keeping magazine fully loaded all the time...Is there any problem

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NETO1978

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I am keeping my (2) colt ar-15 30 round magazines fully loaded ,because I never know when will I have to use my gun as home defense...
The are people that say it will fatigue the magazine springs...
Is that true?

tks.
 
Properly manufactured springs do not fatigue from being compressed, they fatigue from compression cycles. Keep your mag loaded for fifty years, it should be fine. Shoot 10,000 rounds through it, and you might develop a weak spring.
 
I wondered the same thing for my carry pistol. My FIL told me not to leave them loaded for extended times. I keep my SG and 336 loaded all the time. I have had my SG for almost 10 yrs. It has been loaded 95% of the time. Have not had a problem with it not feeding. As well as my pistol.
 
while krochus is right about the springs, the springs aren't the issue. the issue is spreading the feed lips. it's not exactly clear to me why it sometimes happens and sometimes doesn't, but i've seen it happen and not happen. go figure.

if you leave the magazine loaded over a closed bolt, then the bolt will push down on the rounds taking all the pressure off the feed lips. i.e. no potential for problems.

while i buy even amounts of old fashioned D&H aluminum mags and new-fangled pmags, i only keep the pmags loaded since they have those snazzy caps
 
Ford and Cadillac needs to look at that.
I'll bet you're thinking of lincolns and caddys with kaput automatic load leveling suspensions.

Either way you might wear out your springs by repeated over compressing or extending as I did with my jeep. However you won't wear out springs by letting your car sit in the driveway
 
However you won't wear out springs by letting your car sit in the driveway
You're exactly right, but I know a guy who barely drove his lincoln and his shocks went out in maybe 2 or 3 months. and you're exactly right about me talking about lincolns specifically!
 
I have GI mags I have left loaded since I "aquired" them in 1970 and the springs are perfectly fine.

I do download by two rounds in AR mags though.

It's an old GI habit I guess, but a 20 or 30 round mag with 20 or 30 rounds in it is harder to lock in place with the bolt closed.
Say during a tactical reload before you run the gun dry.

No Problem if you make it a habit to down-load by two.

rc
 
A customer brought in some GI WWII 45ACP loaded in original magazines.

The first round was corroded in the mag, around the feed lips.....

late that night, we were working late, one of the guys picked up one of those old mags, stripped off the first round, slapped it into one of our rental 45's and cranked off the remaining 6 rounds.

WWII ammo...springs compressed for 40+ years and they fed and fired fine!

We get elderly folks in from time to time that have found relics in the attic, as this lady did, and have no desire to keep them.They will bring them by, we offer money for it, but this lady just gave the mags to the boss!
 
Why not get a shotgun for home defense? A rifle could go through a wall and injure someone else in the house. Or go out a window and injure someone outside. There is a reason Mossberg makes like a dozen cheap home defense shotguns.
 
Oh dear lord not the rifle through walls myth.


The fact if the matter is a .223 firing expanding bullets will go through far far less drywall than......oh say BUCKSHOT
 
compression cycles

A real good example in the everyday world are the springs on your garage door. Because of the compression and decompression that happens every time you open and close, the springs will finally break OR cannot handle the door's weight any longer.


General Geoff
Properly manufactured springs do not fatigue from being compressed, they fatigue from compression cycles. Keep your mag loaded for fifty years, it should be fine. Shoot 10,000 rounds through it, and you might develop a weak spring.
 
You're exactly right, but I know a guy who barely drove his lincoln and his shocks went out in maybe 2 or 3 months. and you're exactly right about me talking about lincolns specifically!
Some luxury cars use an air-lift setup to allow the car to maintain the same suspension height with different loads. If the hoses or shocks spring an air leak, the car settles. Ask me how I know...I replaced mine (Buick) with pure springs, and they work great...

http://www.strutmasters.com/

As to the magazines, the steel springs will be fine. Aluminum, however, has some really strange fatigue behaviors, including the tendency of some alloys to creep under stress, hence the problem of feed lip spreading in some mags but not others.
 
There was a time when automobiles used leaf springs that would weaken and break, losing their spring effect; mostly, if they were overloaded and then subjected to severe bumps or off-road punishment. It's a different design principle than the coil springs used in suspension systems today, and the springs used in gun mags. Trucks still use leaf springs. You can't really overload a gun magazine spring because it's designed to compress the correct distance and amount based on the total number of cartridges it was made to hold. Other than the compression/uncompression cycle, there's no shock or outside force to cause any premature fatigue. Magazine springs will weaken from this action, but you'd wear out many barrels first.
 
A real good example in the everyday world are the springs on your garage door. Because of the compression and decompression that happens every time you open and close, the springs will finally break OR cannot handle the door's weight any longer.

By saying compression and decompression, I assume that you mean cycles. Those springs would last forever if the garage door was just left either up or down.

It's an old GI habit I guess, but a 20 or 30 round mag with 20 or 30 rounds in it is harder to lock in place with the bolt closed.
Say during a tactical reload before you run the gun dry.

No Problem if you make it a habit to down-load by two.

While I'm sure that you are correct............being retired Air Force, I fill them up with thirty rounds and just force the magazine in.

Just another of my many bad habits.
 
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