AICS mag spring weakening over time?

[NineHotel]

I had an uncharacteristic (for me) amount of equipment trouble yesterday. Any known issues with AICS mag springs? My mags are oh 12-13 years old, both 5 and 10 rounders. I was using a 10 rounder in dusty conditions. Thanks.

 

[chevy_man]

All springs wear out eventually.

Clean and lube, but I generally do springs every 5 years as maintenance in most of my mags.

 

[NineHotel]

Thanks - is there a good aftermarket spring available for these?

 

[MarinePMI]

Might try contacting @MDT_Josh . They seem to be pretty responsive to customer demand, and I think (personally) that the market has been long over due for someone to offer an AICS "mag rebuild" kit for older springs and followers.

That being said, I haven't had issues with any of my AI mags. Then again, they're "only" about 10 years old (or so).

 

[MDT_Josh]

Thanks for the tag @MarinePMI ! Springs will weaken over time and 10-12 years of use out of a magazine is actually pretty impressive. That's thousands, if not tens of thousands of cycles, which is more than mose mags will ever see. However, the fatigue limit of a leaf spring, especially under such low loads, will be in the neighbourhood of 1+ million cycles.

Now here is the downside @NineHotel , there aren't any rebuild kits available for magazines, as all of the AICS mattern mags have slightly different internal/external geometry, which means different followers and sometimes springs, and they can't be easily interchanged without having to do sme modifications.

My suggestion would be to disassemble the magazine, clean out the inside surfaces and the follower, stretch out the spring to get you some more upwards pressure and maybe dry-lube the inside of the mag or use a graphite based coating to reduce friction If all else fails, we have you covered with our 5, 10 and 12 round AICS pattern magazines

 

[NineHotel]

Thanks Josh - someone was telling me about the virtues of your mags today. I'll check 'em out.