Can you leave ar mags loaded

Quoted: thanks guys i love hearing from you all, i was putting 28 rounds in them as i was worried bout putting stress on the spring,and knowing they would be loaded for a long wait , as i have close to 50 ,when i do get to the range i only grab 5 or 6 and full boxs , for reloads , i will nodought top them off , as for my buddy that said no, no, no, he went and rebiult all his mags stating because he said they went bad from being loaded for no longer than 2 years if that.

It's not going to hurt them leaving them loaded. I had 8 mags loaded with 30 rds. I loaded them back in '94 and forgot that I had them! They shot great, no problems. I guess I need to clean out my closet more often Quoted: Any way, I rotate mine every 30 days I am going to be nice and not touch this one. This aside, some folks encounter problems trying to seat a fully loaded 30 rounds magazine on a closed bolt. That's my understanding.

ETA six seconds too slow. I am going to be nice and not touch this one good idea. Any way, I rotate mine every 30 days I am going to be nice and not touch this one I figured i would help get this thread moving a little.

I have had that issue in the past but all of my Ar's now seat a 30rd clip on a closed bolt. Fixed it for ya. What good is an empty mag? A loaded mag takes up less room than an empty mag and the ammo next to it. I am going to be nice and not touch this one good idea It's a shame to be the one to spoil it. Yep yep. I leave them loaded. One of my friends dad had some 20rders from when he was in the.

Still work fine. I once read an article by the late Jeff Cooper. He said a friend called him to tell him his grandmother had passed away, and he was cleaning out her home when he found an old steamer trunk in the attic that belonged to his grandfather. Not every range will allow you to bring in multiple loaded magazines, for safety reasons. Magazine springs always wear out. Even if you only use them and reload them each time, rather than storing them fully loaded, they will begin to lose their spring.

Except, each time you do this the spring wears out a little more. The problem comes after years of use. They will spring up, but not as well. Essentially, over time magazine springs lose their ability to store kinetic energy. Luckily, springs can be replaced. Magazines can be unscrewed, the springs can be swapped out, and then they will be screwed back together.

You can do this yourself, though it might be better to let a professional handle it if you really are unsure, but it is a maintenance skill you might want to learn.

It is always risky using tools on your gun, taking it apart and putting it back together. The magazines are less dangerous, but failing to put it back together properly can lead to your gun jamming and even misfiring. There is a little bit of contention in the gun community surrounding how long you should keep a magazine loaded.

Both for efficiency and safety. The army, the top-level gun associations, and most professional shooters all agree that around 6 months is a good middle of the pack time for storage. If you leave them any longer, you run the risk of the springs wearing out and the magazine spring losing its power. If you are someone who only shoots casually, then keeping one or two loaded magazines in the house at all times is a good idea.

If you are planning on going shooting soon, then loading a few extra magazines beforehand would be a good idea. A neat little trick is rotating your stored magazines out for ones you just loaded before you head down to the range. That way you are using up the mags that need using and ensuring that fresh ones regularly take their place.

For a professional shooter, like a soldier, then a faulty magazine may be the difference between life and death. It can also be hard to know how long a magazine can be stored while loaded and still function normally. As mentioned above, a magazine should last for at least 6 months across the board. Some will last longer, very few will last less than 6 months though. But reality is messier than that. Using the spring loading and unloading the magazine frequently will cause it to wear out as well.

The spring should last tens of thousands of cycles before this occurs, but it will happen eventually. When left loaded to full capacity and not used, most magazines will very slowly lose some amount of spring tension over time. Some springs may stay loaded for decades and still function, and others might wear out after a much shorter period of time.

So just to be safe, the best practice is to rotate the magazines periodically. A gunsmith at Beretta who claimed not to be speaking on behalf of the company told us he rotates his personal carry magazines every two weeks. The customer service rep we spoke to from Sig said that once every six months would be sufficient. Polymer followers in particular seem to be a common failure point for magazines.