1st match.

[Quantrill]

I’ve taken the tabs down on a M&P follower to gain another round with 140mm mags. That should give you the clearance you need for easier seating.

Good job competing!

[newyork]

I’ve taken the tabs down on a M&P follower to gain another round with 140mm mags. That should give you the clearance you need for easier seating.

Good job competing!

Excellent!!! Thank you so much! Cutting off tabs tonight.

[newyork]

Cutting the tabs down does the trick. Hopefully the 3 coils I cut isn’t too much but springs are cheap. I’d love to cut the other tabs on my other mags and cut one coil down on those but maybe I should test these 2 first.

[Duelist]

Cutting the tabs down does the trick. Hopefully the 3 coils I cut isn’t too much but springs are cheap. I’d love to cut the other tabs on my other mags and cut one coil down on those but maybe I should test these 2 first.

I’d test first.

[newyork]

I’d test first.

I should’ve waited but I’m impatient. I had 2 extra springs around too. I noticed cutting the tabs and only 2 coils works just fine. Replaced the 2 I cut 3 coils down on and did all 7 mags.

Hopefully test Sunday. Match isn’t until 12/12 and it’s not a carry or HD gun so if it has issues Sunday I have time to reverse it.

[P_Pete]

Something I noticed and have questions about;

I noticed my 10rd factory mags are super hard to seat on a closed slide. I can’t have 17rd so it’s not an option.

Tonight I cut 3 coils off on 2 mags. It makes it a little easier but not a ton easier. I stopped at 3 coils and thought I’d test those 2 mags next week. If it makes the gun unreliable I’ll buy 2 springs and replace them.

Is there a known fix here or is cutting coils the only way to make it easy to seat a loaded mag on a closed slide?

I am surprised it made any difference , I have some 10 round smith mags , you can't even get 10 1/4 rounds in before you stop
different generations of mags maybe mine are 1994

[newyork]

The real changer is when you do the combo of cutting some of the rear tabs down on the follower AND 2 coils off the springs.
I’ve heard the otlder mags were different

[rob_s]

Cutting the tabs down does the trick. Hopefully the 3 coils I cut isn’t too much but springs are cheap. I’d love to cut the other tabs on my other mags and cut one coil down on those but maybe I should test these 2 first.

I’m glad you seem to have found something that works.

It may have seemed that @Clusterfrack and I were quick to say “change guns” but, at least in my case, that just comes from years of shooting various matches and classes and arriving at having no time for hardware challenges or issues. Not to mention watching others struggle through them.

If the gun continues to be non-optimal for the intended endeavor, I’d absolutely ditch it. Maybe not as the defensive piece, but for sure as a competition gun. At some point it helped me to start thinking about them as a piece of sports equipment. If my baseball glove didn’t work for golf, I wouldn’t not golf, and I wouldn’t continue struggling with non-optimal equipment. I’d get a set of clubs.

JMHO.

[JCN]

@rob_s

I’ll make the counterpoint that if you find a golf club that works but you don’t like the grip texture or the shaft length, that’s easy enough to modify for your intended purposes rather than ditch it for a new club.

Magazine massages are commonplace and typical for certain guns and divisions.

@newyork

Here are some of my magazine alteration pearls:

1. Generally modify one magazine at a time and work snap caps and dummy ammo cycling to see if any binding or malfunctions happen. If there’s any “hitch” or “hang up” at any time, identify and correct the source before going to the match. If you can live fire test, even better.

2. Sometimes weaker springs (due to cutting) need to be hand stretched periodically to even the tension through thr magazine stroke.

3. Weaker springs also like clean magazine bodies so consider brushing or cleaning out the insides of the mags monthly.

4. Sometimes cutting the follower legs down too far allows the follower to flip or dive which can lead to the dreaded “rattle can” binding where the follower gets stuck sideways and all the rounds just dribble out. Also pay attention to how the bullet noses are fed. Cutting back legs sometimes reduces the support on the back of the follower so the nose of bullets can dive and jam on feed ramps. Hand cycling dummy rounds rapidly can help identify that.

5. Altering magazines can affect the usable life of springs which might have a narrow window of function. A number of competition shooters will replace mag springs yearly or every other year.

6. Number your mags with a Silver Sharpie or tape and consider keeping separate training, dry and match mags. Then rotate them through the year and replace springs every year or two.

It all sounds like a PITA, but it’s really not. Most guns don’t need anything.

[newyork]

Not bad at all. Springs and followers are cheap. I have a few dummy rounds and it’s be no biggie to buy a few more to get to 10.

I have my mags marked already so that works out good for me.

I’ll keep an eye on them.

If it got to the point the gun was a bitch with the spring and follower issue and nothing worked, I’d put stock springs and followers in and keep it as a defensive gun along with my 2.0 compact. None of my cobbled together competition set up is gun specific except the holster which was an inexpensive JM range holster so if I did get a comp specific gun (not buy and sell but, keep what I have and buy in addition) the hit wouldn’t be as bad.