Got my 4596 a few months ago and it came with one magazine with the yellow follower. Not sure if it's original to the gun or not, anyhow I obviously want more than one so what should I look for? Is another color follower better, I've seen Orange, Black, and straight steel. Anybody want to sell me a few?

The all stainless steel magazines were made for Model 645s. They were superseded by magazines with reddish orange followers. While both have feed reliably in my 45xx pistols the later magazines are of more interest.

At the time Model 4596s were made followers were yellow. 45xx series magazine bodies changed near the feed lips to resist the top cartridge being moved forward by the bottom of the slide passing over it. The change to black followers was to identify magazines with newer bodies. Since owners and sellers replace yellow followers with black ones you have to look at the indents in the sides of the body to know which they are. Cartridges feed reliably through both yellow and black follower vintage magazines in my 45xx pistols. The only malfunction has occurred during loading my 4506. The second cartridge has popped out of the feed lips of yellow follower magazines when the magazine is removed to replace the first cartridge that was just loaded into the chamber. Even that seldom happens.

Model 4596s are not common. I've only seen one. Hopefully my experience with 4 1/4" and 5" .45s also applies to to your 3 3/4" gun.

Thanks for some great info.

I carried a model 4506, and our two extra magazines had yellow followers. Thanks for all the information.

Out of curiosity (and being a gen 3 Smith fan) I just took a look around, and these jokers are hard to find !!
Nothing from Mecgar on gregcotellc.
A guy on ebay is selling two factory mags, for $150, plus shipping, (and oddly, his add says to expect 10 days to ship, which is weird, since he's only down in Florida).
The next best deal I saw was for some mags from some after-market operation I wasn't familair with (K something), but I wouldn't take a chance on those, at least not without first digging up some good reports on them, which I don't expect.
This is a toughie, good luck !

If all someone needs are new mag followers, Midway has those:

Smith & Wesson Mag Follower S&W 4513TSW 4553TSW - MPN: 236740000

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Waiting for the break of day

I must offer the caveat that I may indeed be very wrong about this. I just purchased a 4596 from GB for 550.00 because I know only 382 of these were made apparently. If I understand the description from the SW book it is a 4506-1 mated to a 4516-1 slide. Assuming that will be the case I would imagine any 645, 4506, 4566, 4586, 4546, 4576 magazine would work. Probably others but I am tired and reeling off what I think would work.

It is indeed getting a whole lot tougher than I had previously thought. On Monday when this thread was started, I had remarked that NOS 4500-series magazines could still be found out there (post-MidwayUSA selloff) with a little diligence. I quickly figured out that I was dead wrong about that and deleted my post.

The crazy thing here is that I need more 4500-series magazines myself if I'm going to snag that Model 4506-1 down in Little Rhody someday... a very iffy proposition given the seller's belligerence, but still my goal nonetheless.

I'll now admit that I was stupid not to grab some 4500-series magazines during the great MidwayUSA selloff, but it was one of those times when money was too tight to even think about it. Now I am paying the price for my strict budgetary restraint.

The (somewhat) good news is that I remembered one local shop that had one (ancient but still in package) and, sure enough, it was still there when I went back. Full price hurt badly, but it was my own fault. I also remembered a different shop some distance away that had a couple used ones... also pricey, but better than having none at all. I snagged them too.

So I am more-or-less good again but I learned an expensive lesson: Sometimes strict "budgetary diligence" is not always the best course of action.

Dang, I know where there are a couple dozen in a box
at a local gun shop...maybe I need to cut a deal and
scarf 'em up for resale

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Marlin & Calico Specialist

Amen brother!!! Snag them for sure if you can!