Something I’ve been wondering. Has there ever been a study on the effect of leaving magazines loaded and springs compressed for an extended period? Does anyone know if it affects the springs to do their job if they’ve been compressed for an extended period, like years?
Should mags be unloaded periodically to allow the springs to go back to neutral for a while? Any official data on this?
Inquiring minds want to know…
As far as a study, no haven’t seen one previously.
The advice I’ve read for years on this subject says springs degrade from motion, not static loads.
In other words, it’s the cycling of a spring through various states of compression that wears them out, not long periods of time in a compressed state.
Found this through some initial searching, haven’t watched it in its entirety yet:
My understanding is a new spring will take a ‘set’ when it is first compressed and left for a while. This is why new mags are harder to load until after you have left them full for a few days.
After they have taken a set, the power of the spring will gradually reduce as it is worked - compressing and uncompressing - so long as it stays within its elastic bounds.
Springs do wear out, but you’re going to see it much sooner in a recoil spring than a magazine spring because the recoil spring is worked every shot whereas the magazine spring is worked every 10 shots.
That was interesting as well as many of the comments under the video. It seems that the springs actually lose some length being compressed over time, and many reported feed issues years later from stored mags. But this seems to be after many years, not just a few.
Constantly compressed springs exist all over the mechanical world. Spring steel has a structure that retains it’s “memory” and will tend to spring and unspring until it has actually worn out from repeated cycles of compression decompression.
This is true but the set for a high quality spring steel will only reduce tension by about 2 to 5 percent of the spring’s stored energy potential. I’m sure that is factored into the design.
Let’s not forget that springs are designed to be compressed 100% of the time. For instance, leaf, shock absorber and strut springs are under constant compression and go through a gazillon cycles during the life cycle of the component.
A loaded mag spring will eventually loose some of it’s energy, due to setting, if it is loaded and left for a long period of time, but that period is… long. It all depends on the quality of spring steel used in the mag.
I would trust a P-Mag that had been loaded and left like that for two or three years.
If the concern is over loaded mags for CCW, you will likely be unloading the expensive CCW ammo and reloading with range fodder for practice at least a couple times a year. Won’t affect the spring much at all.
Reading discussions elsewhere, another factor with “static load” springs is that temperature variations may be at work to “cycle” springs even if the mechanical load on them is constant.
Unknown if “temperature cycling” is a significant factor in spring life or not.
I think that can be a BIG variable, we’ll never know what quality steel a manufacturer uses.
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