Does leaving magazines loaded ruin them?

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jcizzle

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I've heard that leaving a magazine fully loaded for extended periods of time will ruin the spring. Is this true? It's not like I plan to walk around with a half loaded magazine in my weapon. Should I just unload it and reload it every day or two? week? month? what's an extended period of time?
 

druryj

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Nope, not if they are decent mags, particularly factory mags from a reputable manufacturer (Sig, Glock, Beretta, Walther, Kimber, Kahr, S&W etc). Mag springs are designed to take a "set" and function from there. Loading and firing and reloading will, over LOTS of time wear the springs where you may need to replace them eventually. It it's a POS mag for a POS gun, well, buyer beware.
 

beast1989

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I have done a lot of looking around on the internet and most ppl are stating that the compression and decompression is what has the worst effect on the mags. I have 10 mags for my XD9 and 9 mags for my XD40. I keep two mags loaded a piece for each gun on me and my wife's sides of the bed. Every other month or so I switch out the pairs of mags and be done with it.

Mags are very reliable in this aspect and if they did wear easily you would hear a lot more about it from us gun nuts than what you already do, trust me. lol Couldnt you imagine all the threads on how to preserve magazine life and peoples various techniques such as rotation of mags in xyz intervals, amount of ammo they put in each, replaceable springs etc etc lol. But there is none of that talk because mags just arent that fragile.
 

RickN

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I may be wrong but I believe this came from years ago when the metal used in the mag body and springs was not up to today's standards. I have seen some pre-WW2 1911 mags that have been left loaded for years and would not function. I have also seen some old Savage 22 rifle mags that were left loaded and it messed up the feed lips. I do believe that modern mags can be left loaded for reasonable amounts of time.
 

nofearfactor

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Nope, not if they are decent mags, particularly factory mags from a reputable manufacturer (Sig, Glock, Beretta, Walther, Kimber, Kahr, S&W etc). Mag springs are designed to take a "set" and function from there. Loading and firing and reloading will, over LOTS of time wear the springs where you may need to replace them eventually. It it's a POS mag for a POS gun, well, buyer beware.

This. Some of the 'off brand ' mags Ive gotten before by trying to save some cash have been questionable. There was a group buy here once a few years ago and I got a bunch of cheap mags for my G17 and some of them I had to do things like file sharp edges off,a couple I had to assemble-they just seemed to be finished in a hurry,etc,etc. They worked great,they just were cheapcheap. Never felt the same about any factory mag Ive ever ordered though.
 

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