Do You Clean Your Magazines?

Picture of magazine disassembly tools- screwdriver, Glock Armorer Tool, Glockish advanced bottle opener type tool.

Do you clean your pistol or rifle magazines? Have you ever? I am suspecting most readers do not/have not. The answer to “Why not?” may be partially to blame on no one ever telling you to clean them or how to do it. Despite it being an easy task, I don’t believe I have ever seen it illustrated in a pistol manual. We can fix that.

Personally, I don’t clean my mags often, but if they get dumped in the dirt, mud or exposed to water I ensure they get pulled apart, cleaned and lubricated right after I clean my weapon. I also clean mags more often if I am using reloaded ammo as some of those powders burn a bit dirty. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I have been at competitions and watched shooters pull their mags apart and brush ‘em out during the match.

Modern materials like polymer eliminate magazine rust issues, but they can retain dirt, and metal body mags and magazine springs can rust.

Speaking of magazine springs, can you leave them loaded? Yes. Despite any myths or legends, modern magazine springs which are properly annealed can be left loaded for many years. There are cases of some mags being loaded during WWII which were fired 60 years later and worked fine. Can the springs get compressed or get smaller? Yes they can, but it is such a small amount you won’t know it unless you compare your old spring to a new one. If you worry about it get some new springs from Wolff or other aftermarket sellers and swap them out after a few years. Cheap insurance.

(I get berserk with novelists get their gun stuff wrong, and Lee Childs had the central showdown for Jack Reacher in one of the books that rightly pissed me off. The bad guy/woman pulled a Beretta 92 from a drawer and pointed it at Reacher see, and Reacher reasoned the gun had been loaded for several years lying in a drawer, and thus the mag spring compressed and would not likely fire! So the hero forced the shooter to try it out while pointed at him and it misfired. See how this could piss you off! First, with one in the chamber that hammer is going to work just fine. Second those Beretta mag springs work very well when left loaded and will bring up subsequent rounds to the chamber! I stood in a line one time at a large gun show just to tell Lee Childs he ruined that book by not having better gun information. It was a large autograph line however, and after deciding I may not have changed Lee Child’s life, I abandoned the effort-but I did go to a book signing one time for some James Bond sequels and made the same point with that author. He was not impressed, and did not take me up on my oh so kind offer to edit his gun material in future books! Plebians.)

I remember the first time I decided I had to clean a .45 ACP magazine many decades ago. A hillbilly (or is that Appalachian American now?) deputy sheriff showed me how he learned to rip a magazine out of a .45 by snagging the mag lip on his belt or jeans seam. He borrowed my sainted Colt Commander to demonstrate and dumped the magazine right into a mud puddle. Yes, I still hold a grudge for that one.

My personal estimation is 90% of all pistol malfunctions are magazine related, and an occasional cleaning can keep your favorite gat up and running and prevent malfunctions, jams and even decreased accuracy. If your gun won’t run, switch magazines. Isolate the problem mag for further study. I often scratch an X on the mag body or put a piece of tape on it. Damaged or bent mag lips at the top can be an issue as well as damaged followers, or bad springs. On the plus side those are very inexpensive items to replace as opposed to tossing the whole magazine in the trash.

A magazine usually has only five parts. The first is the mag body itself made of steel or polymer. The follower (made of steel or polymer) sits on top of the magazine spring. At the bottom of the spring there is generally a metal or polymer insert plate that is connected to the spring by an eyelet, and the magazine cap or base plate slides onto the bottom of the magazine tube to trap the spring and follower inside.
Disassembly of a magazine is usually pretty easy…unless it is a new Glock.

Some of the new Glock mags have base plates which are amazingly tight and hard to slide off. Some brainy type has come up with a tool that makes it easier using the motion of opening a soda cap with an opener to get that tough Glock base to move. The bottom of most modern mags exhibit a small circle or cut out with a dot or dimple showing in the middle of the base plate. The dot is actually on the internal plate and the spring pushes it down into the base plate and making a type of spring-loaded lock to hold the base plate on to the magazine tube.

To release the base plate, put on eye protection- internal parts are under tension. Then use a small screwdriver, or a drill bit or the original Glock Armorers Tool  (which is just a metal rod in a plastic handle) and just push down on the dot in the center of the base plate while pushing the back of the base plate forward with your thumb. DO NOT push the base plate all the way off the bottom of the magazine body until you are prepared for the internal spring and insert to jump out! Easing the plate forward and covering the exposed area  with your finger or thumb generally works well enough to get the spring out without a surprise. If you are concerned about it or have never taken one apart, just do it while the magazine is inside a clear plastic bag and if you do manage to let the spring slip, the parts will stay in the bag.

If the base plate does not slide off easily, you might have to tap the back of it with a small mallet while pushing the dot down in the center. If you have a pesky tight lipped Glock mag base plate which won’t push off, before I had the pop bottle type tool I have had to get a small screwdriver to lever the back edge forward enough to be able to get the screwdriver down into the mag body and then use it to push the base plate forward.

Once disassembled, I run an oiled swab up the inside of the tube to get dirt and debris out, wipe down the magazine spring with oil and insert and inspect the follower. Look for chips or gouges in the follower, and wipe it off if dirty. Also look at the feed lips at the top of the magazine and see if they are bent or gouged. Run a clean dry swab in the mag tube walls and reassemble. This dry swab lets me believe the metal is rust protected but won’t have enough oil on it to actually attract and hold dirt and burnt powder. The whole disassembly, wipe clean and reassembly operation can be done in a minute if the base plate cooperates.

To reassemble, orient your follower with the mag tube and spring. The follower will only work correctly and seat itself fully at the top of the mag if it is correctly sitting on top of the spring. If it does not seat fully turn either the follower or the spring around and reinsert. Easy. Slip the insert back on the bottom of the spring with the dot or detent facing outward so it can engage the bottom plate when slid back on the bottom of the mag tube.

Hold the magazine tube in one hand, follower down, and then depress the spring and insert with the thumb of that hand while feeding the bottom plate on the bottom lips of the mag body. Ease the bottom plate over the insert and ensure the detent or dot engages in the middle of the bottom plate and the plate no longer moves front to back. Double check the follower is also seated correctly then wipe off the magazine body and you are finished.

AR and other modern sporting rifle magazine disassembly works the same way. Get the bottom plate off and ease the spring and insert out and remove the follower. Nothing to it.

Let me know if you have never cleaned a mag, or if you need help. I am sure Youtube has lots of videos on it out there- seems you can find a do it yourself video on everything up to and including brain surgery. This magazine cleaning is not brain surgery, I can assure you.