Gun Magazine Maintenance

It’s funny how so many shooters, possibly including law enforcement and military personnel, take such religious care of their rifles and pistols, but rarely turn a thought to their gun magazines.

In a sense, magazines are disposable. They’re dropped, handled coarsely, and much worse. At the same time, a magazine that does not seat and load smoothly will cripple an autoloading action, converting it for the time being into a single shot platform.

So what’s the solution? Naturally, basic gun magazine maintenance, that can forestall some issues associated with magazine-induced jamming and other failures to feed.

But how do you administer routine maintenance to a rifle or pistol magazine? Ultimately, it depends on what sort of magazine your gun accepts. Not all work the same way or have the same internal configuration.

With that said, the following notes will more or less apply to all detachable box mags, both pistol and rifle magazines, that have a removable base plate and either a coiled or leaf magazine spring.

Here’s what you need to do to keep them in shooting shape.

Just how to remove your rifle or pistol magazine’s base plate is a matter of proprietary design. Some gun magazine base plates are attached with fasteners; others with detents or clips. Either way, the first step to get at the mag’s internals is to remove the base plate.

Slide the base plate off, and keep your thumb in position over the bottom of the mag tube because if you don’t, once you fully remove the base plate (and insert, if there is one) the mag spring will go flying out the bottom.

With the pistol or rifle magazine’s base plate removed, you can then carefully remove the spring and follower. Make sure the follower comes out the bottom as well if it is not pressed or formed in place at the top of the spring.

For gun magazines that have a fixed body with no separate base plate component, you will need to figure out how to get the follower and spring out the top of the magazine, between the feed lips. You may be able to use a pin punch or a flathead screwdriver for this; push the follower down, twist it so you can slide the narrow edge out the top, then carefully snake the mag spring out after it.

Once you have the four main components of most gun mags - the mag body or tube, spring, follower and base plate - removed, you can set them on a clean, dry, well-lit surface and prepare for cleaning.

Basic gun magazine maintenance is pretty straightforward. The first thing you want to do is get a nylon brush and some fouling solvent - such as Hoppe’s No. 9, and clean off the mag tube. Clean both the inside and outside until you can remove no more fouling with a clean, dry rag. Not only will fouling make the magazine grittier, but if left there, it can cause corrosion, particularly of the mag spring, that will ruin it.

After you’ve cleaned the mag’s body, you can turn your attention to the mag spring and follower. The spring you can clean off with a damp rag and a nylon or brass brush. If there are any stubborn fouling deposits, you can use a solvent to remove these, along with the brush.

As for the follower, if it is a plastic follower be ginger with it as you want neither to break nor deform it as a result of rough handling. Also, be careful with solvent, as some solvents can damage plastic. If you can get away with it, use nothing more than a damp rag and water to clean the follower. In all honesty, the follower shouldn’t be that dirty.

If the follower is aluminum or steel, you can be a little more brusque with it, apply solvent if you like to break up any present fouling deposits, then scrub away with either a nylon or a brass brush.

As for the base plate, the reality is that it shouldn’t need much cleaning. All the base plate does is hold everything else in place anyway. Wipe it off with a damp rag and you should be good to go.

Once you’ve cleaned all the components, set them aside to dry. You will want everything completely dry before you reassemble the magazine in the reverse order from which you took it apart.

One note here: if you want to protect against corrosion, it is acceptable to use a little bit of oil on the mag chute and spring. However, it is imperative that you use very, very little oil and leave almost no residue.

This is because the oil is not there to lubricate the mag, only to protect it from moisture that causes corrosion. Any more than a very light coating of oil and it will actually stick to and trap the very thing you are trying to avoid. Hair, sand, dust, dirt, and other debris will stick to oil like glue, and you don’t want that stuff inside your pistol and rifle mags.

Once you’ve thoroughly dried (and perhaps very lightly oiled) all components, you can reassemble the mag in the reverse order from which you disassembled it.

A common question about pistol and rifle magazines is “can you leave gun mags loaded?” and the answer is yes.

The mag spring does not fatigue from compression alone. It fatigues from use - that is, compression and decompression cycles. You can leave the mag loaded for as long as you want; it’s not till you release the pressure under which it’s stored that you’ll be straining it.

So store them unloaded or loaded. It hardly makes a difference.

Explore Kiesler Police Supply’s inventory of rifle and pistol magazines compatible with a wide range of platforms intended for official duty and if you’re interested in availability or pricing, get in touch with one of our representatives for help.