Will Keeping your Magazines Loaded Weaken the Spring?

It’s the age old question of will keeping your magazines loaded weaken the spring in the magazine causing load failures or excessive wear and tear on the magazine spring?

The United States Army CCDC Armaments Center at Picatinny Arsenal, NJ set out to find the answer. In their testing in August 2017 “Performace of 5.56mm 30 Round Magazines After Extended Loaded Storage” 300 magazines were fully loaded, and for the next 5 years, 30 magazines were fired for performance and data collection every 6 months.

Spring pressure was measured when the test began, and again at the time, the magazines were pulled from storage.

Stoppages were counted during the testing.

According to the report no magazine-related stoppage was recorded.

So with that being said load your magazines, keep them clean and protected, and go shoot!