I’ve herd it’s bad. I’ve herd it dosen’t matter, and I’ve herd what wears the spring out the quickest. Is the constant loading and unloading of the magazine…I would think having the spring compressed all the time would be the worst.
Load them up & leave em !!! It is the Working of the spring that wears them out. 
Awesome!! I’ll get a few extra mags and throw some HP’s in there and let em sit!!
It depends on the spring. Some magazines with weak springs (like Wilson 8 round 1911 mags) will take a set if you leave them loaded for extended periods of time.
Leaving a spring compressed for extended periods of time does have some impact on the spring, but cycling the springs a lot will certainly have a noticeable impact on the spring. For most magazines for most duty grade pistols, leaving them loaded won’t harm the magazine’s reliability.
Good point on certian mags !! I would say,depending on the mags,just rotate them after a few months. Shoot them every so often,reload and put away .
That dosen’t sound to hard to do…
Its not only the springs that wear out. I know that with glock mags you have to worry about the mag body swelling, especially if you load them to capacity. I download carry mags by at least one and cycle them out each month which is a good time to disassemble my range mags and clean them. Fact is mags are like tires. We all put off buying new until theyre on their last legs. Its tough to buy new mags when that money could go towards cool new shit! Its something that I have struggled with since I started shooting.
Ive left Glock 19 mags loaded for months on end and they still function 100%.
same goes for Pmags.
Magpul says the little cap that comes with Pmags is so you can store them for long periods of time & take the pressure off the feed lips - so you should be GTG
How many of you who leave magazines fully loaded for an extended period would store your carbine with the bolt locked back? I suspect not too many. Same for leaving the hammer cocked.
Why keep your mags loaded unless you need to?
Dave
Boonie Packer
This is true.
I have a slim base Night Hawk 1911 magazine that took a set (kind of?..), I always left it loaded in my carry gun, then one day my brother came to me.
He had borrowed it taken it out to shoot etc, but told me the gun would not lock back on an empty mag, sure enough without failure or exception it would not lock back, I unloaded it, put it in the cabinet (where I keep ammo, magazines, whatever,etc), anyway, about a month later I come, thinking “Alright I’ll order a new magazine spring” and for kicks I put it in the gun, test it.
It locks back, without failure, every time, I changed nothing, except I let it sit unloaded for about a month, honestly, unacceptable. I don’t know what to expect of the magazine anymore.
I was saving for a replacement gun, as that was one of the last straws, but things came up, anyway, I’m going to order a new spring from a different manufacturer.
I’m thinking Wolff Springs have always been reliable for me as recoil/firing pin springs, I’ll give them a shot. John_Wayne777 do you recommend anything in particular since you’re familiar with weak 1911 mag springs, I assumed you replaced yours as well?
I have mags sitting in my safe that have been loaded for at least two years. They still work fine.
I’ve fired high quality mags that have been loaded for over 20 years and had no issues.
Every year we have guys on my job who only shoot the minimum twice a year training events prove that mags loaded for six months at a time are not an issue.
Rotating mags is BS, they either work or they don’t. If they work then fine, if they are not working they need new springs or some hammer therapy.
As has been said, don’t get emotionally attached to your magazines.
I fail to see how either would be practical. A slight bump can send your bolt forward and I see no reason to store a gun with a cocked hammer.
… How many people dry fire their Glocks, M&Ps, etc to relax the striker springs?
I don’t keep a ton of loaded mags (4-6 x 4 maybe). But I don’t worry about the ones being kept loaded for long periods of time. The only mags I rotate are ones which are holding ammo that’s seen alot of temp changes and/or humidity. I shoot them off, Inspect the mag, and load up some fresh carry ammo.
I’ve left mags loaded for 2-3 years that functioned just fine… While wearing out many others in that time period which were seeing actual use (being cycled).
I found one of my old Gen 1 Glock 17 mags loaded with 17 rounds of 147gr Fed Hydra-Shok at my dads house in 2008. It had been loaded for 21 years. Shot it at my next range day. All 17 round fed and fired. No problems to report.
Edited to add: It’s not the constant compression of a spring which wears it out it’s the cycling of the spring which makes is wear out.
In the mid 1980’s I fired some 1911 mags that if you went by the date stamp on the ammo had probably been loaded since WWII. They ran fine.
The strategy I adopted was to swap magazine springs every six months. I kept 5 loaded 8 round Wilson 1911 mags and I installed new springs twice a year just to ensure that the mags would function as they were expected to.
Wilson’s newer generation of magazines are supposed to be considerably better than the older ones in this regard…you might want to check them out. The “Nighthawk” magazine you have is probably just a rebranded mec-gar magazine, and those suck.
http://www.nighthawkcustom.com/detail.aspx?ID=162
I certainly hope I didn’t pay $30+ for a rebranded Mec-gar magazine.
Even if you did, Mec-gar is an OEM of mags for firearm manufacturers. One being Sig. Mec-gar isn’t like other aftermarket manufacturers.
Hmmm…gotta offer a dissenting opinion. I actually tend to leave the carbine bolt-open; that way if I ever pick it for any dry fire drills I can immediately tell it’s empty. And when I take it to the range, they like to see them empty and locked back when not actually being shot, so again, one less step. Take it out of the case and I’m good to go, and the RO’s are happy (at this point they tend to not even bother with me other than to say hi and pass pleasantries).
When the .45 goes into the gunvault, the last thing I do before shutting the door is to pull the hammer back. It’s a DASA, and I really really hope I never ever need to but should I awake in the middle of the night to glass breaking, that first shot won’t have the heavier trigger pull. Now, mind you, IMMEDIATELY upon coming out of the gun vault it gets manually decocked.
Other thing to look at- say someone DOESN’T keep the bolt back on a carbine or the hammer back on a sidearm. It takes a LOT less time to perform either of those actions than it does to load a magazine.