Those serious about carrying a defensive handgun know that maintenance is simply part of the process. You need to make sure your gun is well lubricated, clean, and functional in case you ever need it. Most people do a good job of taking care of their handgun, but many people overlook what is usually the first failure point. I am talking about the magazine. In many people’s eyes, magazines are considered disposable items. Once they start having issues, they simply throw them aside and replace them. While magazines will indeed eventually wear out with a bit of maintenance, we can extend their life.
Handgun Magazine Maintenance – Take Care of Your Mags
Magazine maintenance is a simple task. All you need is a clean cloth, a cleaning brush, and a punch. The first thing we want to do is remove the magazine’s bottom plate. Your specific magazine design may vary, but most have a tab at the bottom of the magazine floor plate. Insert your punch into the hole and depress the plate sitting against the spring. Once the spring pressure is off, the plate should slide off.. A word of caution here. This is obviously under spring tension, and if you pull the slide off too quickly, this spring will launch across the room.
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Once the plate is off, slowly let the spring extend and remove it from the magazine. Now simply turn the magazine right side up and allow the follower to drop through the magazine body. In some magazines, the spring plate and follower are attached to the spring. If you have a magazine like this, simply pop these pieces off once the spring is out.
Time to Clean
Now that we have the magazine disassembled, it is time to clean it. The depth of this cleaning will be determined by how dirty the magazines are. Most magazines won’t be covered in mud or deep dirt unless you train outside a lot. What we’re usually working with is light dirt, dust, and potentially pocket debris. If the magazine is filthy, use your scrub brush and break everything free. Now use your clean cloth to wipe down the interior and exterior of the magazine. Make sure you clean the spring and the floor plates. One thing we want to avoid with magazines is the use of oil. This will be housing or ammunition. Any oil still trapped inside the magazine body can affect our ammunition.
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Now we want to inspect the individual components of the magazine. We’re looking for wear and breakage. There are countless resources where we can find replacement individual components for our magazine. This allows us to extend the life of our magazine at a portion of the cost of a new magazine. One area I encourage you to always look at is the feed lips. If these are damaged, it means it’s time to replace the magazine, as it will affect ammo feeding.
Spring Failure
The main point of failure on most magazines is the spring. Over time, the spring’s compression and expansion cause fatigue and weak points. What some people try to do to fix this is simply pull the spring out and stretch it. While that can temporarily give the spring a little more power, the weak point still exists, and it will eventually fail again. It is easier to simply replace the spring.
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Once we have cleaned and inspected everything, we will reassemble the magazine. This goes in the reverse order of when you disassembled. Once you have the magazine completely reassembled, we want to do a function check. In a safe place, load a few rounds in your magazine and chamber them in your handgun. We want to make sure that the magazine is feeding properly.
Handgun Magazine Maintenance
I encourage you to inspect your magazines at least twice a year. Once again, if you’re serious about your handgun as a defensive tool, we need to make sure that it’s 100% functional. This includes the magazines.
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