A few years ago I bought a S&W 457 which came with seven magazines. Two of those were aftermarket magazines. They had no name on them and were clearly not factory magazines.
I found this out by accident when I took the gun and the mags to the range to make sure all went well. Good thing too, because the two aftermarket magazines would not allow the gun to fire double action. Pretty important stuff to know for a gun that potentially would be carried for self defense.
I put the magazines aside so that they wouldn't be used, even for the range. In the course of events I bought other factory magazines, so I have plenty.
Then a couple of weeks ago there were a couple of magazine threads and one poster mentioned swapping the springs and/or followers out of the aftermarket magazines and putting in OEM replacements.
That seemed worth trying so I decided to swap the guts of out of two OEM magazines. I went to do that the other day and was surprised to find that the aftermarket magazines had wimpy little springs.
Here is a side by side picture of one OEM magazine (stainless) and the no name aftermarket magazine (black).
Notice that the aftermarket spring is much shorter than the OEM one. It's also made of thinner wire than the factory magazine.
My next step will be to swap the internal components of the OEM magazine into the aftermarket body and fire some test rounds.
I'll report back after I've done that.
I found this out by accident when I took the gun and the mags to the range to make sure all went well. Good thing too, because the two aftermarket magazines would not allow the gun to fire double action. Pretty important stuff to know for a gun that potentially would be carried for self defense.
I put the magazines aside so that they wouldn't be used, even for the range. In the course of events I bought other factory magazines, so I have plenty.
Then a couple of weeks ago there were a couple of magazine threads and one poster mentioned swapping the springs and/or followers out of the aftermarket magazines and putting in OEM replacements.
That seemed worth trying so I decided to swap the guts of out of two OEM magazines. I went to do that the other day and was surprised to find that the aftermarket magazines had wimpy little springs.
Here is a side by side picture of one OEM magazine (stainless) and the no name aftermarket magazine (black).
Notice that the aftermarket spring is much shorter than the OEM one. It's also made of thinner wire than the factory magazine.
My next step will be to swap the internal components of the OEM magazine into the aftermarket body and fire some test rounds.
I'll report back after I've done that.
