loaded or unloaded magazines

[Hummer]

If you are going to be loading mags for long term storage on the AR I would load 18 rounds in a 20 round mag and 26 rounds in a 30 round mag. The majority of stoppages in M16 tests at Aberdeen Proving Ground happen in the first two to three rounds.

[CountryGuy]

If you are going to be loading mags for long term storage on the AR I would load 18 rounds in a 20 round mag and 26 rounds in a 30 round mag. The majority of stoppages in M16 tests at Aberdeen Proving Ground happen in the first two to three rounds.

Hummer, Thanks for the input. What is the failure mode that occurs typically? Have they root caused it to being an actual issues with spring fatigue? Also how old are the mags in questions? I mean somewhere like APG I could see where those mags would possibly see an extremely high usage, over and over with thousands of reloads. Thanks.

[Buggyout]

If you are going to be loading mags for long term storage on the AR I would load 18 rounds in a 20 round mag and 26 rounds in a 30 round mag. The majority of stoppages in M16 tests at Aberdeen Proving Ground happen in the first two to three rounds.

WIN! Thanks for the specialist info. :)

-Buggy

[jdeefus]

If you are going to be loading mags for long term storage on the AR I would load 18 rounds in a 20 round mag and 26 rounds in a 30 round mag. The majority of stoppages in M16 tests at Aberdeen Proving Ground happen in the first two to three rounds.

great info! thanks Hummer!

[Sierra 173]

I keep some of each. Some are loaded for immediate use in an emergency and others remain unloaded until I need them. I would say about 1/3rd of my magazines remain empty right now. But, to be honest, I have magazines that have been loaded for 2 years or more and I have not had any trouble with them at all.

[Hummer]

At Aberdeen tests are started with new mags and are numbered with paint. All mags are rotated through all weapons. When a stoppage/malfunction occurs everything stops cold. Gunners are told to continue to hold the rifle just like it was being fired and just raise their hand till the Test Director comes to examine it. We sit down with it and examine everything before any part of the weapon is moved and make notes and it is given a stoppage code.

After the initial notations are recorded the weapon is clear and the round is examined for damage it may have received in original loading or during the feeding action just experienced. Next the mag is emptied so we know what round was being fed when the stoppage occurred. The mag number is also recorded.

After all notes are made firing is resumed. Initially the stoppage is charged to the weapon but if the same stoppage occurs with same mag in other rifles then the original notes are changed and the stoppage is charged to the magazine.

Be assured a report is authored and is forwarded up the chain to where the originator of the testing gets informed of every stoppage and failure because things happen the real world that was never thought of by the designers and troops do things to weapons that boggles the mind.

One Marine Colonel said it best in this way. "You can take two Marines, strip them naked, lock them in a room with no openings other than food and give them two cannon balls and come back three days later and they will have broken one and lost the other."

Here is a reproduction of the stoppage codes we used. I did not include the ones for belt fed weapons.

MTP 3-2-045/1Aug 1971
Table III - Abbreviations Used in Reporting Malfunctions

Types of Malfunctions

FF - Failure to feed
FFR - Failure to fire
FX- Failure to Extract
FJ - Failure to eject
FC - Failure of bolt to close
IFR - Inadvertent firing
FMR - Failure to maintain cyclic rate
FTR - Failure of trigger to return to forward position.
F2R - Fired 2 rounds on one rearward movement of trigger.
DF - Double feed, 2 rounds fed from magazine at once.
FBF - Failure of bolt to go forward
FCB - Fired on closure of bolt
FBR - Failure of bolt to remain at rear after last round.
FJC - Failure to eject clip
BCS - Bolt catch stopped forward movement of bolt before last round of magazine was fired.
FS - Failure to strip round
FSO - Failure of bolt to sear off
FBS - Failure of bolt to sear
FRA - Failure to remain in assembly
FBC - Failure of bolt to close
FC - Failure to Chamber
FCY - Failure to Cycle
FFS - Failure to Feed. The nose of hte round hd stubbed on the breech face stopping the feeding cycle.
FL - Failure of Bolt to Lock
FS - Failure to strip
UFR - Uncontrolled Firing of Weapon

Causes (Usually the cause of some of the preceding malfunctions)

SR - Short Recoil
BUB - Bolt underrode base of round in feeding.
BCE - Bolt catch engaged bolt carrier instead of bolt after firing last round in the magazine
BFE - Bolt failed to engage base of round in magazine
BLE - Bolt lacked sufficient energy to force round from magazine.
BOB - Bolt overrode base of round in feeding from magazine.
FML - Failure of magazine to lock in weapon
FL - Failure to load by hand charging
FS - Partial strip of round from magazine or link
FFO - Failure to feed round over to stripping position.

