.

I do think it’s important to use your mags enough to be confident that they aren’t defective. Beyond that, train to clear malfunctions and get back in the fight. I’ve never been issued a firearm that didn’t malfunction occasionally (typically during training classes with heavy courses of fire and not as much cleaning time as probably should have happened). Maybe I’m lazy, but learning to deal with that seems more pragmatic than structuring my life around not having a malfunction ever.

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TBH that's why I just don't have a lot of interest in mags over 20-30rnds depending on the platform. Even when ammo was cheaper, I just don't have the spare $ to sit there and run 10 loads through a 60 round drum. That would have been $250-300 including the cost of a D60, on sale, back when. Now a days that's more than the price of an inexpensive AR-15. At least with typical mags, I am comfortable enough not testing every single magazine (though I usually run a new mag at least once on a gun) I buy so long as that pattern of magazine has had good service. I've got some G2 PMAGs I am sure I've never run in my ARs, but I've yet to have a single PMAG failure on my ARs of the at least half a dozen I've tried and I've gun a bunch over the years. So I am fairly comfortable not running a G2 PMAG 10+ times to make sure it runs well.

Now, the mags I have ready at hand, those DO get tested many times. Per my above post, those get taken to the range periodically and shot with at least the ammo loaded in them, usually 1-2 reloads at least once a year for each of them. On top of most of them having been run at least a few times before they ever ended up being the ready loaded mags. I just don't run ALL of my mags tons of times. I mean, I only shoot so much and I am a bit lazy. So when I head to the range, its usually the same 1-2 mags off the top of the box of mags that get taken. Not scrounging around in the bottom of my mag boxes.

So far in life, I've only experienced two magazine related issues that I can attribute for sure to the magazine. Lancer mags in my ARs cannot be inserted on a closed bolt if fully loaded. At least not without hitting it like it owes me money. No amount of firm pressure gets it to lock in appropriately. All other AR mags I've run will seat on a closed bolt without having to hit them in place (well, okay I've never run steel GI mags, but aluminum GI mags, PMAGs, Hexmags, and a couple of brands of other brands of polymer mags are fine. And steelies on my 6.5 Grendels insert just fine fully loaded on a closed bolt).

And my Aero M5 AR-10 doesn't like Hexmags. They'll work, but I have to seat them with a fair amount of pressure and it takes a decent amount of force to strip an empty one. Nothing ridiculous mind you, but more force to insert and strip than I'd like (I like mine to drop free, thank you very much).

Now for OLDER guns, yeah I've run in to plenty of mag issues. My Cz82 is super particular about its magazines and even some armory/issue mags need modification to run correctly (front lip of most of the mags seem to be a couple hundredths of an inch too high, so I needed to file them slightly, or else case mouths catch while getting stripped and cause the rounds to jump. Only 1 on 3 armory/issue mags ran run without any modifications. 2 needed slight filing. 1 of 2 new production Cz mags also needed modification to run right. The other new production Cz mag I can't get to run right no matter what I've done with it).

My M1 carbine is incredibly magazine sensitive. Though new production Korean mags all seem to, generally, run fine. I still have misfeeds every once in awhile (and yes my M1 has new springs in it). Not often, but every 200 or so rounds I'll have a misfeed. Might be the mag catch is wearing/worn on the gun (some of my original GI mags the misfeeds are 100% because the mag catch hole on the mag is worn so it is presenting rounds a bit too low sometimes. One has a lot of problems, 2 run sort of okay, but have more issues than my korean mags. All have brand new springs. At a guess it is tolerance stacking. The old mags are worn and the mag catch is also a bit worn. So with the old mags, lots of issues, with the new mags, occasional issues).

Doctor_M said:

Count me in the "not too worried about this issue" group. Bigger problem for those that keep magazines loaded and one in the pipe is initial round compression. If you clear the gun and put the initial round back in the top of the mag to be rechambered over and over, you can, over time, compress the round, shorten the OAL, and increase the pressure of the round. Even this is probably not a huge issue in most modern firearms, but it is something that I do try to pay attention to.

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I have had that happen with my SD load out.

Emptied a 1911 to go to the range, and the bullet was set back a LOT.

Art3 said:

I bet none of the internal springs that make that 1911 function were ever rotated either

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Exactly.

The main spring and recoil spring are constantly compressed.

As are the springs on your car.