I recently purchased a slightly used 7 round S&W magazine for the 3913TSW. It has a stainless body with a blue metal floor plate. The floor plate does not have a hole for a catch button and is marked "S&W" with the lazy &. I would like to disassemble it to replace the floor plate with the wide plastic one for this model but can't get the floor plate off. I have tried depressing the spring to remove the follower, but it will not flip to come out. Any suggestions? Thanks

If it has four little "fingers" holding the base plate out, try just (carefully) sliding the base plate towards the front of the magazine.

If that doesn't work and no one else knows, post a picture of the bottom of the magazine and I might be able to figure it out.

All of my 7 round 3913TSW magazines have plastic base plates, which is why I'm not 100% sure of the procedure.

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Are we discussing the very early 3913 concealment magazine? I have one and the disassembly procedure does seem elusive. (This pic was from another thread.)

Attached Images

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Yes, that is the magazine.

Look on one side of the mag, at the bottom edge of the mag body, on top of the butt plate, and see if there's a little raised "arm" that can be depressed, allowing the butt plate to be slipped forward.

BTW, the early "original" 3913TSW's came with the wide/flat plastic butt plates, which were designed to "fill in" the grip frame cutaway, effectively shortening the grip profile for compact concealment.

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I too have the same 7 round mag......it's the mag that I use in my ccw .....I want to replace the spring also but for the life of me have not figured it out...Fastbolt....I have nothing that my eyes can see that even remotely looks like an arm

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Probably shouldn't have said "arm".

Are there small "tabs" on each/either side of the butt plate's edges?

If so, they have to be depressed to let the plate slide forward, and it'll probably take slight tool pressure, not finger nail pressure.

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There are no tabs. There is a small square stamped in the rear edge of the floor plate. This barely protrudes into the body of the magazine to act as a stop. I have not tried to pry anything yet for fear of buggering the magazine.

Do you know for sure that this is a factory configuration? Or, as has been mentioned as happening in the past, might it be a mag configuration someone has cobbled together to make a flat-bottomed mag? Using a butt plate from an older M39 mag, maybe? Or even one from some other make/model of single stack 9?

The only magazines discussed in the armorer class at the time the original 3913/4513TSW compacts were being released were those which used the unique plastic butt plates.

Doesn't mean they may not have dabbled with something at the factory, of course ('never say never' with a couple of the gun companies when it comes to interesting projects). But if so, they never spoke about it when discussing the magazines in armorer classes or when calling for parts. Dunno.

Wouldn't be surprised to learn it was a personal project of some former owner, though.

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Ret LE Firearms inst & armorer

Previous discussions of these magazines indicate that they were marketed for a very short time after the 3913 was introduced making them pre-TSW magazines.

3rd Gen 9mm 7 rnd. mags

7 Round Metal Base / Flush Fitting 3913 Magazines

I seem to remember from a previous thread about the pre rail 3913TSWs that they came with both the wedge shaped base plate unique to the gun or the curved base plate that came with the 3913 and CS 9.

That surprised me, but, again going by memory, the buyer had a picture of his 3913TSW ANIB with two magazines. One had the curved base plate and one the wedge base plate.

I also bought a magazine from someone who sold his 3913TSW. That came with the curved base plate.

I've bought several of the wedge shaped ones from S&W so that all of my magazines have that base plate. I like the look, and more importantly the "hook" on the other base plates used to catch on my shirt and cause it to ride up and risk exposure of the gun.

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I have 3 of these flush-fit, full-length, 7-round 3913 mags with the 39-2 metal baseplate, and have never been able to figure out how to take them apart.

One of my mags has a baseplate I can move forward a millimeter, and on that one only I see a metal tab between the front right of the baseplate and the mag body. I'm not sure what you mean by depressing it, as mine doesn't want to move in any direction at all, even with tool pressure.

My other two mags do not show any tab, and will not move forward at all. Luckily, they all have good power mag springs and work fine, but I would love to know how to break these down!

I bought several of those magazines from S&W about 10-15 years ago.....at the time they had less than 20

When I bought the first couple a service rep was very helpful in tracking down magazine I wanted..... after that unless you/I had the part number ..... every other rep told me that they didn't exist......