Insofar as mags go they are examined for cracks which normally occur on the rear of the mag where the mags for a right angle when looked at from the rear like this. _I Q I_ Note the letter Q represents the base of the round between the feed lips.

Now if you ever get access to a spring engineer (they are quite rare in the big scheme of things) they will tell you a properly made spring will never take a set. Only problem is a determining if springs are property made and unless new technology has surfaced the only way to tell is to measure the free length of the spring, then fully compress the springs for a year, release the compression and remeasure the free length with calipers to see if it got shorter.

The biggest failures I have seen in my career are striker springs in bolt action rifles and leaf springs in revolvers.

In 2002 I bought three new bolt action rifles made by three different vendors. None exhibited enough striker energy. Two of the three springs were replaced by factory and the third indicated they had not checked their striker energy in over 1 years and on top of the the SAAMI recommendations were lowered from .020" copper indent to .016" copper indent and the company that had not checked their product in over 15 years did not even meet the relaxed requirements.

Most folks do not realize there is a problem until a FFR occurs but it is known that well before the FFR threshold is met the standard deviation of the loaded rounds will go out the roof which can be a real bummer if you are shooting long range as you will see vertical stringing well before a FFR.

CIP lets say you are shooting a 308 at 1000 yards. You can check trajectory tables to confirm this but a 100 fps change in velocity at 1000 yards will give you about 40" of elevation variation from velocity alone which does not take into account mirage, aiming error etc. Thus you can have a perfect hold on a target and experience shots 20" high and 20" low well before you get a misfire. That is why it is critical to know the SD of your ammo.

I have seen new LC Match deliver a ES of 66 fps. which is enough to keep you out of the ten ring high or low at 1000 yards.

If you have the right combo of propellant, primers etc and weigh charges you may be able to achieve a SD of 5 and I have seen SD of 3 on rare instances. You don't want over 10 if the big scheme of things.

Forgot to add just because you have a new magazine, doesn't mean you are in utopia. For instance L. F. Moore was a Test Director at APG and M14s were blowing up. He was able to trace the failures to improperly manufactured magazines by one vendor. A destruct order was issued and every one in the gov't inventory was removed and destroyed and there was never another failure in the field that he experienced about four times at APG.

This is why I get nervous when I see the services going out and buy new weapon systems without their being subjected to Technical Feasibility Testing at APG.

[drt4lfe]

How on God's green Earth does a bad rifle magazine make a rifle blow up ? The magazine does not have primer or powder.....does not go into the chamber.....does not get hit with a firing pin to fire the round.......there is no way a magazine was the issue....impossible....100% impossible....

[Hummer]

How much are you willing to bet? I sense that there is money to be made here !! ! ! ! Our unofficial motto at Aberdeen is "You make'em we break'em." When Larry finally figured it he went into the office and announced that the magazines were causing them to blow up and four or five other Test Directors had your same opinion so they proceeded one of the two 100 yard indoor ranges within 25 yards of our office door.

He had a new M14 up in a mount with a blast shield and he blew up three in about an hour. It didn't happen every shot but when it did the rifle was wrecked so he had to get another. That led to a notification that all magazines with that manufacturers code on the mag would be pulled from inventory and destroyed immediately. There was never another case of such reported from the field.

He also figured out that droplets of water laying on the 6 o'clock finger of the flash suppressor would cause the flash suppressor to fail.

Guy I shared a office cubicle with was testing the Mark 19 belt fed 40MM Grenade launcher and he got it to cook off a round. Now for those that have fired one you know the cartridge case of the 40 MM round is not fully inserted into the chamber so how do you get a round to cook off? So how do you get it hot enough to ignite the round with the case outside the barrel?

On the M14 blow up, I will give you a hint. A commercial 308 round will fail quicker than a milspec round and all these failures were with milspec rounds. Now isn't that interesting???

Think on it and don't restrict yourself to thinking inside the box.

I had a guy at Picatinny come to me and tell me his M1A would feed, fire, the bolt unlock and start to move and stop just after the locking lugs disengaged. He brought the rifle in and I took it home and within about two hours I determined the cause of the problem. It wasn't the magazine ! ! ! ! ! !, the headspace was correct. Something else for yawl to think on.''

