I’ve begun to store all new mags with two tracers in 'em, so when I load the rest in battery the glowtorches will sit on the bottom.
I’m curious if this is going to cause my feed lips to blossom, or am I over-worrying?
ETA: I’m ONLY loading the two tracers, so when I fill the rest of the mag, I’m not having to dip into two seperate cookie jars. I’m possibly being petty, and over-analytical, but I’m curious if this could pose any damage to my feed lips in a long-term storage scenario. These are stainless steel mags, if that makes the deductive process any easier.
I store most of my mags with 28 rounds and have never had any issues.I too worry about stuff like this so once a month I unload them and re-load them.More just to give the springs a break than to worry about the feed lips.
Common sense makes me think that the spring bearing full load, and placing pressure on the feed lips is what causes the bloom, but common sense doesn’t always apply.
I’m doubting two measley cartridges are going to load the spring enough to extert the force needed to cause the lips to creep, but I’ve been wrong in this life more than I’ve been right.
im sure two cartriges can make a difference- you notice how much additional pressure it is to press in rounds 29 and 30? its more than twice the force required for rounds 1-22ish, i’d bet.
i’ve never worried about lip creep on metal mags- i think that’s a bigger issue with pmags
It’s a bigger issue with a PMAG in the same fashion that holding a match to the magazine is. There is a PMAG that has been left fully loaded, cap off, on the desk of the president of Magpul since the PMAG was concieved. It is doing just fine last I heard. Magpul made the caps as a suspenders and belt type thing. Just one more piece-of-mind, just-in-case thing they do.
This has been discussed before. Leaving mags loaded does not cause the spring to wear. Unloading and loading does. Obviously overloading mags isn’t a smart thing to to do either. I have plenty of mags at home for pistols and rifles that are all pre-loaded for use and when I have taken them out to shoot they never have an issue.
I’m not concerned with Hooke’s Law, because I’m not loading and unloading mags constantly. I’m also not concerned with long-term storage of loaded mags or spring wear, I’m trying to get the skinny on what the causes of feed lip creep are, and if two rounds will be a factor in the ruination of my lippage.
I’m trying to pre-load all my SHTF/Non-training mags with two tracers, and leaving the other 28 cartridges empty. I’m trying to figure out if a full-load is required to cause flexion in the the lips, and if two rounds total is enough to cause stress for a long period of time.
I know this has posed problems in aluminum STANAGs, but I’m using stainless steel mags and P-mags in my long-term storage. The P-mags aren’t a concern of mine, due to the cap, but the stainless ones are.
Again, I’m only storing two cartridges in the magazine long term, but if future availability is going to be a concern, I’d like to make sure my mag bodies stay in top shape.
When I store mags I make sure that half of the time the round is dress right and the other half it is dress left. I then make sure to store them upside down half of the time, and of course to make sure that they point north during the winter and south during the summer. And never put more than 5 rounds in.
Dudes: For the sake of clarification, and to clear my surly name, my original post, nor subsequent responses, posed any questions related to spring compression.
The topic of spring flexion and load has been beaten to death on every firearm related forum since BBS.
Glad it was worth the time in MSPaint to make it then
TheLandlord, since I already kind of dumped on your thread, what I should have said is that I really don’t think it will be an issue at all and I wouldn’t worry about it much.
