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Old March 6, 2013, 03:36 PM   #34
Walt Sherrill
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Join Date: February 15, 1999
Location: Winston-Salem, NC USA
Posts: 6,348
Quote:
Personally, I would have no issue leaving a magazine loaded, but I would not be comfortable leaving a slide locked back. I can change magazines fairly quickly if one fails, I am not so sure about recoil spring.
I agree that leaving a gun with the slide locked back isn't a good practice, for some of the reasons previously cited, and for spring-life concerns, too. A weak spring isn't going to perform as well as it should, and I seen some springs that seem to go bad relatively quickly. (More likely, they just reach a point where minimal function is no longer possible, and the gun just quits working as it should.)

That BHP of yours came with a 13-round mag, and aftermarket mags for the BHP are available in 15 and 16 rounds, maybe more. (I have all of the above for my BHP -- along with a 30-rounder someone sold me with a bunch of other BHP mags. I've never tried it...) The springs in the factory mags and the larger capacity after-market mags (mostly Mec-Gars, here) don't seem to be much different. That would suggest that the factory 13-round springs aren't as hard-pressed as some of the aftermarket springs. If Wolff suggests downloading a round or two for long-term storage, it may be that the BHP design already does that for you...

With many of the new compact and sub-compact semi-autos, gun designers are asking springs to do more than they've ever asked them to do before. They need to sell small, hi-cap guns and something's got to give; mag and recoil springs are relatively inexpensive easily-renewed resources.

I read somewhere, recently, that with the small Seecamp and Rohrbaugh semi-autos, recoil springs are supposed to be changed out after only a few hundred rounds, not a few thousand as is the case with most larger guns. I think that's the case with some of the very small .45 1911s, too. That would suggest that firing cycles (the number of compressions) alone aren't the key issue, but that the overall nature of the work performed and how its done must be considered, as well.

Last edited by Walt Sherrill; March 6, 2013 at 03:46 PM.
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