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How often do you guys recommend to swap out your carry mags/ammo. From my understanding keeping ammo in a magazine for extended periods of time will weaken the spring which lowers the life of the mag. Also how often do you switch out your carry ammo? i imagine carrying the same ammo every day it will eventually get wet/nasty from sweat or dust/dirt and stuff from every day wear and tear. i like to cl ean my gun once a month, would it be good to just swap mags every month? and as for ammo every month seemsa little unnecessary maybe 6 months or yearly? looking for all and any recommendations. I'm all ears.

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.

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.

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.

Springs don't weaken by staying compressed. They weaken over time by compressing and decompressing.

Another thing to watch out for if your going to be swapping out ammo from mag to mag is bullet seating. Every time you chamber a round the bullet nose hits the feed ramp and can very slightly start to push the bullet deeper in the case. This "deeper seating" can cause an over pressure in the case over time. Just some food for thought if you are constantly loading and re-loading rounds into the chamber.

Grundy1133 wrote:

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.

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.

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.

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.

...I reached out to several big-name ammunition manufacturers while conducting research for this article, and the only specific guidance I got was this: you should rotate your duty ammunition every six months....If your gun is a pure home-defense tool that doesn’t get cycled that much and rarely leaves a climate-controlled environment, you can safely extend that number to a year or more.

link

It's a good idea to periodically shoot your carry gun/ammo combo to insure that you #1 get practice with it, and #2 have complete confidence that everything is working properly.

Paladin wrote:

...I reached out to several big-name ammunition manufacturers while conducting research for this article, and the only specific guidance I got was this: you should rotate your duty ammunition every six months....If your gun is a pure home-defense tool that doesn’t get cycled that much and rarely leaves a climate-controlled environment, you can safely extend that number to a year or more.

link

It's a good idea to periodically shoot your carry gun/ammo combo to insure that you #1 get practice with it, and #2 have complete confidence that everything is working properly.

well i have hornady critical duty in my gun which is suposedly water proof (waterproofed primber and crimped casing to keep water out) i wonder if i could extend the 6 months to 1 year... (critical duty ammo for a .40 isnt cheap lol) and ill definitely shoot my gun just not my carry ammo casue the range only allows brass casing and they dont allow anythign other than flat nose ammo... maybe i can find a home range somewhere that'll let me shoot whatver i want.

One thing I'd like to add: Lead is soft. Hollow points are not exactly hard cast, so they can only be loaded into the pistol so many times before the bullet will get squished by the action. I've actually had that happen before. All of a sudden, one of my .45 gold dots wouldn't chamber anymore. I inspected the bullet, and it was no longer circular. It just looked like a squished mess. Others were deforming too.

After I’ve unloaded a round a couple of times it’s put to the side for use at the range and a new one is used in its place. That way I don’t have to worry about setback and I get the range practice with a magazine of SD.

bayou wrote:After I’ve unloaded a round a couple of times it’s put to the side for use at the range and a new one is used in its place. That way I don’t have to worry about setback and I get the range practice with a magazine of SD.

the range i go to only allows brass casing flat nose rounds...

Grundy1133 wrote:

bayou wrote:After I’ve unloaded a round a couple of times it’s put to the side for use at the range and a new one is used in its place. That way I don’t have to worry about setback and I get the range practice with a magazine of SD.

the range i go to only allows brass casing flat nose rounds...

So they only allow .40 cal? No 9mm or .45? That is about the only ammo you can find for practice is round nosed in those calibers.

Keith B wrote:

Grundy1133 wrote:

bayou wrote:After I’ve unloaded a round a couple of times it’s put to the side for use at the range and a new one is used in its place. That way I don’t have to worry about setback and I get the range practice with a magazine of SD.

the range i go to only allows brass casing flat nose rounds...

So they only allow .40 cal? No 9mm or .45? That is about the only ammo you can find for practice is round nosed in those calibers.

idk. told them i have a S&W 40 and asked what ammo i was allowed to use and they said brass casing flat nose... so *shrug* ive never owned anything but a .40

I'd find another range. I've never had that problem. The outdoor range I go to responded when I asked what kind of ammo "just no tracers" and the indoor doesn't allow reloads or steel cases.

Next time you go ask them what ammo you CAN'T use.

I'm sure that they'll let you go through a magazine of Hornady Critical Duty.

Next time check www.ammoseek.com or sgammo.com for some well priced jacketed hollow points.