I have also experienced rounds in handguns reorienting in the magazine and flipping around and point towards shooter BELOW THE TOP ROUND IN THE MAG both from being dropped and during firing.

When you are running thousands of rounds a day, day in and day out you see things that will blow your mind.

[Hummer]

I agree with Elser. From conversations I have had with ex military sniper buddies taking out the apparent leader of a group is effective as well.

[registror]

load your duty mags one rd short. It relieves a lot of tension on the main spring. Get some chargers and stripper clips. Leave your "non duty" mags loaded 11 rds short and top them off, if needed with the 10 rd stripper clip. its mostly the cycling that wears out mags. Beware dents and cracks in the mag body or cracks in the mag followers. The damage is much more of an issue with pistol mags than rifle mags, tho. Get a silencer for your 223 AR and get a .22lr conversion unit, so you'll have a subsonic ammo option, and so you can practice effectively for 20c per shot, not 80c. the silenced 223 is ever BIT as "tame" to use as the .22 unit without the can mounted. Mount the long, steel flashider on the 10.5" barrel. the skinny barrel. You want 1 in 9" rifling twist, so you can use the 60 gr Aquila subsonic 22 ammo. Use 60 gr softpoints in the 223. You dont need many and you can mix them one for one with ball ammo, since you'll be double tapping enemies anyway. If they are armored or using cover, it wont matter what you hit them with. YOu;ll have to hit either their head-neck/shoulder, or their hip/thigh bone.

[Garand]

My En Bloc clips for my Garand, and the Moon clips for my S&W M625 have been loaded for a decade with no problems encountered.

[Tugaloo]

With springs, it depends on the material and the material's heat treat.

With ammo, I have some WW II 45 ACP surplus ammo. Originally, there was 600 rounds in a M5(?) can. About once a year, I load a magazine and fire a few rounds and still not one F2F. OTOH, there is quite a difference in the manufacturing process for military ammo and commercial ammo. Military ammo is sealed so it can be stored for a long time.

[Dorobuta]

Hey all, just a quick question and I'm sure I'll get as many opinions as there are folks on here, but do you leave your magazines both pistol and rifle loaded or unloaded? If loaded, how long do you leave them loaded - indefinitely? I've heard of people leaving them empty until needed and others put them in cans fully loaded. Just wondering how this impacts the spring? We may go to the range once a month or so or sometimes it may be several weeks. I've never had any issues with mags that have been loaded for weeks as compared to ones that have been left empty for a while. Thoughts?

good springs will wear during the compression cycles. Leaving them under tension will not hurt them. Loading and unloading them will wear them out faster. This increases the number of cycles.

notice I said good springs. All magazines are not created equal.

[Tugaloo]

My father bought some 1911-A1 pistols from NRA/DCM. For many years he kept one loaded with WWII surplus ammo in the nightstand alongside the bed. After he passed away, my mother gave me his firearms.
Every once in a while, I shoot a round or two from one of the magazines and refill it with WWII ammunition. It still feeds and goes bang. Or at least 75 years; so my vote goes with those who say loaded are correct.
OTOH, my opinion is for quality magazines.

[Hummer]

I was intrigued about ammo life when I got to the Army Small Cal Weapons Lab at Picatinny Arsenal and basically the word at that time (1979) was ammo in unopened cans had a projected life of 125 years and ammo that had been opened had a estimated life of 75 years.

Three things are the enemy of ammo, air, water, oil. That is why military ammo has lacquer applied around the edge of primers and inside the case neck because in combat it is very common to get your ammo wet and the name of the game is that you want your ammo to go BANG.

I bought a case of 8MM Mauser ammo loaded by Germans in 1933 and I shot up about 700 rounds and had three failures to fire. It was not sealed in US type can, just wood crate as I remember.

I was once given about 200 rounds of 5.56 that had been placed in a 50 cal can at a range during a rain storm. When the can was opened it was green and I had to break the rounds out of the stripper clips. I also had to run them on a grinder with a wire wheel to clean the crud off them.

After cleaning them up I went out and fired all 200 rounds with no problem.

On the other hand we were doing testing on 357 Magnum revolvers at Fed Law ENf Tng Ctr. IA little sprinkle of rain came up and the ammo got wet. About 30 minutes we went back to testing and had 17 misfires in first 50 rounds.

If you are needing to have absolutely reliable ammo (duty carry) and you don't see lacquer around your primers you can use nail polish and a paper clip. Bend out one part of clip, dip in nail polish and apply it around the edge of your primers.

After polish is applied drag base of case across news paper print and the excess will come off.