M&P Full Size - Mag Loading Probs - 10 Round

[silver78]

I have owned a number of Smith semi-autos starting with a 659 a loong time ago. I recently updated to the 2.0 M&P series in 9mm. I had the original M&P in 40.

Also during this time the anti gunners in my home state passed a 10 round mag law so when I bought the 2.0 version it included some sort of 10 round magazine which fit into the well of the full sized mag well. Big chunk of plastic on the bottom.

Anyway loading these mags is absolute misery. Waaay to stiff.

I wonder if anyone else has experienced this problem and has solved it.

Thanks for any advice you can provide.

 

[Alk8944]

Load as many as you can, then manually strip them out. Do this a few times, maybe 100 even, and the magazine will get progressively easier to load. Exercising springs is what causes them to relax, not leaving the magazine loaded for days or weeks as others will suggest.

Yes, this is a common issue with many new magazines!

 

[smoothshooter]

Take the magazine spring out and cut a coil or two off.
Most people are scared to death to do this, for some reason.

 

[Saudade]

<snip>

Anyway loading these mags is absolute misery. Waaay to stiff.

I wonder if anyone else has experienced this problem and has solved it.

Thanks for any advice you can provide.

Yes they are!! I use my Uplula to load 9, then stuff #10 in by hand (or just shoot 9). #10 barely fits. If you haven't noticed yet, inserting a full mag with the slide closed requires quite a bit of "authority". Slide open is like butta.

Some of my 10 round full size mags (for my 1.0) are 12 years old and have many dozens of load/unload cycles and they still resist #10. There's just not enough slack space for the spring to compress once it's topped off.

As mentioned earlier, some folks clip a coil or two off the bottom of the spring. If you decide to go that route, clip one coil, bend the end to match the one you cut off and try it. Make sure you go shoot it to make sure it feeds OK and locks the slide when empty.

I have this issue with many of my 10 round mags for other brands where they use the short mag body and long floor plate for compliance.

 

[M1A4ME]

I second the use of the uplula magazine loader. Awesome little tool. Have one in my range bag, one in the cabinet in the mud room, bought one for each of my sons and my nephew. Haven't broken one yet, even while getting that last and hardest round shoved into the magazine.

My experience is having to buy several magazine springs over the years when magazines sitting loaded would fail to lock the slide to the rear when I got to the range. M&P mags (full size and Shield Plus), and Para Ordnance mags. Don't think I've had the issue with 1911, M14 or AR15 mags but I have had it with some pistol mags. I have pictures of the shorter springs that I replaced beside the new springs I was installing.

 

[silver78]

Thanks for the replies. I cut one coil off the spring and exercised the mags as suggested. They are better now but still pretty stiff. For those folks who hesitate to cut the spring here's a thought for your consideration. In my couch commando opinion it seems likely that S&W is going to choose an overly stiff spring in their mags and my guess is that I could have cut off two coils and still had a reliable magazine.

 

[cromag27]

i personally love the speed beez loader. ditched my uplula for it instead, so much easier to use especially for that last round.

 

[silver78]

A follow up with some additional information. As I mentioned above my state of residence does not allow me to buy magazines over 10 rounds in state so when I bought the pistol from an FFL about two years ago it came with 10 round magazines. However, for whatever reason the law is worded so that it is legal for me to go to another state where regular capacity magazines are legal, buy them and bring them home. I recently did just that and now in addition to the 10 round mags I have two 17 round mags. Thus I compared the spring pressure on 17s vs. 10s. Note that the comparison was stock 17s to 10s that had one coil removed by me. My casual observation is that even with one coil removed the 10s were still stiffer and harder to load than the 17s. Also in firing the pistol with the lower pressure spring 17 round magazines they performed 100% reliably. My conclusion is that the 10 rounders are simply overspringed. YMMV.