That’s old school information you’ve been told prior to this thread. Back in the day - say guns made prior to and during WW2, and maybe shortly afterwards, this was true. But for most guns made since then, it is no longer true. Advances in making steel have created steels used in springs that won’t “take a set” when compressed for long times. It isn’t the compression of a steel that weakens springs, it is the cycling of compression/extension that does it.Grundy1133 wrote:alright. thanks for the info. ive noticed that some people say leaving them loaded hurts em and some say that loading and unloading weakens the spring (which makes more sense if you think about it) so I'll just keep mine loaded i guess and if i ever notice a spring getting weak when loading, i'll just go buy a new spring.carlson1 wrote:What weakens the spring in magazines is loading and unloading the mag. With the modern day mags there is nothing wrong with leaving them loaded. I do change my carry ammo at least once a year and sometimes more often.
So if, as Carlson pointed out, you load and unload the magazines a lot, then you’ll need to occasionally rebuild them. But if you just load ‘em and leave ‘em loaded, it will not hurt them. Furthermore, it takes a LOT of loading/unloading cycles to affect the springs this way. So, if you’re carrying your pappy’s 1911 from WW2, you’ll probably want to swap out the springs at some point. If you are competing frequently in pistol competitions where your mags get cycled a lot, you’ll need to change the springs out once in a while ....but you’ll know when the time comes because you’ll begin to experience malfunctions in the gun due to weak springs.
I have never needed to swap out a magazine spring - including in the original magazines that came with my father’s WW2 sidearm - a 1943 Ithaca 1911A1, which I own today and still shoot once in a while. I suspect that this is one of those issues that borders on the mythological, and really only affects that small percentage of shooters that shoots tens of thousands of rounds a year through the same magazine.
In other words.... unless you’re carrying an antique, stop worrying about it.