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I carry my 1977 colt commander in condition one always. However, I have a concern about my magazine spring. I understand to keep the magazines loaded to ensure spring life but i unload every night from condition one to put my gun in my bedside safe ( i have several small children). Does the unloading and reloading of that one round daily something to worry about? Should I keep it condition one indefinitely?

Personally, I would be more concerned about bullet setback than spring life.

Not trying to be snippy, but what good is your unloaded gun in the bedside safe? You are more likely to need your gun after dark IMHO.

As long as you are putting it in a safe, I see no reason to remove the round from the chamber. Leave it in Cond1.

By chambering that same round every morning you are likely to cause bullet setback into the case as it is set into the chamber. This will cause higher pressure in the round when it is eventually shot and could have significant damage to your pistol and possibly yourself.

Forget about magazine springs until you have shot 5000 rounds or so. When your pistol fails to feed or function with the same ammo you have always used, then you can question magazine springs and/or recoil springs.

Welcome to the forum.

gilligan wrote:I carry my 1977 colt commander in condition one always. However, I have a concern about my magazine spring. I understand to keep the magazines loaded to ensure spring life but i unload every night from condition one to put my gun in my bedside safe ( i have several small children). Does the unloading and reloading of that one round daily something to worry about? Should I keep it condition one indefinitely?

Yes.
Yes.

If it's in the safe you should feel much better about keeping it in Condition 1.

Bullet push back is your greatest threat when constantle unloading. If you keep an oily gun you can easily corrupt your powder charge too.

If you are reloading by dropping your bullet in the barrel & then closing the slide, that is really hard on your extractor.

Guns are made to be loaded.
How do we know? Rule # 1.

Treat all firearms like they are loaded.

If you aren't sure what people are meaning by "bullet setback", it is when a round gets chambered and the bullet is slightly pushed back into the case. After repeated loading/unloading of the same bullet, the movement can be substantial. When the setback becomes significant, the reduced case volume increases the pressure when the round fires. If the pressure is too high, it can cause catastrophic failure of the gun, otherwise known as a "KA-BOOM".

Here are some pictures from a message thread discussing this topic at Ohioans For Concealed Carry.

The 4th from the left is set back and so is the one in the middle with the black line on it.



Here is an example of bullet setback with 35 thousandths difference of COAL.




When we hear of gun KA-BOOMS at the range, most of the time we really don't know what caused it. I'm convinced that bullet setback is the culprit more often than people think.

A full mag will not cause the spring to weaken, it's the repeated loading and unloading of the magazine that fatigues the spring. Bullet set-back is a major issue and like has been said, if you put it into a safe there is no need to change from condition 1.

Full magazines are not weakened at all. There were many cases of bring back 45s from the big war that were left with a full mag for years with no harm to the mag when fired years later.

For a carry gun (the only one I've had this many years) and a spare carry mag, I change the mag springs after a few years. (I've read of reliable mags after 10+ years of sitting loaded but I am not that confident in someone else's word on the matter) Haven't had an issue myself, but as my carry mags, I can't afford to wait for a spring related failure. Besides, springs are cheap and those I take out of my carry mags go into the oldest range mags... which should be the worst, since use wears a spring more than sitting compressed.

The funny thing about the recommendations for replacement of springs is; the biggest proponents of spring replacement are the spring manufacturers and sellers. That said I replace springs when I think they need replacing not on some arbitrary time table.

I agree bullet setback is much more dangerous.

"the biggest proponents of spring replacement are the spring manufacturers and sellers"

I have a '68 Hi-Power with the original magazine and spring. It's been condition 1 in my safe since '84. I know the prior owners. It has been Cocked and locked since new. It is wearing the original Mag spring. It's not my Carry weapon or primary home defense weapon. I'm not saying they last forever but it seems like allot of good springs go to the trash. (WWMCS) *


* What Would Mr. Camp Say
I have spent hours reading his posts. What a gem of a man. I do not recall a post on this topic from him.

Thanks for the info. I will pull my top rounds out today and replace them and keep it condition 1in my safe.

If you aren't sure what people are meaning by "bullet setback"

Thanks for posting the explanation Jumping Frog. I learned something.