How does all that spring and all those rounds fit? Smoke and mirrors – That’s How! Not really – it’s done through 3 basic things – spring nesting – spring coiling – and lastly but most importantly – advances in metallurgy . . .
In the last 25 years or so the double or stagger stack magazine has really became the standard for auto loading pistols – pretty much across the board for 9mm.
About the only single stack magazines that are still out there are in 1911’s – and yes I know that there are exceptions – but we are talking in general terms here for the sake of keeping this post focused . . .
I was trying to think of how to illustrate where the spring and all those rounds went in the S&W magazines from a few posts back – there is no way I was going to get a pencil and a piece of paper out and literally illustrate it since my drawing skills are only exceeded by my camera skills – or possibly by my typing skills . . .
Then I remembered I had bought some translucent ETS magazines awhile back so I started pawing through my boxes of loaded magazines and found some of them – so here we go . . .
These are 15 round magazines designed to fit a Glock Brand Glock G19 – the left one is obviously empty – the one on the right has 5 rounds in it . . .
The one on the right with 10 rounds – look at the top three coils – next picture shows whats happening a little better – the magazine bodies are translucent – not transparent . . .
As the number of rounds go from 10 to 15 the top 3 coils compress completely and then ride forward and “nest” into the bottom coils . . .
I played with the lighting on this last picture for a little bit – it’s about the best I can do with what I’ve got – but – it gives you a fair idea of what is going on inside the magazine body . . .
Now you realize these have been loaded for plus or minus 18 months – with no set or weakness occurring – the capability of the bending technology has been around just about forever – and now it’s been automated – and now finally the metallurgy of the actual wire has grown up over the last 20 years or so to where the point of failure becomes more of a dirt/moisture thing than actual failure of the spring itself.
Hopefully this will help you understand and appreciate that little machine that you are using all the time and never even thinking about it with your auto loading pistol . . .
Have Fun! – Run the Gun! – and remember – Fish Heads are Cheap!!
Guns, Fun, Food and More 