Worry about mag springs?

[RetiredUSNChief]

OK, I inquired of a couple of long serving veterans.
They both said that they loaded an M16 from an open bolt with a full magazine, but downloaded their reload magazines for easy insertion under a closed bolt. Is that a defect warranting redesign?

NO.

That was a PERSONAL choice to make an action EASIER. They can properly insert fully loaded magazines all day long...they simply choose not to.

 

[Jim Watson]

Well, I have made the personal choice to download one brand of pistol magazines because it takes a HARD push to seat them under a closed slide. After dropping a couple because I did not slam them in hard enough, I elected to download them and use them for occasions when nine is enough. I have "redesigned" some of them with mixed results. I have a Mod 2 redesign in the works, likely accomplished today.

 

[jmorris]

I have intentionally left magazines fully loaded to make them easier to seat at a later date fully loaded, as well as download them, when I absolutely know I don’t need their full capacity for a stage and rules didn’t prohibit it.

 

[SSN Vet]

Spring life is a moderately complex thing.

And getting the metallurgy right is only half the battle... ensuring the tempering process is executed correctly is the other half. I've been sucked into automation design for the assembly of a small shock sensing device that uses tiny BeCu leaf springs. There's only two companies in the world that make BeCu and it's both expensive and hard to source (especially in small volumes). And darned if we haven't had temper problems plaguing us. And we're dependant on vendor certs. as to the alloy and temper.

As with most things, you get what you test, and my conclusion is that we have to design a test apparatus to measure the spring force (which depends on the temper). But unless I can persuade our vendor to do the testing at their end, it will only lead to a pi$$ing contest if I try to reject 50,000 spring wires (one heavy box full)... and we're a small account for them, so we don't have a lot of clout. But even if we eat the loss and re-order, there's no guaranty that we won't get the same thing again.

The point in this ramble, is that whoever manufactures magazines for firearms needs to be the "real deal" ... design engineering, process control, testing, clout with suppliers, and money to back it all up. I think there's a reason why many gun manufacturers' outsource that piece of the puzzle to Mecgar and let them specialize.

Many lament that mags are the Achilles' heal of auto-loaders. But design isn't the only reason for this. Difficulty in executing the specialized manufacturing processes is probably just as much so. Which is likely why they can charge $50 for 3 oz. of stamped sheet metal, a small injection molded follower and a flippin light gauge spring.

 

[WrongHanded]

Anecdote Warning:

In 'Immediate Action' by Andy MacNab, as he's describing the training facilities of the SAS back in the 80s, and talking about how much shooting they did in a day compared to a regular soldier's year, he mentioned both magazines and stoppages. One of the rifles the SAS commonly used at the time was an M16 variant, and he described them typically downloading the magazines to 28 rounds to prevent feeding issues and "stoppages", which they would train through anyway.