Are the springs sprung?

[Crowbait]

Well, first off, thank you guys for the insight. Secondly I guess my firearm maintenance time and money spent just decreased; which has the added effect of increasing the ammo budget. Thanks again for the knowledge, it is much appreciated.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[QKShooter]

"Once a week I unload my mags, disassemble, and gently tug on the springs and then let them "rest" for about 36 hours before re-assembling. I do the same for my recoil springs. I have two sets of recoil springs for three of my autos so this doesn't require the weapon to be un-usable during this period."

To comment on the above in the original post - that would be totally unnecessary. With regard to stretching or tugging springs...the only time I've ever heard of doing anything resembling that would be with recoil springs that have been fine tuned or tailored to one particular cartridge by clipping 1.5 or a couple of coils and then the recoil spring is carefully stretched back to its original length. Even that was mostly done before various spring weights were available for firearms though I have clipped a coil or two on Colt Commander recoil springs that acted overly heavy to me.
But, that is only done once.
Modern springs do not need to rest. They only need not be compressed beyond their intended working compression.

I do know for a fact and from our members that magazines have stayed fully stoked for years and were still fine.

With my Galil 35 round magazines I have a few that I keep stoked and downloaded by 3 cartridges only because there is not much remaining space (at all) for a fully compressed spring in the Galil rifle magazines.
And while the Israeli Military just routinely replaced magazine springs no matter if they needed replacing or not - that is not something that I want to do since the Galil replacement magazine springs cost almost as much a complete AR magazine.

[airslot]

When I first got my M&P45, I thought I would never get the tenth round loaded. Three years later, after repeated loading, it's not a problem. It would seem that the springs reached an "operational" length. Until I see some type of feeding issue, nothing to worry about.

[QKShooter]

With regard to answers on issues by Hopyard...I have to pass (and I have no answers) since none of my firearms have multiple recoil springs or spring/guide rod assemblies.

[glockman10mm]

My gen 3 duty glock22 has been carried and used since 2001. During that time I have put many thousand rounds thru it and it still functions fine. Additionally, I'm still using the original mags w/original springs and they are still working fine.

I do, however download my mags by one or two.

[bmcgilvray]

Problem is that manufacturers now frequently don't use simple spring designs, but complex spring & guide- rod duplex and triplex designs. It took me more than 9 months to get a replacement from S&W and there was nothing on the open market.

I was looking at the thread Tangle started a few days ago about a design change made by Glock. Maybe due to popularity the part will be available.

I'm not as concerned about magazine springs as I am about recoil springs and recoil-guide rod-rod spring assembly designs.

A bum magazine is easily repaired or replaced or dropped and replaced. When the guide rod spring goes while shooting it is over.

Twice burned, and I'm a little shy on this. If I purchase another handgun it likely will not be a pistol because of this particular issue.

If this is so then those are manufacturers I will be sure to avoid. Springs don't have to be so difficult and complicated. There are serviceable firearms available that can accomplish all a shooter could want without resorting to "silly springs." I'm unfamiliar with such designs but have to wonder how much they have to do with either cheapened or shrunken pistols.

[dukalmighty]

My range magazines and guns I don't replace springs until they need it due to malfunctions etc.My EDC 1911 Combat Commander gets new recoil springs every 1000 rounds,They need to come up with a tool to check mag spring compression strength,the tool would check new spring tension at different depths and then use the data to check older springs to decide when there is enough tension loss to change springs.If any,and you could make a tool that can check recoil spring strength with something similar to a trigger weight test gauge.
If anybody uses my Idea I'd like a cut of the profits