Sam Hotton wrote:Good evening all,
I've always been told to never leave a box magazine of a semi/or automatic weapon loaded for any extended time. One should rotate magazines as leaving them loaded will weaken the mag spring causing unreliable feeding. If this is possibly true, then the same MIGHT hold true for auto knives. I must confess that I've unloaded many a auto pistol that has been loaded for years and in some cases decades and NEVER found a floppy mag spring. However, I store my spring steel open.
Sam
A properly hardened and tempered spring should NOT suffer any weakening or deformation when flexed within its design criteria. Removing the load on a spring does NOT "let it recover". I have seen 200 year old agricultural items that had springs that still worked fine. This includes an oxcart that was loaded for 100 years, in a barn. When unloaded it sprang back to a much greater height. [Those old time blacksmiths knew a thing or two about tempering
] I have seen a box magazine that would "take a set" in less than a minute
rotating magazines would not help this one, it was tempered poorly to begin with. [On modern equipment
]
IF a spring on a switchblade breaks it will almost always break when closing [on one that is stored open]
It will break on opening, [on one that is stored closed]. In either case SOMETHING was wrong with the spring, not the storage method
BUT whatever method you prefer is the one to use
There is NO right way, just the way that's right for you