IIRC my understanding is that they were shipped with early Ladysmiths .... one flush fit 7rd mag and a 8 round mag.

Have to see if I can find the part #.

I've never had any apart.....

That probably explains it, then. If they were a limited run item for the early 3913/14LS, they really pre-dated the original small TSW's produced toward the end of 90's.

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Oh ya...... I've had one or two of them since at least 1994/5...if not earlier......

Look at the photo in post #3. This may be more suited to the CS9 since the 3913TSW base is much wider due to the grip cut-out. Now, I am thinking I should sell it or trade it for a 7 round TSW mag with the wide floor plate. Would anyone like to swap?

I'll swap you for a CS9 mag with the curved baseplate, if you want. It will also work in the pre-rail cutout 3913 TSW's.

To swap, I need the wide flat TSW floor plate to cover the TSW cut-out. I have a curved floor plate that I could put on if I could disassemble the one with the metal floor plate.

The thing is, the metal floor plate mag is designed for a longer grip (full size 3913 grip), and will be longer than a CS9/3913TSW mag and stick out almost as far as a normal 8 round 3913 mag. Plus the metal based 7 round mag is unique and hard to find.

A CS9 mag and a 3913TSW 7 round mag are the same mag body with different base plates on them.

Attached is some pics of a CS9 mag and one of these metal base plate 7 rounders.

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You are correct TercGen. Thanks for the information and photos. It fits my 3913LS perfectly flat with no projection. It fits in my non-rail 3913TSW but exposes the body metal in the stock cutaway. So this "covert" or "concealment" magazine gives the CS9 or 3913 a smaller profile at the expense of one round. Now that I know that it does not fit my purpose, I will list it in the classified section. Thanks to all.

Any interest in a trade of your mag for a 3913TSW mag with the wedge shaped base?

PM me if you are.

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Traded the magazine for a TSW magazine but would still like to know how to disassemble one.

This turned out not to be much of a mystery. I received the magazine from redcardinal this morning and opened the package.

I'll post a picture or two later, but the short story is that there is a little indentation in the base plate. Using a jewelers screwdriver. I put a little thump pressure on the base plate to slide it forward 1/64 of an inch or so. Then I slid a jewelers screw driver in and depress the base plate catch plate. From there I slid the base plate off the rest of the way.

Other than the base plate, the only difference between a 3913 8 round and 3913 7 round magazine is the spring. The 7 round mag spring has extra coils tightly wound at the top and bottom. I believe that these serve as spacers to limit capacity to 7 rounds.

I'm tied up with work and other stuff for part of the weekend, but when I get the chance I'll take apart both magazines do comparison photos.

I'm pretty sure that if I change out the spring, I'll have an 8 round magazine even though it's marked for seven and only has seven witness holes.

I won't leave it that way permanently and if anyone wants to buy the magazine or do a trade, I'd entertain that.

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For anyone who might be interested, I finally got around to taking a few pictures. Not great artwork, but I think they show what I was talking about.



Here is the baseplate after I used my thumb to push it forward just a bit.



Here is the baseplate pushed forward after I used a very small screw driver to push down on the baseplate catch, which allowed the baseplate to slide forward. Pushing more releases the baseplate totally and allows for disassembly.

]

Here is a side by side comparison of the 7 and 8 round springs.

The 7 round is on the bottom. Note that it has more coils at the top and bottom even though it is shorter overall.

As an experiment, I swapped the 8 round spring into the 7 round body. I was able to load 8 rounds easily, so the spring seems to be the difference between the two.

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thanks Gary.....seems like I tried once pushing down on that indent with no luck.....looks like you torqued down it it rather hard since I think I see the screwdriver mark on your base plate

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Slight slip of the screw driver before I discovered the trick of using my thumb to put the base plate forward before inserting the blade into the gap and pushing down on the base plate catch piece. The indent is not the piece that should be pushed down on, although it sure looks like it. A couple of swipes with a black Sharpie and it the scratch disappears.

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