Magazine Magic!

[G.T.]

Hi to all! Well, I hope by now, all of the forum members have seen enough broken walnut/wood, magazine bottoms to make them a little leary of depressing the follower button on a nice pristine original magazine? It is not un-common for them to break about halfway between the knobs and the rear spine... ... The reason for this is that when new, the wood bottoms are designed to fit tight with the spring force pressing straight down on the bottom. As time goes on, and decades pass, the wood bottoms loosen up and shrink, sometime dramatically, with a total loss of support both front, and rear?... All that is holding the bottom in is the retaining pin itself, and the mag bottom is actually levering against itself with the pressure eventually causing a catastrophic failure and the guts come shooting out of the bottom! ....
So, assuming we are NOT going to use our better magazines for shooting, and just want to test the spring to find out if any problems exist, we need to modify our technique so that the failure doesn't occur while in our care...
The correct procedure is to cup the magazine in your off hand, and depress the follower with your strong hand, so that all the pressure from start to finish, is between the follower, and the bottom... never hold just the shell when testing the mag, either for loading or testing.. In fact, get into the habit of always holding the mag as described above.. It will save you some big crocodile tears and
a bunch of money to effect a decent repair! More later as it come along! Best to all, til...lat'r....GT...