Okay so I've had a nightmarish shooting sesh on sunday, I've had so many failures to feed it was ridicolous.

Anyway, I believe the source of my problems is a weak magazine spring, as I've seen that while loading the rounds, on the last few the spring loses strenght and fails to push up the little lead pills, also when compared to the other mag I have it feels way lighter to push down the rounds with my finger.

So does anybody know if there's anything I can do to solve that? I was thinking of shortening the spring, as in cutting it, but I don't know if that would be a good idea, any suggestions?

Oh and a little side note for those of you who will be heading to the voting polls next month, use your choice wisely, now I give you a little example of gun control insanity here in continental Europe:

Okay so this morning I was down at the shop for another repair and I asked the clerk if they had any replacement mag spring, he told me that since we have to register all the mags we own(at the police station), they're not allowed to sell spare parts for mags, because otherwise people could make their own mags.

So in order to get a spring for my faulty mag, I have to bring it down to the shop, then they have to write down the gun's registration number and only then they can order a replacement.

If the spring is weak, cutting it certainly won't help. Sounds like replacement is your only option.

You need to register magazines?!? Jesus Christ!

Yeah I think I'll replace it, does anybody know whether a normal hardware store could sell springs that will do the job? If I go to a specialized store they'll just overcharge me for it, since I already have to pay to repair another pistol I want to save cash on this one.

At the end of the day it's just a spring, it won't hurt to try and replace it with a similar spring that is not specifically designed to work as a mag spring right?

What about attempting to make a spring yourself?

You could figure otu the gauage of the wire they used, by some, make a form to wrap the spring, then harden the piano wire when you are done.

It is worth a try I bet.

Piano wire is used in improvised firearms often for the mag spring, could work. What sort of mag is it? Pistol or rifle? Pushing up what sort of rounds?

Cutting the spring and shimming it is going to leave you with less capacity, but it will increase the spring force with a full mag, decreasing towards its limp state as you continue to remove rounds.

Replacement.

__________________
Stalker: sentenced to life.

If he was desperate for a mag that would still hold ammunition, he could machine a block of wood to place in the bottom of the mag. This would increase the pressure like you said, but there wouldn't be a need for cutting the spring If I visualized that correctly. You'd loose about 3 rounds out of the mag, but if it still functions, that is fine.

Wow.

All that for a spring?



Know of anyone in the states that can order the spring and ship it to you?

Thanks for all the replies guys, appreciated.

I had a range officer have a look at it the other day, I don't know what he did but now it works a little better, it just fails to feed the last round of the mag.

I've been looking for a replacement at hardware stores but with no luck, I guess I'll order a proper one the next time I'm down at a gunshop, even though it'll cost me more.

Thanks again, and yeah our laws are really silly, the worst thing is that they're not even coherent, I mean you can buy most reloading equipment without even having a licence and then you have to go through a lot of bureaucratic bullshit just to get a replacement spring.